Janetnews.com Blog

Yesterday I passed my Ph.D qualifying exams. I am now a Ph.D Candidate, which means I am “All But Dissertation”.  I have to say, Qualifying exams are grueling. But, I managed to survive.  I just have a Dissertation to write to become an official Ph.D.  My motto is Never, Never, Never Give up–Winston Churchill! 

I hope to share more about the prospectus and dissertation process in this space.  Stay tuned… I don’t plan on staying an ABD forever…

 

I just wanted to note that Friday April 7, 2006, I presented a paper at the College English Association for the first time about using weblogs in the journalism classroom.  I have never been to a conference where 20 people showed up to a panel.  The room was energized and ready to embrace technology.  I found CEA to be a friendly conference that I will definitely submit to again.  I found that there is an audience for my research, which makes it even more exciting.

A Symposium in Rhetoric: “Rhetoric & Kairos”
Open to faculty, graduate students, and independent scholars

The Federation Rhetoric Committee of the Federation of North Texas Area Universities

Texas Woman’s University - Denton, Texas
Where: ACT Bldg. 2nd Floor
When: February 24, 2006

“News…is both pulled and pushed through our society…through all societies: the uninformed anxious to obtain news, the informed eager to give it away. Even without the benefit of sophisticated information technologies, the news, driven by these complementary desires, can attain impressive speeds.” Mitchell Stephens A History of News

We are seeking proposals for papers that address the idea of Kairos in mass communications.

Kairos: Definition
“The opportune occasion for speech. The term kairos has a rich and varied history, but generally refers to the way a given context for communication both calls for and constrains one’s speech. Thus, sensitive to kairos, a speaker or writer takes into account the contingencies of a given place and time, and considers the opportunities within this specific context for words to be effective and appropriate to that moment. As such, this concept is tightly linked to considerations of audience (the most significant variable in a communicative context) and to decorum (the principle of apt speech).” Quoted courtesy of Silva Rhetoricae (rhetoric.byu.edu)

Journalism
Citizen Journalism
Internet
Web Blogs
Vlogs
Television/Radio
Film Studies
Media studies
Advertising
Disability Rhetoric in Mass Communications
Historical papers
Media Ethics

The Rhetoric Symposium broadly defines Kairos to incorporate a wide variety of research interests. The panel is interested in papers which present an interdisciplinary approach to mass communications.

Submission guidelines:

• Proposals should be in abstract form (approximately 250 words); electronic submissions are preferred.

• Please send abstracts and a brief biography to Janet Johnson janet@janetnews.com

• The deadline for submission of all proposals is December 1, 2005

The keynote speaker will be Dr. Brenda Brueggeman of Ohio State University.
For additional details about the symposium, please visit the conference web site: www.frs.suavecat.com

I just found this Rhetoric site. It is Ed Lamoureux’s rhetoric lecture notes, BUT it definitely helps put what my colleagues and I learned in History of Rhetoric II in perspective. These notes might be handy for a review of concepts and major figures in rhetoric.

Click Here for the Rhetorical Theory Lecture Notes