RSA Conference 2026

WHAT’S HAPPENING AT RSA 2026?

REGISTRATION DESK/CHECK-IN/BADGES

New this year, you will be printing badges on demand at the registration desk using iPad kiosks from GetRegistered. You can print your badge at the Registration Desk on the Plaza Level of the Portland Hilton during the following hours:

Thursday May 21: 8:00 am – 6:00 pm

Friday May 22: 7:30 am – 5:00 pm

Saturday May 23: 7:30 am – 3:30 pm

Sunday May 24: 7:30 am – 11:30 am

You MUST wear your badge visibly in conference spaces. So please pick up your badge before attending Preconferences, Discussion Groups, or Cross-Institutional Conversations on Thursday, or your first concurrent session.

BOOK EXHIBIT

Exhibitors will also be located on the Plaza Level, near Registration. Come check them out, and take advantage of conference-only specials from:

• Michigan State University Press
• Michigan Technological University
• Ohio State University Press
• Parlor Press
• Penn State University Press
• University of Alabama Press
• University of South Carolina Press

Exhibit hours are:

Thursday May 21: 4:00 pm – 7:00 pm

Friday May 22: 9:00 am – 5:00 pm

Saturday May 23: 9:00 am – 5:00 pm

Sunday May 24: 9:00 am – 10:30 am

CONFERENCE APP

Download the Whova Conference App! You may still have Whova from the RSA 2024 conference! Or, below you will find links to download the Whova app to your mobile device. YOU MUST LOG INTO WHOVA USING THE EMAIL ADDRESS THAT YOU OR YOUR PANEL SUBMITTER ENTERED INTO OXFORD ABSTRACTS. That is how we were able to upload everything into the app, so that’s the email that we used. If you did not make a submission in Oxford, or if the app otherwise asks you for a code, use InDignities2026. Please let us know if you have any difficulties. Once in Whova you can search “RSA 2026 Conference” and you should see our app pop up in the list. If you have any questions, please send them to [email protected]. Presenters will be able to upload access copies, slides, and other materials soon. Be on the lookout for instructions on how to do that.

RHETORIC UNDERGROUND: FRIDAY MAY 22 2:45 pm in PAVILION EAST Join this important session for scholars, teachers, and administrators facing urgent issues regarding the current federal and state administrations and their appropriation of topics in higher education. Rhetoric Underground is a roundtable session where participants can gather at one of 10 tables that are staffed with table-leaders guiding discussions and sharing resources on important topics around syllabi, job ads, representing “controversial” research, job letters, modifying websites/materials, revising grants, and writing letters of recommendation for students with “controversial” research areas.

SPOTLIGHT SESSIONS: This year, as they put the conference together, the program committee members chose “spotlight sessions” for each of the submission categories. Check them out! Spotlight Sessions are noted as such in the program/on the app and listed below:

Religious Rhetorics: Religious (In)dignity: Women and the “Benevolence” of Religious Rhetoric – Friday at 11:00 am in Duniway – Capt. Gray 3

Movement/Protest Rhetorics: Silence is Complicity: Rhetoricians for a Free Palestine – Friday at 11:00 am in Pavilion West

Decoloniality and Rhetorics of Race: Erasure, Displacement and Resistance – Friday at 1:15 pm in Cabinet

Feminist, Queer and Trans Rhetorics: Bodily Rhetorics of Resistance – Friday at 1:15 pm in Grand Ballroom 2

Rhetorics of Science or Medicine: Trans Indignities: Anti-Trans Politics and the Rhetoric of Science – Friday at 2:45 pm in Pavilion West

Rhetorical Criticism: Food Rhetorics and In/Dignities Friday at 4:15 pm in Broadway 3

Embodied Rhetorics: Roundtable on Neurodiversity in the Academy: Rhetorical In/Dignities for Neurodivergent Students, Faculty, and Staff – Saturday at 9:30 am in Parlor B

Rhetorical Pedagogy: Administrative Justice – Saturday at 9:30 am in Pavilion West

