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The American Society for the History of Rhetoric (ASHR), in collaboration with the International Society for the History of Rhetoric (ISHR), is pleased to share the formal program for its 2026 Symposium, which will take place May 21-22, 2026, just prior to the Rhetoric Society of America (RSA) Biennial Conference in Portland, Oregon.

You can view the 2026 ASHR Symposium Program and paper abstracts here.

In addition to four panels of competitively accepted papers, the 2026 ASHR Symposium will also host a set of research roundtable discussions on Thursday afternoon (May 21) and feature a spotlight roundtable panel discussion on “Rhetorical History’s Past, Present, and Future” on Friday morning (May 22). All symposium attendees are also invited to attend an evening reception on Thursday, May 21 to celebrate the fifty-year partnership between ASHR and ISHR.

We welcome all scholars interested in rhetorical history / history of rhetoric to join us over these two days to engage and reflect on the theories, methods, critical orientations, and research questions that ground studies of rhetorical history, broadly defined. The 2026 ASHR symposium is free to attend, but registration is required.

To register for the 2026 ASHR Symposium, including the ASHR Research Roundtables and the ASHR reception on May 21, please click here. To assist our planning purposes, we ask that you indicate your attendance no later than May 1.

***ASHR Members Can Click Here for Recording of Forum***

 

Prof. Lisa Corrigan, University of Arkansas
Prof. Andre Johnson, University of Memphis
Prof. Jennifer Keohane, University of Baltimore
Prof. Maryam Ahmadi, University of Georgia

 

“Movement” is often associated with social change, migration, circulation, and collective action—but for scholars of the history of rhetoric/rhetorical history, movement also names the ways rhetoric travels across time, space, media, institutions, and publics. As the National Communication Association’s upcoming conference theme invites scholars to think with and through movement, this forum asks: what does movement mean for the history of rhetoric and rhetorical historiography? This First Friday Forum explores movement as a historical, rhetorical, and methodological concept. Panelists and participants will consider how rhetoric moves through bodies and borders, texts and technologies, traditions and transformations, institutions and publics. How do rhetorical forms migrate, mutate, and reappear across historical moments? How do ideas, arguments, and genres travel across cultural and political contexts? And how might attention to movement reshape the ways we narrate rhetorical pasts, identify historical actors, and understand continuity and change? By exploring these themes, this session aims to open conceptual and practical pathways for scholars preparing work for NCA and beyond.

Register: https://stthomas.zoom.us/meeting/register/Wu3irbrHStWNMDIhPVMNhg 

***ASHR Members Can Click Here for Video Recording of Forum***

Congrats to our new slate of ASHR Officers and Steering Committee Members!

• Dr. Jennifer Keohane (University of Baltimore), Vice President
• Dr. Caroline Koons (Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University), Membership Coordinator
• Dr. Kristen Einertson (University of St. Thomas), Special Projects Coordinator
• Dr. Derek Handley (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee), At-Large Member
• Dr. Wallace Golding (Texas State University), At-Large Member
• D. Nicole Campbell (University of Illinois), Graduate Student Representative

***Video recording available here for ASHR members***

NCA’s 111th Annual Convention: Communicate to Elevate

November 20-23, 2025 in Denver, CO

ASHR Business Meeting

• Friday, November 21, 2025, 7:00am Mountain Time
• Location: Willow Lake 04 (Coffee, tea, fruit, and pastries will be provided!)
• Join via zoom.
• Business Meeting Agenda
• Business Meeting Materials (for ASHR members)

ASHR Panels

ASHR received a limited number of slots from NCA this year, but we are excited to feature the following papers + panel discussions across three sessions.
 
Challenging the Limits of Knowledge and Community in Rhetorical Theory and Practice
Thursday, November 20 – 1:00-2:15pm, Willow Lake 04
 
This panel’s papers examine how a range of rhetoricians and rhetors has confronted questions of the familiar and the unknown, of neighbors and strangers. Working across diverse chronologies, geographies, and rhetorical traditions–pre- and post-Socratic debates on natural science, eighteenth-century Italian social scientific philosophy, Federalist-era legislation on wartime authority in American politics, and the rise of modern conservative intellectualism—each presenter considers the rhetorical theories and practices that answered, for better or worse, the challenges of knowledge and anti-social inclinations.

