RSA 2027 Institute
SEMINARS AND WORKSHOPS
The 12th Biennial Summer Institute will be held at The Galt House Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky June 7-11, 2027. Seminars will run Monday morning through Thursday noon and Workshops will run Thursday 2:00 through Friday 5:00. A Keynote Talk by Donnie Johnson Sackey, RSA’s 2026 Book Award Winner for Trespassing Natures: Species Migration and the Right to Space. accompanied by a luncheon, will be held for all participants on Thursday noon – 2:00. All sessions will be at the hotel.
Registration
The RSA Summer Institute brings together senior and junior scholars – and everyone in between – in long form sessions to discuss important ideas in rhetoric and build relationships among like-minded peers. For 2027 we present seventeen 3.5 day seminars and eleven 1.5 day workshops whose topics run the gamut from Archaeological Rhetoric to Taxonomies of Sex to Rhetoric/AI. The RSA Summer Institute offers intimate and cutting-edge discussions that build our community and shape the future of our field. Many conference papers, journal articles, and book chapters emerge from the work done at the Institute.
Seminars
Click on a seminar title below to see the full abstract and registration button for each.
Seminar 1
Rhetoric, Marx, and the Crisis of Late Capitalism
Leaders: James Rushing Daniel (Seton Hall University) and Catherine Chaput (Fordham University)
Seminar 2
Rhetorics of US Religious Identity
Leaders: Kristina M Lee (University of South Dakota) and Jonathan J. Edwards (University of South Carolina)
Seminar 3
Oblique, Relational, and Hands-On: A New Public Humanities Practice
Leaders: Matthew Pavesich (Johns Hopkins University), Nancy Small (University of Wyoming) and Michelle LaFrance (George Mason University)
Seminar 4
Archives in/of Place: Memory, Race, and Environmental Violence
Leaders: Megan Poole (The University of Texas at Austin), Ariel E. Seay (North Carolina State University), Diane Keeling (University of San Diego)
Seminar 5
Issues in Feminist Food Rhetorics: Conflicts, Tensions, Possibilities
Leaders: Consuelo Carr Salas (San Diego State University), Eileen E. Schell (Syracuse University), Abby M. Dubisar (Iowa State University) and Kelli R. Gill (Montana State University)
Seminar 6
Taxonomies of Sex, Bodies Seeking Pleasure, and Romantic Attachments in Rhetorical Work
Leaders: Cindy Tekobbe (University of Illinois Chicago), Timothy Oleksiak (University of Massachusetts Boston) and Sherri Craig (Virginia Tech)
Seminar 7
Making Worlds: Everyday Black Rhetorics, Creative Practice and Community Knowledge
Leaders: Anita Mixon Jones (Wayne State University) and Suban Nur Cooley (Michigan State University)
Seminar 8
Taking it to the Streets: Rhetoricians Doing Activism in a World on Fire
Leaders: Theon Hill (Wheaton College) and Brynn Fitzsimmons (University of Alabama)
Seminar 9
Rhetorical Criticism of Right-Wing Rhetorics
Leaders: Paul Johnson (University of Pittsburgh) and A. Freya Thimsen (Indiana University)
Seminar 10
Rhetoric/AI: Destructive Pleasures, Cruel Optimisms, Reorienting Problematics
Leaders: Attila Hallsby (University of Minnesota, Twin Cities) and Gavin Johnson (Texas Christian University)
Seminar 11
Rhetoric and the Sacred: Figuring the Extrahuman
Leaders: Paul Lynch (Saint Louis University) and Steven Mailloux (Loyola Marymount University and University of California, Irvine)
Seminar 12
Encountering Rhetorical Worlds: A Seminar in Comparative Rhetoric
Leaders: Ralph Cintron (University of Illinois Chicago), Tarez Graban (Florida State University) and Shiben Banerji (University of California, Berkeley)
Seminar 13
Encounters with Violence: The Rhetoric of Witnessing
Leaders: Annie Hill (University of Texas at Austin) and Catherine Palczewski (University of Northern Iowa)
Seminar 14
Post Truth Rhetorics
Leaders: Scott Sundvall (Florida International University), Sergio Figueiredo (Kennesaw State University) and Jason Crider (Texas A&M University)
Seminar 15
Contested Ground: Rhetorical Cartography as Theory and Method
Leaders: Timothy Barney (University of Richmond) and Heather Ashley Hayes (University of Alabama)
Seminar 16
Building Solidarity, Building Theory: Rhetorical Perspectives on Solidarity
Leaders: Noor Ghazal Aswad (University of Alabama) and Kendall Gerdes (University of Utah)
Seminar 17
What Counts: Rhetoric, Economics, and the Technologies of the Decision Shaping Planetary Crisis
Leaders: Timothy Johnson (University of Louisville) and Gwendolyn Inocencio (Tarleton State University)
Workshops
Click on a workshop title below to see the full abstract and registration button for each.