Rhetorical Methods and Methodology: From Idea to Monograph: Managing In/Dignities in the Book Writing Process – Saturday at 9:30 am in Duniway – Capt. Gray 2

Environmental Rhetorics: Imagining Dignified Futures – Saturday at 11:00 am in Pavilion East

Cultural Rhetorics: Entanglements of In/Dignity in the Asian/American Diaspora – Saturday at 11:00 am in Grand Ballroom 2

Public Rhetorics: Interpreting History Through Digital Publics: Witnessing Genocide – Saturday at 11:00 am in Council

Digital Rhetorics: Memes, Politics, and Digital Radicalization – Saturday at 1:15 pm in Pavilion West

History of Rhetoric – In/Dignifying Sub/versive Histories – Saturday at 1:15 pm in Council

Rhetorical Theory – Borders Welded from Site, Sound, Walls, and Flesh – Saturday at 1:15 pm in Forum

Movement/Protest Rhetorics 2 – Strategies of Resistance to Genocide and Colonialism – Saturday at 1:15 pm in Broadway 2

Don’t forget – the GRADUATE STUDENT GATHERING SPACE will be in the Park Room on the Plaza Level near the Registration Desk. Graduate Student/Early Career Board members Rachael McIntosh and Mikayla Torres invite you to the Graduate Student Welcome in the gathering space on Friday at 11:00 am. What surprises will this space hold over the weekend? Come find out!

INSPIRING KEYNOTE! Friday night’s Keynote speaker is Alexis Pauline Gumbs. Her talk is titled, “As Far as I Can Tell”: June Jordan and a Rhetoric of Revolutionary Witness. The Keynote talk will be at 6:30 in Grand Ballroom 1, followed by a lively reception with hors d’oeuvres and a cash bar; all registrants will receive a drink ticket.

On Saturday morning at 9:30 am in Broadway 3, hear from a roundtable of RSA Past Presidents about how RSA has evolved, and how they envision the future.

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS AND AWARDS: Saturday evening at 5:30 pm in Grand Ballroom 1, Gwendolyn D. Pough will deliver the Presidential Address, followed by the RSA 2026 Awards Ceremony and our final reception with hors d’oeuvres and a cash bar; all registrants will receive a drink ticket.

AND MUCH, MUCH MORE

BYOB – BRING YOUR OWN BAG: To save the world from 1000 more cheap bags, there will be no conference bags this year. We encourage you to bring your most interesting carrying bag to the conference, and the conference co-chairs and members of the planning committee will be on the look out for the most funky and eye catching bags . . . and handing out some $5 Starbucks gift cards to the best ones they see! So dig through your closet and see what you can find!

DON’T FORGET TO REGISTER: Login to your member account to ensure you can access the member only rates, and then register here. If you have forgotten your password you may need to click “Lost Your Password” to set a new password. As a reminder, all conference presenters must be members of RSA, so click here if you need to join, before you go to register.

DOWNLOAD THE APP: You can download Whova here (scroll down) if you don’t already have it from 2024.  In Whova, search RSA 2026 Conference. Search the sessions. Build your personalized agenda. In-conference messages will be sent via the app. A link to upload an access copy of your paper and other materials directly to your session will be sent to presenters the beginning of May. Please note, you must log into Whova using the email you entered in Oxford, since that provided the program download. If you need assistance, please email [email protected].

In addition to the app, the online program is also available for members to view here. New to the program page is a soup-to-nuts full-abstract version of the entire program if you wish to download and/or browse it. To safeguard our participants’ data, currently you must be logged into your RSA member account to view the program.

PRECONFERENCES AND DISCUSSION GROUPS – THURSDAY, MAY 21 – JOIN US!

Before concurrent sessions begin on Friday morning, a number of preconference sessions will take place on Thursday, May 21 and you are welcome to join! Some sessions require preregistration so please take note here.

