RSA Project in Power, Place, and Publics

May 20-23, 2019

RSA Project in Power, Place, and Publics

May 20-23, 2019  

Eight working groups of 25 participants will read rhetorical theory with a senior scholar and apply it to a common text—the UNR Campus Master Plan—and the myriad dynamics of its situatedness in the Reno community. The project will include hands-on activities facilitated by community liaisons that gather textual, visual, audio, and graphic data over a three-day period. Two RSA liaisons—Casey Boyle and Jen Malkowski—will incorporate this data into a public-facing and digitally accessible map that will be presented to the UNR and City of Reno officials on the final day of the symposium. As an open-access document, the map will be available for subsequent scholarly and pedagogical use.  

The event will be kicked off with a keynote by John Ackerman, a longtime theorist and critic of university-community relationships, their tendencies to perpetuate the neoliberal privatization of public goods, and the many possibilities for engaging public-university partnerships differently. Working groups and their leaders include:  

• Precarious Economies, Ronald Walter Greene
• Disability and Accessibility, Amy Vidali
• Pedagogy and Community Literacy, David Coogan
• Memory and Lost Communities, Jenny Rice
• Understanding Deep Roots, Jacqueline Royster
• Visual and Material Rhetorics of the City, Laurie Gries
• Indigenous Publics, Angela Hass
• Environmental Justice, Bridie Mcgreevy

Boasting a vibrant counter-cultural scene, the City of Reno has recently attracted tech investment from Apple, Tesla, and Switch, and, along with it, an increasing activist community. The Reno-Tahoe area has also become a site for world-class outdoor recreation. It is situated on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada, 45 minutes from Lake Tahoe, four hours from the San Francisco Bay Area, and near both Yosemite and Lassen National Parks. A small, central airport offers easy access to most Western cities and all major hubs. Please see and distribute the Project Flyer . Interested participants can apply here online: https://www.rhetoricsociety.org/aws/RSA/pt/sp/summer