Cfp: "Kenneth Burke, Rhetoric and Social Change," Eighth Triennial Conference, Kenneth Burke Society, Clemson University, May 26-29, 2011.

Surveying the global scene in 1933, Burke wrote in his notes for what would become Permanence and Change, “We are trying to solve cultural problems with the most explosive words in our vocabulary, and we need not be surprised that there are continually occurring frightful accidents which rip out half a continent and maim the lives and bodies of millions.” The step away from these explosive words is, Burke claimed, “the step which [humankind] has never been able to take. Heroism; Jungle authority; acquisition; pugnacity; inspiration; ‘superiority’ . . . this is still at the bottom of our thinking, though [the] situation no longer ‘requires’ it. . . . This is the crux—can we make this change, from which all else would radiate?” In our own historical moment, which so eerily echoes the cultural, political, and technological upheavals of the first half of the twentieth century, Burke’s question remains urgent—and unanswered. Can we make this change?

This theme calls on conference participants to explore the relevance of Burke’s thought and practice for defining, analyzing, or producing the kinds of change that would enable us to transcend or disarm our “explosive words”:
• What cultural problems need to be solved?
• What rhetorical practices cause, cloud, or intensify those problems?
• Where, when, and how does change occur?
• What genres of persuasion and identification encourage or enable change?
• What role do we as teachers, artists, scholars, critics, citizens play in creating change?

Featuring diverse opportunities for engagement with Burke’s enduring relevance, the Eighth Triennial Conference will continue the interdisciplinary tradition of past events, with participation by students and scholars from communication, rhetoric, composition, literary theory and criticism, cultural studies, sociology, technical communication, art, economics, political science, and other disciplines. Thus, in addition to proposals addressing the conference theme, we welcome those that address topics of continuing relevance in Burke studies:
• Burke and his circles
• Archival research in the Burkean corpus
• The meaning and relevance of particular Burkean texts
• Burke in the fields
• The future of Burkean studies
• New applications of Burke’s insights to contemporary issues

Over the course of the conference, a combination of keynote speakers, featured presenters, and seminar leaders will explore the possibilities of and conditions for meaningful change. Keynote speakers, seminars, and seminar leaders will be announced in mid-December, 2010.

Visit the conference website here: http://kbjournal.org/2011conference.

Pub: K.B. JOURNAL 7.1 (2010).

Essays in this issue include:

• Charles Blair, "Breakfast with Two Kenneths: Kenneth Burke and Kenneth Fearing"
• Zac Gershberg, "Existentialist Literature in the Burkean Parlor: Exploring the Contingencies and Tensions of Symbolic Action"
• John M. McKenzie, "Reading Resistance to Kenneth Burke: 'Burke the Usurper' and Other Themes"
• C. Wesley Buerkle, "Cynics, Hypocrites, and Nasty Boys: Senator Larry Craig and Gay Rights Caught in the Grotesque Frame"
• Brett Biebel, "Standing Up for Comedy: Kenneth Burke and The Office"
• Nick Bowman and Jeremy Groskopf, "Appalachia: Where the Squids hate the Chalkies."

Download the essays here: http://kbjournal.org/fall2010.

Pub: KB JOURNAL 6.2 (2010)

Table of Contents: Editorial for Spring 2010 Editor's Announcement Floyd D. Anderson, "Five Fingers or Six? Pentad or Hexad?" Clarke Rountree, "Revisiting the Controversy over Dramatism as Literal" Brian T. Taylor, "Savior, Fool or Demagogue: Burkean Frames Surrounding the Ten Commandments Judge" Brian Bailie, "Smart Mobs and Kenneth Burke" Book Review: M. Elizabeth Weiser, Burke, War, Words: Rhetoricizing Dramatism Book Review: W. B. Worthen, Drama: Between Poetry and Performance Book Review: Dana Anderson, Identity’s Strategy: Rhetorical Selves in Conversion Book Review: Clarke Rountree, Judging the Supreme Court: Constructions of Motives in Bush v. Gore Book Review: Michael Burke, Swan Dive Special Book Review: Michael Burke, Swan Dive Book Synopsis: Larry Baker, A Good Man Download the issue here: http://kbjournal.org/spring2010.

Pub: KB JOURNAL 6.1 (2009).

Contents:

• KB Editorial for Fall 2009 - Interview with William Bailey
• BURKE DISTINGUISHED SCHOLARS SERIES: An Interview With David Cratis Williams
• Athlete as Agency: Motive in the Rhetoric of NASCAR by Deron Williams & Jim A. Kuypers
• Burke’s Comic Frame and The Problem of Warrantable Outrage by Herbert W. Simons
• All That Is Solid Melts into Words: An Exercise in Burking Burke by Robert Perinbanayagam
• Burke's Lacanian Upgrade: Reading the Burkeian Unconscious Through a Lacanian Lens by Kevin A. Johnston
• Criticism in Context: Kenneth Burke's "The Rhetoric of Hitler's 'Battle'" by Garth Pauley
• A Pentadic Analysis of Celebrity Testimony in Congressional Hearings by Christopher R. Darr and Harry C. Strine IV
• A Review of Kenneth Burke’s On Human Nature

Pub: KB JOURNAL 5.2 (2009).

