Research group Culture & Education

Rhetoric in a precarious world. Moving forward with and from Kenneth Burke.

International conference on rhetoric and Kenneth Burke, July 1–3, 2026 at Ghent University (in collaboration with the Kenneth Burke Society).

Call for Papers

Rhetoric in a precarious world. Moving forward with and from Kenneth Burke.

A conference July 1st to 3rd, 2026, at Ghent University, Belgium

July 1-3, 2026
Belgium, Ghent University, research group Culture & Education
Conference Organizers:
Kris Rutten, Ghent University, kris.rutten@ugent.be
Amanda Adam, Ghent University, amanda.adam@ugent.be
In collaboration with the Kenneth Burke Society

Register here!

What does it imply to study rhetoric today? The current moment is characterized by many societal – often binary – divisions, by a lack of identification with others, and an unwillingness to move beyond communicative echo chambers, often restricted within the digital sphere. At the same time, many people are increasingly pushing back against these divisions and are exploring ways to move beyond the moral panic and reappropriate digital and real-world affordances to create (digital) spaces for common ground, to react, to create meaning, and to renegotiate our rhetorical understanding of the world.

In this conference, we aim to explore how the study of rhetoric can respond to and engage with these often contentious dynamics. We aim to do so by moving forward both with and from Kenneth Burke.

We will move forward with Kenneth Burke as his conceptual framework helps us to navigate in the current moment. For example, his claim that ‘all human beings are poets’ helps us consider how  “the poetic orientation asks people to see the world as a work in progress to which they contribute and, hence, see themselves as composers rather than a passive audience” (George, 86). By redefining humans as poets, Burke argues the need to move beyond individual actions or societal structures and to orient ourselves to the complex networks that create meaning and constitute identities. Indeed, Burke’s lifetime in politico-aesthetic thinking taught him (and us) that “‘citizens in a democracy’ [...] are charged with paying attention to the ‘ambiguities of identification’ that are always inherent in ‘that tiny first-person plural pronoun, ‘we’” (Burke 50, qtd. in Weiser 10). As “we” is promoted as both the problem (us vs. them) and the solution (all of us together) to today’s binaries, how do “we” as rhetoricians understand its changing roles?  

We also aim to move forward from Kenneth Burke because – as Richard Lanham famously stated – Kenneth Burke started the rhetorical conversation of our time. We would like to continue extending this conversation to contemporary rhetorical scholars and critics in order to explore what is implicated in being (or becoming) symbol-wise in the current moment; (re)conceptualizing concepts from Burke as well as confronting Burke with insights and theories grounded in our most current rhetorical scholarship.

Keynote Speakers

Prof. Jessica Enoch, professor, University of Maryland

Jessica Enoch’s research focuses on feminist rhetorics and pedagogies, feminist memory studies, spatial rhetorics, rhetorical education, histories of rhetoric and composition, as well as literacy studies. She is the author of Refiguring Rhetorical Education: Women Teaching African American, Native American, and Chicano/a Students (Southern Illinois UP, 2008) and Domestic Occupations: Spatial Rhetorics and Women’s Work (Southern Illinois UP, 2019). Her current book project Remembering Suffrage: Feminist Memory and Activism at the Centennial of the 19th Amendment examines commemorations dedicated to the 2020 suffrage centennial using an intersectional feminist analytic approach.

https://wgss.umd.edu/directory/jessica-enoch

Burke in the Archives: Twenty-Five Years On

Over twenty-five years ago in a graduate seminar at the Pennsylvania State University, Dr. Jess Enoch was introduced to the Kenneth Burke archives held at that institution. Since that time, she has been captivated by how Burke’s primary materials have shaped and invigorated Burke scholarship (See the collection Burke in the Archives, co-edited with Dana Anderson, and “Becoming Symbol-Wise”). In her presentation, Dr. Enoch will consider the archival impact on Burke scholarship, especially exploring how Burke’s archive itself has a powerful message to this world we find ourselves in—one defined once again by war and marked by the emergence of generative AI. 