• PITCHING AND PUBLISHING YOUR FIRST BOOK: Thursday 1:00 – 4:00 PM – Led by Kelly Ritter, the workshop is open to any RSA members seeking help in framing a first book topic, articulating their book’s intervention, identifying a publisher that is a good match for their project, and putting that first proposal together. Incorporating both large-group discussion and small group hands-on review and commentary on proposals and ideas, participants will come out of this workshop with a plan for action regarding their project.  There is no cost for this workshop, but you must be a member of RSA and registered for the conference. This session is limited to 20 participants and you must apply. Applications will be accepted until March 1, 2026. For more information or questions, please contact Kelly Ritter at [email protected].
• RSA 26 RESEARCH NETWORK: Thursday 12:00 pm – 5:00 PM – Apply here by February 20! Join us for the RSA 2026 Research Network. Beginning with a lunch together, the Research Network provides members of our profession, especially graduate students and early-career faculty, with an opportunity to receive feedback on a work-in-progress in a small group session led by scholars committed to supporting new work. We especially encourage advanced graduate students, recent graduates, and beginning assistant professors whose circumstances allow them limited mentorship opportunities to apply this year. Whatever your professional situation, the Research Network is a wonderful opportunity to engage some of the field’s best mentors and focus on projects that matter to you. For more information for questions, please contact Emily Winderman at [email protected] or Timothy Oleksiak at [email protected].
• Lewis & Clark Scholarly Writing Retreat: The final day of the Lewis & Clark Annual Scholarly Writing Retreat Conference @ RSA will be held at the Portland Hilton in advance of RSA 2026. Register Now! Organizer: G. Mitchell Reyes, [email protected]. — We are thrilled to be holding a special Scholarly Writing Retreat (SWR) as an extension of the RSA Conference coming up this summer in beautiful Portland, OR. The SWR@RSA will take place from May 18-21, with the first three days at Lewis & Clark College and the last day at the RSA conference site, the Portland Hilton. The SWR@RSA is designed to allow scholars in rhetorical studies to work collaboratively on their research for the full week leading up to the RSA conference. In addition to its usual themes of productivity and collaborative writing, this special SWR@RSA will focus on scholarly research in the 21^st century, taking into special consideration the myriad impacts of GenAI on the future of academic publishing. If interested in participating, please reach out to the organizer, Mitch Reyes, at [email protected]. Participants in SWR@RSA will receive a 10% discount on their RSA registration fee. 
  Registration Fee: $300 per person (this includes breakfasts, lunches, structured discussion seminars, access to college resources, editorial support, reading materials, and basic writing and printing materials)
  Registration Deadline: May 1, 2026. You can find more information about dates and fees, and apply to attend here. For more information or questions, please contact Mitch Reyes at [email protected].
• ASHR/ISHR Preconference: Thursday 8:30 AM – 5:00 PM – The American Society for the History of Rhetoric and the International Society for the History of Rhetoric will be convening together at RSA 2026. The 2026 ASHR Symposium theme, “Rhetorical History’s Past, Present, and Future,” invites scholars to recognize this legacy and to reflect on the theories, methods, and critical practices that define its scope and purpose. Submissions are no longer being accepted but you can attend the presentations to hear a great slate of papers in the History of Rhetoric. For more information for questions, please contact Allison Prasch at [email protected].
• NCERW Preconference: Thursday 8:30 AM – 5:00 PM – The theme of this year’s National Consortium of Environmental Rhetoric and Writing Preconference is Environmental Rhetorics: Enacting Land-Based Praxis Toward Healing, Transformation, and Restorative Activism. For more information, to receive the schedule, or for questions please contact Michelle Kells at [email protected].
• ARSTM Preconference: Thursday 8:30 AM – 5:00 PM – The theme of this year’s Association for the Rhetoric os Science, Technology, and Medicine preconference is impact. The etymological origins of impact trace to seventeenth-century Latin for “push into, drive into, strike against.”[1] In today’s universities, impact often functions like a “god term,” invoking an unquestionable and much-sought but ill-defined good. Universities want more and more impact, often defined by the number of citations accrued by the most prestigious scientists. But counter-movements to this reductive understanding of impact are underway. For example, the Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) emphasizes the limitations of citation counts as a measure of research quality and enjoins global stakeholders to seek alternative measurements of scholarly impact that achieve “consistency and transparency” and “directly address the structural inequalities in academia.”[2] In the first place, then, by theming the pre-conference around impact, we invite submissions that interrogate the measures currently used to evaluate research and community engagement as well as those that articulate  more just rubrics for distributing institutional resources, with specific attention to inequities arising from race-, gender-, geography-, and class-based disparities in scholarly publishing. ARSTM Membership is required to attend. For more information on how to become a member, as well as for up-to-date Preconference information, please visit our website at https://www.arstmonline.org/.” For questions, please contact Dustin Greenwalt at [email protected].
• DISCUSSION GROUPS with REFRESHMENTS Thursday 6:00 – 8:00 PM – RSA Discussion Groups provide opportunities for focused interaction and collaboration among RSA members who share an interest in exploring particular questions and problems in rhetorical studies. Discussion Groups are to advance the RSA project of supporting development of intellectual common group among people who study and teach rhetoric in a variety of disciplinary locations. In 2026 discussions will include:
  • When to Talk, and When to Fight: Organizing Against Attacks on Higher Ed
  • Study of Extremist Rhetorics Interest Group
  • In/Dignities of Feminist Research: Feminist Responsiveness to Gender Performativity by Conservative White Women
  • Critical Refugee Studies
• CROSS-INSTITUTIONAL CONVERSATIONS – IN DIALOGUE AT RSA with REFRESHMENTS: Thursday 6:00 – 8:00 PM – This session brings together RSA members across career stages for small-group conversations around shared research interests. Participants will be matched in advance based on research focus, with space for on-site sign-ups as well. Designed as an informal, peer-level exchange, the session offers a welcoming way to connect, collaborate, and engage—no paper or panel required. Sign-up here so we can build our groups before you come. For more information for questions, please contact Rachael McIntosh at [email protected] or Mikayla Torres at [email protected].

