Rhetorical Scope and Focus

The society welcomes papers on all aspects of rhetoric, in English or French. Traditionally, we cover:

Rhetorical theory and criticism
History of rhetoric
Biographical research on rhetors or rhetoricians
Rhetoric in cultural comparison; rhetoric and ethnography
Rhetorical studies of Canadian public discourse, as well as public discourse in any global setting
Rhetoric in popular culture and everyday life
Rhetoric and the media, film, gaming, and visual culture
Rhetoric and identity: gender, sexuality, race, and beyond
Rhetoric and indigeneity
Rhetoric and the physical environment
Rhetoric and the body, sports, or performance
Rhetoric in the fine arts and literature
Rhetoric and writing studies
Rhetorical education, training, or pedagogy
Rhetoric in various disciplines and professions
Rhetoric of legal, medical, scientific, or religious discourse
Rhetorical discourse analysis
Rhetorical genre studies
Rhetoric and generative AI
Rhetoric and linguistics, computer science, or NLP
We welcome not only mainstream rhetorical scholarship, but also “rhetoric in/and” a wide variety of disciplines and through interdisciplinary frameworks that join rhetorical theory with other lenses.

That said, given the purview of RhetCanada, we feel responsible for maintaining a certain level of engagement with rhetorical studies. We do so by giving preference to papers that:

Cite or deploy one of the hundreds of definitions or characterizations the art of rhetoric has received since the first known usage of the term (Plato); see this excellent compendium.
Display familiarity with one or more rhetors and rhetoricians from any part or locale in rhetoric’s history.
Draw explicitly on rhetorical scholarship associated with the proposed topic.

If a paper is accepted but there are concerns over the fit of the paper with audience expectations, referees will follow up with guidance for the presenter (for instance, to use the term trope in the technical sense of our discipline instead of the increasingly popular sense, or to avoid rhetoric in the unthinking, journalistic sense of mere deceptive speech). We hope making these norms explicit will make newcomers feel confident that their papers fit well.