Prof. Iben Brinch, associate professor, University of Bergen

Iben Brinch is Associate Professor of non-fiction (sakprosa) at the University of Bergen, Norway. Her research focuses on rhetoric, ethos and writing, with particular attention to non-fiction and reflective practices in academic writing. She has published on rhetorical theory and methodology, as well as on writing pedagogy in higher education. She is editor-in-chief of the Nordic scholarly journal Sakprosa, co-editor of the scholarly journal Rhetorica Scandinavica and co-editor of Kreativ akademisk skriving (Universitetsforlaget, 2019). Brinch’s work explores how writers develop voice, ethos and rhetorical style across genres, and how reflective writing practices contribute to scholarly thinking. She is active in Nordic research communities on rhetoric and non-fiction studies and contributes to the development of academic writing in doctoral education.

https://www4.uib.no/finn-ansatte/Iben.Brinch

The Scene of Kairotic Writing

Key questions in rhetorical studies often turn upon where thought takes shape and when writing (finally, hopefully) begins. This keynote examines the scene of kairotic writing—the situated, temporal and relational conditions under which writing becomes possible. The almost three-decade-long correspondence between Kenneth Burke and William H. Rueckert offers a unique entry into such scenes. Addressed to a specific “you,” Burke’s letters construct an immediate “here I am,” creating a perspectival space that is simultaneously intimate, reflective and rhetorical. As Bonadonna observes in the Foreword, Burke uses these letters as a kind of “writer’s journal”: provisional, playful and—crucially—deeply situated.

Read in this light, the correspondence reveals scholarly thinking in motion, unfolding through institutional change, shifting intellectual projects, birth, ageing, illness, death and reconsideration. Rather than polished academic prose, the letters show how scene and timing actively shape conceptual development. I argue that this epistolary writing constitutes a form of life-writing that supports and conditions academic writing, modelling how reflective practices cultivate intellectual depth.

Extending this insight, the keynote develops a broader account of the scene of writing as a kairotic construction—a product of address, situation and voicing, rather than merely a physical or institutional backdrop. Although contemporary scholars rarely engage in long-form letter writing, the function of such scenes persists, whether in digital dialogues, collaborative drafting environments or exchanges with AI systems that become new interlocutors and new rhetorical—and deeply kairotic—spaces.

By tracing Burke’s epistolary scenes and their modern analogues, the talk invites participants to reconsider how writing emerges, how kairos operates, and how attentiveness to the scene of writing can open new possibilities for scholarly thought and agency.

Burke, K., & Rueckert, W. H. (2003). Letters from Kenneth Burke to William H. Rueckert, 1959–1987. Edited, with an introduction, by W. H. Rueckert. Transcribed from the originals by B. L. Rueckert. Foreword by A. Baradonna. Parlor Press.

Luanda Casella, writer - theatre director - Teacher & PhD Student, KASK Conservatory

Luanda Casella is a writer, performing artist and theatre director from São Paulo based in Ghent, Belgium. Her work is about the deconstruction of language with a main focus on how storytelling influences the ways in which we perceive the world and the role of literature in the development of critical thinking. Her method is guided by principles of text assemblage and hypertextuality. Focusing on the uses of 'deceptive discourse' in communication processes and 'unreliable narrators' in classic and contemporary works of fiction, her work has been referred to as ‘awfully intelligent’, ‘surprisingly light-footed’ and ‘horrifically funny’. Alongside her performances, Casella has a significant career in education and academia. She is currently a teacher at the drama department at the KASK Conservatory, Ghent, where she mentors master students in their final projects, gives a course on creative writing, and teaches a masterclass on her artistic research into “unreliable narrators”. She is also a PhD candidate, with a project focused on the uses of “deceptive discourse” in communication processes and ”“unreliable narrators” in classic and contemporary works of fiction.

https://luandacasella.com/biography/

From Fiction to Reality,
back to Fiction,
back to Reality,
and hopefully on to Fiction again

