Conference Details

Carolina Rhetoric Conference

March 26 – 27 2021

Hosted by Clemson University via Zoom

Register for the Conference on our Eventbrite page

Link to Conference Schedule

Link to Conference Program and Presenter Bios

Clemson University’s RSA Chapter is excited to host the first virtual Carolina Rhetoric Conference On March 26 – 27, 2021. This year’s conference will, of course, be different than prior years due to the virtual nature of the event. We are planning on hosting the conference via Zoom where we will have guest speakers, panel presentations, and opportunities for networking all via the zoom platform. Registration for this event is free, but we are limiting the number of tickets, so be sure to sign up before they sell out.

While this year’s conference will be unique, we hope to maintain the characteristic elements of the Carolina Rhetoric Conference themes. This conference has always been a wonderful space for graduate students to connect with peers and faculty across a range of subject matters, and we hope to continue that tradition with this year’s conference.

The theme for the 2021 Carolina Rhetoric Conference, “Reproducing Rhetorics,” asks us to consider the elastic nature of rhetoric and its complex foundations to both ideological and material power relations. As a field, rhetoric has a rich history of exploring material and ideological forms of power, race, hegemony, digital humanities, and social activism. The theme of reproducing rhetorics is closely tied to current scholarship in rhetorical feminism focusing on reproductive justice and the intersectionality of race, gender, sexuality, and class as they function in the rhetorics of reproductive healthcare. The theme asks us to consider how these cultural, political, and social realities are connected to lived experiences and bodily vulnerability. 

Thanks to funding from Clemson University’s Humanities HUB, we are very excited to host Dr. Natalie Fixmer-Oraiz as our keynote speaker this year. Her keynote address, “Rhetoric and the Queer Possibilities of Reproductive Justice,” will take place on Friday, March 26th at 3pm. In this talk, Fixmer-Oraiz critically considers the recent history of US reproductive politics and the possibilities of rhetorical worldmaking that we currently inhabit. Drawing partly on her last book, Homeland Maternity: US Security Culture and the New Reproductive Regime, and foregrounding some of her recent research on queer family formation, she asks: If family is the dominant metaphor for the nation and motherhood frequently figured as its primary vehicle, how might we begin to narrate kin differently? How might we craft new vocabularies to build better and more just worlds? 

We are also thrilled to welcome Dr. Heather Adams as a respondent to Fixmer-Oraiz’s keynote. Dr. Adams is an Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and her research performs feminist historiography of the recent past and investigates rhetorics of reproduction, pregnancy, and motherhood in relation to affect, gender, race, and class.

We have many exciting panels from faculty and graduate students planned for the conference, and all of those can be found under the Conference Program section of this site. You can also find more information about our many wonderful presenters on the panelist’s bio page.

Please contact conference representatives with any questions:

Victoria Houser: vhouser@clemson.edu

Rebecca Ross: rsross@clemson.edu