The UW-Madison student chapter of the Rhetoric Society of America invites you to join us for our annual Spring Symposium. This year, our theme is (Re)Connecting. 

Despite the “Divisions” that separate us into different theoretical, topical, and methodological camps (and separate panels at conferences), rhetorical scholarship is all about making connections: from identifying patterns and themes in a given discourse to finding one’s place in a literature review, rhetoricians are tasked with putting ideas into conversation and articulating their relationships. As a discipline, rhetoric is also about the connections we make when we encounter and re-encounter one another in person at workshops, symposia, and conferences, as well as the ways in which our digital lives overlap as we connect and reconnect online. 

Following the return of the Midwest Winter Workshop, and in the spirit of fostering the connections we have made, this year’s symposium invites us to continue (re)connecting: to improve our ideas from the feedback we have received from one another, to share those ideas with a broader audience, to return to conversations we started and re-encounter one another, and to invite new perspectives to which we may not have yet been introduced. Rather than forcing a specific focus or theme that may divide or exclude some perspectives, we instead invite a diversity of papers on any topic, so long as it connects in some way to a rhetorical theory or method or offers rhetoric scholars a way to (re)connect with other disciplines. 

During this year’s symposium, we will connect entirely online, offering not only UW-Madison’s rhetoricians but also rhetoricians across the RSA’s student chapters, the opportunity to participate without having to travel. This virtual symposium will take place from Thursday, April 11 - Friday, April 12, 2024. There is no fee to participate. 

Please submit your abstracts by March 10.