[1] Origin and History of Impact. (n.d.). Etymonline. https://www.etymonline.com/word/impact

[2] About DORA. (n.d.). Declaration on Research Assessment. https://sfdora.org/about-dora/

CALL FOR PROPOSALS – CLOSED

We invite members to join us in the magnificent and scenic city of Portland as we continue old discussions and spark new ones. The submission portal is now closed for new submissions. Papers and complete panels use different submission forms. Please read additional information regarding submission types below. Individuals may not submit more than two proposals either individually or as part of a panel or session. Discussion Group proposals do not count against the two submissions. All participants who are accepted will be required to renew their membership or join RSA to present at the conference.

Projectors and screens may not be available in all conference breakout rooms. The submission form will ask about presenters’ A/V needs as well as a justification for those needs. RSA will work to accommodate as many requests as possible based on these justifications.

Submit individual papers here.

Submit completed panels and all other submission types HERE.

For completed panels only we will have a limited number of hybrid sessions to accommodate panels in which some panelists are unable to travel to Portland. These sessions must be requested at the time of submission. No hybrid panel sessions will be available after submission. All panelists will need to register for the conference.

We anticipate receiving more requests for hybrid panels than we can program. If you request a hybrid session for your panel, you will be asked to provide a justification to help the programmers make difficult choices around which panels they can slot. Also if you request a hybrid panel, please indicate if you would accept in-person placement as an alternative.

Please note you may need to create an Oxford Abstracts account to make your submission. To ensure you receive all conference-related emails, please use an email that you check regularly to create your account, and be consistent in using this email in the submission form.

We strongly encourage the submission of completed panels. PLEASE BE SURE TO USE THE CORRECT SUBMISSION FORM FOR YOUR PROPOSAL.

Click the boxes below to learn more about each submission type.

We are excited to read your proposals and look forward to seeing you in the Pacific northwest, in May 2026. All inquiries can be sent to [email protected].