• Crystal Broch Colombini, “Recovering the Social Rhetoricities of the Void”
• Zoltan P. Majdik and Megan Poole, “Verum Factum and Aesthetics of Inquiry”
• William Rodney Herring, “Did It Happen Here (in 1798)?”
• Mark Longaker, “Richard Weaver and Regionalist Ordo Amoris”

 
Contours of Constraint: Rhetorical Limits, Imagery, and Institutions Across Time
Friday, November 21 – 2:30-3:45pm, Willow Lake 04
 
This panel explores how rhetoric functions within and against the limits imposed by epistemology, institutional power, aesthetic form, and historical context. Across a range of periods and artifacts—from early American sermons and classical theory to bureaucratic planning documents and contemporary visual media—these essays engage the conditions under which rhetoric emerges, circulates, and encounters resistance.

• James Fredal, “Is Rhetoric the Antistrophe of Dialectic”
• Michael Milford, “From Sheep to Spiders: A Rhetoric of Threat and Imagery in ‘Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God’”
• Jose G. Izaguirre, III, “The Communication that Refuses Elevation: Clever Speech and the Limits of Rhetoric”
• D. Nicole Campbell, “Constructing a Carceral System: Frederic D. Moyer’s ‘Total Systems Planning’ in the National Clearinghouse for Criminal Justice Planning and Architecture”
• Ben Crosby, “Through a Lens Darkly: Rhetorics of Phantasia and Mimesis in the Gaza Collective Photo Essay Project”

 
Black Memory Studies in Precarious Times: Emerging Scholars on Black Memory Landscapes: Remembrance and Resistance
Saturday, November 22 – 9:30-10:45am, Willow Lake 04
 
This session highlights the work of emerging scholars whose research foregrounds Black memory practices. It illuminates the breadth and depth of the rhetorical practices Black people have mobilized in performing the inherently political work of “making a way out of no way” and demands further attention to the sites, methods, and tools used to construct a more expansive repertoire of Black historical representation. The panelists thus highlight the creative and innovative ways in which Black history and memory is recovered, sustained and represented in the U.S. Moreover, because Black history neither begins in North America nor is confined within its geographical borders, the panel discussion will encompass work showcasing the possibilities inherent in collaborations between U.S.-based institutions and Africa-based partners to preserve Africana heritages and strengthen the diasporic dimensions of a sense of Black collective consciousness. 

• Ariel Seay-Howard, “Understanding a Violent Memoryscape and Building Better Memoryships: The Wilmington Coup d’état of 1898”
• Stephen E. Rahko and Byron B. Craig, “Rhetorics of Redemption: Race, Reparative Memory, and the Reckoning of 2020”
• Celnisha L. Dangerfield, “Our Hope, Our Fight, Our Land: African American Heirs’ Property and the Work of Vernacular Commemoration”
• Jessica Parr and Killion Mokwete, “A Fusion of Traditional and New Memoryscapes: Geo-spatial Technologies as Tools for Africana Memory Praxes”

The American Society for the History of Rhetoric (ASHR) invites submissions for its 2025 Mentor Award.

The ASHR Mentor Award honors an exemplary mentor in the field of rhetorical studies, whose record of supporting students and other young scholars embodies the standards and values of the discipline. Please submit nomination materials to Curry Kennedy, chair of the ASHR awards committee, at currykennedy@tamu.edu. The deadline for nomination is October 20, 2025.

To be considered for the award, nomination materials should include:  

• A 1 to 2-page letter of nomination from the person submitting the materials
• Up to two additional letters of support from individuals who have worked closely with the nominee
• An up-to-date copy of the nominee’s CV
• Optional: Additional supporting materials, such as representative comments from current or former students and colleagues, evidence of excellence in mentoring such as previous awards, etc.

Submissions will be evaluated on the following criteria:

• Consistent, on-going, and superlative support for others working on projects related to the history of rhetoric
• Specific support and advocacy for students, community members, and/or colleagues historically marginalized within the study of the history of rhetoric
• Investment in mentorship roles that extends beyond the requirements of the nominee’s paid positions
• Evidence of the mentor’s lasting impact within the field of rhetorical history, on the nominee’s campus, and/or in larger communities

For this year, ASHR membership is not required for award consideration, but please do consider the benefits of joining.

Please submit all materials via email (MS Word or PDF) to the selection committee chair, Curry Kennedy, at currykennedy@tamu.edu.

The deadline for submissions is October 20, 2025.

For more on ASHR awards, including a list of past winners, click here.

Curry Kennedy
Assistant Professor of English
Texas A&M University
currykennedy@tamu.edu