Workshop 1
Rhetorical Democracy and Digitality in a Reactionary Era: Questions, Challenges, Potentials
Leaders: Caddie Alford (Virginia Commonwealth University), Robert Asen (University of Wisconsin-Madison) and Jonathan Carter (Georgia Southwestern State University)
Workshop 2
Composing Public Good: Grant Writing as Rhetorical Strategy and Community Practice
Leaders: Rich Rice (Texas Tech University) and Lauren Maher (Texas Tech University)
Workshop 3
Acrobalancing Academics: Moving Bodies in the Progymnasium
Leaders: Lauren Cagle (University of Kentucky), Sharon Yam (University of Kentucky) and Melissa Yang (Emory University)
Workshop 4
A Workshop for Emerging Scholars
Leaders: Theon Hill (Wheaton College) and Jennifer LeMesurier (Pennsylvania State University)
Workshop 5
Field Notes on Natureculture
Leaders: Hannah Hopkins (Georgia State University) and Jennifer Clary-Lemon (University of Waterloo)
Workshop 6
Selling the Future: Investigating the Rhetoric of AI Advertising
Leaders: Kaitlyn Haynal (University of Mary Washington) and Ryan Cheek (Missouri University of Science & Technology)
Workshop 7
Fractal Rhetorics Interventions: A Design Thinking Approach to Scaling Feminist Rhetorical Action
Leaders: Tammie M. Kennedy (University of Nebraska at Omaha) and Jessi Thomsen (Western Kentucky University)
Workshop 8
Updating Our Privacy Settings: Protecting Our Public Places, Bodies, and Classrooms
Leaders: Chen Chen (Utah State University), Emily Gillo (University of Memphis), Noah Wason (University of New York at Cortland), Charles Woods (Georgia Institute of Technology) and Sarah Young (University of Arizona)
Workshop 9
Community-Engaged Rhetorical Work
Leaders: Amy Lueck (Santa Clara University) and Brice Nordquist (Syracuse University)
Workshop 11
Archaeological Rhetoric: Finding the Lost Treasures of Our Discipline
Leaders: Robert Lively (Truckee Meadows Community College) and Richard L. Enos (Texas Christian University)
As a reminder, attendance at RSA events constitutes consent to, and acceptance of, RSA’s professional code of conduct. These Code of Conduct standards include, without limitation, courtesy of discourse, respect for the diversity of RSA members and all Institute attendees, and the ability to conduct RSA business and participate in the RSA event in a nonthreatening, collegial atmosphere. Individuals who are determined to have engaged in harassment or other unprofessional conduct directed at any person in any manner including, but not restricted to: at the event venue, email, or on social media regardless of the privacy settings of that social media may be asked to leave the Institute without refund and may be subject to other sanctions as appropriate. This includes harassment that may occur after the event that is directed toward participants who were at the event or other RSA members, or the misuse of contact information that was provided at the event specifically for the convenience of communication for event purposes. If you have any questions, please speak to RSA’s Executive Director, Leslie Dinauer, the Institute Director Gwendolyn Pough, or the President of RSA, Lisa Flores.
Registration fee refunds will be granted only as follows: 67% refund for those withdrawing by 1 March 2027; 0% refund for any withdrawals thereafter.