03/24/2018

ISSJR Meeting in New Orleans in July 2019

Dear ISSJR members and interested scholars, 

The International Society for the Study of Jesuit Rhetoric was officially founded at the XXIst biennial conference of the International Society of Rhetoric in London in July 2017. 

Since as yet we have neither the administrative structures nor the financial means for organizing conferences of our own, for the time being ISSJR exists and works as a sub-organization under the patronage of the International Society for the History of Rhetoric (ISHR). 

Accordingly, ISSJR will hold its next general meeting on the occasion of the next biennial conference of ISHR to be held in Hotel Monteleone in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA on July 23-27, 2019. In New Orleans (presumably on July 23), we will hold an ISSJR general business meeting, hopefully to decide on our society’s Constitution and on future projects. 

All ISSJR members are invited and encouraged to submit proposals for 20-minutes papers on topics of Jesuit rhetoric (or other) directly via the ISHR conference website (http://www.ishr-conference.org/). The Call for Papers is available there in five languages (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish). Please read the Call for Papers carefully before submitting. We encourage you to use the ISSJR Facebook page and the ISSJR list-serve to share ideas and create collaborative panels. If you cannot access those sites, please email Cinthia Gannett cinthiagannett@gmail.com or Bartosz Awianowicz bawianowicz@hotmail.com. We will also post information on the ISHR website.

In view of current political developments, the 2019 ISHR conference has been given the overall theme ‘Populism’, a topic admittedly not particularly fitting for scholarship on Jesuit rhetoric. But please be assured that this general theme should by no means deter you from submitting a proposal. It is not a criterion for exclusion, but just a suggestion. There is no obligation for you to comply with it. You may submit proposals on whatever aspects of the history of Jesuit rhetoric you prefer. For, as usual for all ISHR conferences—I quote from the Call for Papers—, “papers are also invited on all aspects of the history of rhetoric in all periods and languages, and the relationship of rhetoric to poetics, literary theory and criticism, philosophy, politics, art, religion, sport and other cultural areas.” Mind that religion also figures prominently among those areas. Please note that ISHR’s focus is primarily on historical scholarship rather than practical applications per se. 

The deadline for proposals is May 11, 2018. All proposals will be reviewed and evaluated by the ISHR program committee, in which ISSJR is duly represented. In cooperation with the program committee, we will take care that in the final program papers on Jesuit rhetoric will be scheduled in a way so as to form special sessions of their own. 

On the submission form for your proposal, under the tab ‘Category’ you will find the special category ‘Jesuit Rhetoric.’ By selecting this category for your proposal you can make sure that, if accepted, it gets registered for one of those special sessions focusing on Jesuit rhetoric. 

It is also possible to organize and submit entire panels on particular topics. Again, here is what the Call for Papers says: “Panel proposals are welcome, under the following conditions: the panel must consist of three or four speakers dealing with a common theme, so as to form a coherent set of papers. The person responsible for the panel, who may also be one of the speakers, has the task of introducing the papers and guiding the discussion. Each speaker in a panel must submit a proposal form for his or her own paper, and should send the finished paper to the panel organizer before the conference. Proposals for panel papers must specify the panel for which they are intended. In addition, the panel organizer must complete and submit a separate form explaining the purpose of the proposed panel and naming the participants. Please be aware that proposals for panel papers will be considered on their individual merits by the Program Committee, and there is no guarantee that all papers proposed for a panel will be accepted.” 

Notifications of acceptance will be sent out from ISHR before the end of August 2018, and we will post more about the business meeting for ISSJR as soon as that becomes available. 

Looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible in New Orleans in 2019, 

With best wishes, 

Manfred Kraus
Sophie Conte

ISSJR Steering Committee