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David Timmerman, Wabash College

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2008 ASHR Conference
Thursday, 20 November 2008
8:00 am - 6:00 pm

Gallery Room
Manchester Grand Hyatt San Diego
One Market Place
San Diego, California, USA 92101
Tel: +1 619 232 1234    Fax: +1 619 233 6464

Maps and Directions

"Thinking Through Rhetoric:
A Symposium on Rhetoric, Cognition, and Culture"

Human cognition and human culture, in their rich diversity and stunning complexity, are now the focus points for scholars representing a broad range of disciplines from neuroscience and evolutionary biology to rhetoric and literary studies. The fall 2007 issue of Rhetoric Society Quarterly, included a translation of Dan Sperber’s 1975 essay, “Rudiments of Cognitive Rhetoric.”  Prof. Sperber is a French cognitive scientist and linguist.  Historically, various cultural and/or scholarly conceptions of cognition – how the human minds come to know and understand – have had profound influence on rhetorical theory, the teaching of rhetoric, and rhetorical practice.  Indeed, every practical or pedagogical rhetorical program has relied upon implicit or explicit notions of cognition, or what might be called "cultures of cognition." Furthermore, the ups and downs of the art of rhetoric's fortune have been more than once tied to theories of cognition, as in the oft-cited disrepute into which rhetoric fell in the Enlightenment due in part to Cartesian theories of cognition. Rhetoric's history, therefore, is closely related to the history of conceptions of cognition, and conceptions of cognition are closely related to culture. Today, both the science of cognition and the study of rhetoric represent dynamic intellectual fields, each with rich histories. This symposium considers these histories, as well as the present state of studies in these areas and their overlap.

2008 ASHR Conference Program

8:00	Welcome -- Coffee and Pastries
8:30	Panel 1: Medieval and Contemporary Views on Invention, Creativity, and Cognition
Chair:	Beth Bennett, University of Alabama
Invited Speaker:	Martin Camargo, University of Illinois, “Rhetoric as Medieval Episteme.”
	Robert Danisch, Concordia University, “Can Rhetoricians Teach Scientists and Engineers to be Innovative Thinkers? Yes, and Here’s How …”
	Stephanie Grey, Lousiana State University, “The Wounds of Creation: Exploring the Possibilities for Cognition (Dys)function and Rhetorical Theory.”
9:45	Break
10:00	Panel 2: The Relationship of Language, Language Use, and Cognition
Chair:	Richard Graff, University of Minnesota
Invited Speaker:	Carol Poster, York University, “Language and Perception in Plato’s Cratylus: The Case Against Cognitivism.”
	Hunter W. Stephenson, University of Houston, Clear Lake, “Our Minds are Our Selves? Rhetoric, Writing, and Cognitive Representations.”
11:00	Break
11:15	Panel 3: Alternate Perspectives on Narrative, Emotion, Understanding, and Persuasion
Chair:	Art Walzer, University of Minnesota
	James J. Kimble, Seton Hall University, “From Zelizer to Aristotle: Conceiving of Rhetorical History as a Reverse Chronology.”
	Brian Jackson, Brigham Young University, “Subcortical Rhetoric and the New Handbooks.”
12:15-1:30	Lunch Break
1:30	Conference Keynote Address “Descartes’ Error or Descartes’ Dream? Cognitive Science’s Need for History.” Thomas Habinek, University of Southern California
Thomas Habinek is Professor and Chair of the Department of Classics at the University of Southern California. His many publications in Latin literature and ancient cultural history include The World of Roman Song: From Ritualized Speech to Social Order (Hopkins 2005), Ancient Rhetoric and Oratory (Blackwell 2005), and The Politics of Latin Literature (Princeton 1998). His current research examines new models of mind and their potential impact on traditional humanistic and historical modes of inquiry.
2:30	Break
2:45	Panel 4: Views on Cognition in the History of Rhetoric
Chair:	Robert Gaines, University of Maryland
	Mark Robinson, "Towards a Theory of Monsters: Economics and the New Architecture of Cognitive Process.”
	Jay Brower, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, “Cognition, Rhetoric and the Origin of Language in Locke and Rosseau.”
	Cory Holding, University of Illinois, “Who Has His Soule in His Fingers: John Bulwer & a Hand’s Mind to Reason.”
4:00	Break
4:15	Panel 5: Language and Cognition: Mathematical, Religious, and Ordinary
Chair:	Dave Tell, University of Kansas
	Shawn Rice, “Paul de Man’s Reluctance: the Past and Future of the Literary – Ordinary Language Split.”
	Brent Yergensen, University of Nebraska , Lincoln, “Rational Religion: Popular Science Literature as the Cognitive Link Between Mankind and God in Enlightenment Europe.”
	Sophia A. Estante, University of California, Los Angeles, “Thinking and Feeling through Numbers: Mystic Symbolism, Colonial Exploits, and Truth-Telling in the Age of Exploration.”
6:00	ASHR Reception & Cocktail Hour (Location TBD)