Contents:

• Editor's Introduction
• The Means of Representation: Kenneth Burke and American Marxism by Benedict Giamo
• Ad Verbum Purgandum or Literally Purgation by Cem Zeytinoglu
• Attitudes Toward Money in Kenneth Burke’s Dialog in Heaven Between The Lord and Satan by David Gore
• Early Disaster Cinema as Dysfunctional “Equipment for Living”: or How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Kenneth Burke by Carlnita P. Greene
• Social Identity as Grammar and Rhetoric of Motives: Citizen Housewives and Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring by Tara Lynne Clapp
• "Everything is Medicine": Burke’s Master Metaphor? by Carly S. Woods
• “The Human Barnyard” and Kenneth Burke’s Philosophy of Technology by Ian Hill
• Book Review: Burke, War, Words
• Book Review: Kenneth Burke on Shakespeare
• The Shape of Thrills to Come

Visit the journal homepage here: http://kbjournal.org/node.

PUB: KB JOURNAL 4.2 (2008).

The Spring 2008 issue of KB Journal (devoted to Kenneth Burke) is now available online at http://kbjournal.org/. Essays:

• Samantha Senda-Cook "Fahrenheit 9/11's Purpose-Driven Agents: A Multipentadic Approach to Political Entertainment";
• Hans Lindquist "Composing a Gourmet Experience: Using Kenneth Burke’s Theory of Rhetorical Form";
• Camille K. Lewis "Publish and Perish?: My Fundamentalist Education from the Inside Out";
• Robert Wade Kenny "The Glamour of Motives: Applications of Kenneth Burke within the Sociological Field"; and
• Mark Huglen and Clarke Rountree "The Future of Burke Studies."

Reviews:

• "Embarking on Burke: Profiles of New Scholars"
• Maura J. Smyth reviews Christopher R. Darr's article “Civility as Rhetorical Enactment: The John Ashcroft ‘Debates’ and Burke’s Theory of Form";
• Candace Epps–Robertson reviews Robert Glenn Howard's. “A Theory of Vernacular Rhetoric: The Case of the ‘Sinner’s Prayer’ Online."

New submissions to KB Journal should be directed to Andy King of Louisiana State University at andyk@lsu.edu.

New Issue: KENNETH BURKE JOURNAL 4.1 (2007).

The Fall 2007 issue of KB Journal features new essays by Jason Ingram ("Conflicted Possession: A Pentadic Assessment of T.E. Lawrence’s Desert Narrative") and Eric Shouse ("Suicide: or the Future of Medicine [A “Satire by Entelechy” of Biotechnology]"); Clarke Rountree introduces Burke's First Publications, including "“La Fino de la Homar’” and “Invince Harvey, Jr.” Issue 4.1 also includes review essays by Andrew Battista (Kenneth Burke on Shakespeare, edited by Scott L. Newstok) and Maura J. Smyth (“Civility as Rhetorical Enactment: The John Ashcroft ‘Debates’ and Burke’s Theory of Form,” by Christopher R. Darr). Our new Happenings Editor, Elizabeth Weiser issues a Call for Nominations: KB Society Career Awards (5-1-08) and Bryan Crable announces the Call for Papers: Kenneth Burke Society 7th Triennial Conference (2-1-08). We have now published new Premium Bibliographies (available to Kenneth Burke Society Members; sign-up now), which are introduced by Clarke Rountree also. They include Works about Burke: Theses and Dissertations by Subject Term, Works about Burke: Theses and Dissertations by Thesis Director, and Works about Burke: Theses and Dissertations by University. For further information, please visit: http://www.kbjournal.org/.

CFP: "Transcendence by Perspective," Seventh Triennial Conference, Kenneth Burke Society, June 29-July 1, 2008

One of the hallmarks of Kenneth Burke’s work is a deep-rooted suspicion of entrenched antagonism, of the bitterly contested either/or. Confronting a Western tradition mired in dualisms, and a social world fractured along binaristic lines, Burke traced these all-too-common symptoms to their source in the human symbolic condition and, not content simply with this diagnosis, he also sought a cure: the disciplined cultivation of transcendence via "ultimate" terms (A Rhetoric of Motives 186-89). As Burke writes in Attitudes Toward History, "When approached from a certain point of view, A and B are ‘opposites.’ We mean by ‘transcendence’ the adoption of another point of view from which they cease to be opposites" (336). Although inspired in part by his reading of Plato, Burke’s vision of transcendence avoids the pitfalls of the transcendental, but instead is grounded solidly in the necessity of our embodied symbolicity. In Burke’s skilled hands, transcendence becomes not the elimination of perspective, of partisanship, but the embrace of transcendence by perspective—because only by rigorously acknowledging the symbolic nature of perspective can we move beyond the stagnant stalemate of reified social, political, and philosophical binaries. . . . Further details on the conference are available here: http://www.villanova.edu/artsci/communication/news/burke.htm.