This keynote explores the 21st-century "narrative turn" as a trajectory from Walter Benjamin’s 1930s announcement of the "crisis of storytelling" to a modern crisis of imagination. As we navigate a landscape blurred by Byung-Chul Han’s "story-selling" and the rise of Harry Frankfurt’s "bullshit," I investigate how the study of unreliable narration serves as essential "equipment for living." Drawing on my doctoral research, I present a fragment of an ontology designed to model unreliable discourses across fiction and reality. I propose nine archetypes—including the Pícaro, the Naïf, the Madman, and the Trickster—seeking overlaps between Kenneth Burke’s Pentad and my own ontological categories (Agent, Event, Quality, Narrative Function). This mapping extends beyond the page to real-life "unreliable narrators": from spin doctors and "spoon benders" to antivaxxers and extractive billionaires who manipulate narrative to bypass critical thought. The core argument addresses the "aesthetic turn": the point where art’s move toward hyperrealism rendered it numb and utilitarian. In response, following Oscar Wilde’s defence of "lying" and Lyta Gold’s critique of the moralistic surveillance of "dangerous fictions," I argue for a return to speculative fiction and "art for art’s sake" as a rhetorical tool of resistance. By decoding and wrestling with unreliability in fiction, we, as readers, engage in a "pact of irony" (a pact of intimacy) that demands an active, imaginative "act." Through this, we can reclaim the cognitive muscles necessary to navigate the deceptive performances of reality.

Registration (REGISTER BEFORE MAY 1, 2026 FOR THE BEST FEE!))

Register here:https://event.ugent.be/registration/kbconference2026

Early-Bird Registration (Deadline May 1, 2026)

Registration - €300   
Retired Staff Registration – €250   
Graduate Student Member Registration –  €250  

 

Late Registration (Deadline June 1, 2026)

Registration - €350   
Retired Staff Registration – €300   
Graduate Student Member Registration –  €300   

Tips for Accommodation

Complete Program

  • Day 1:
  • DAY 1 — Wednesday 1 July 2026 — GUM
    Time Programme Location Speaker(s) Title
    08:30–09:00 Registration & Coffee Ghent University Museum Entrance
    09:00–09:30 Welcome & opening Forum Marjan Doom (Director Ghent University Museum) & Kris Rutten
    09:30–10:30 Keynote 1 – From Fiction to Reality,
    back to Fiction,
    back to Reality,
    and hopefully on to Fiction again    		 Forum Luanda Casella
    10:30-11:00 Roundtable Museum Rhetorics Forum Marjan Doom, Peter Mortensen, Elizabeth Weiser
    11:00-11:30 Coffee Break Botanical Garden
    11:00 - 12:30 Panel Presentations 1: Museums in a precarious world rhetorical institutions of division and belonging Forum Jill Decrop Ernst, Elizabeth Weiser, Kris Rutten, Amanda Adam
    Panel Presentations 2: Burke Interdisciplinary: Inspiration for Forms of Rhetoric Museum space: space museum third floor Bjørn F. Stillion Southard Leadership as Criticism: Kenneth Burke and the Construction of Leadership Curriculum
    William Schraufnagel Kenneth Burke, Accounting, and Statistics
    Richard H. Thames Kenneth Burke and Thomas Kuhn: Science and the Archai of Rhetorical Induction
    Shane Erath Quantum Rhetoric: An Ideology of Ignorance
    Panel Presentations 3: Division and Identities Museum space: round space second floor ALTERNATIVE PRESENTATION Cobalt (Annie Laurie) Nichols Substances that Bind: Slow quilting identification and division in social relationships
    Serena Tomasi - Ece Naz Tatar Reframing virtue, redefining Citizenship: a legal-rhetorical analysis of Erdoğan’s We/Them politics
    Augustijn Van Rode Welcome or be gone? A longitudinal analysis of Belgian parliamentarians’ rhetoric usage of values in debates on immigration, 1940-2025
    Peter Goggin Moving Burke Offshore: Island Studies and Identity
    Panel Presentations 4: Decolonial Politics Museum space: room second floor Lisa Källström Weaving Words, Preserving Memory. Duodji as Symbolic Action in Sámi Literary Testimony
    Edward Schiappa Burke, Framing Analysis, & Critical Literacy in a Precarious World
    Michael Lechuga The Symbolic Order of Settlement: Colonial Equipment for Living
    12:30 - 14:00 Lunch Break Botanical Garden
    14:00 - 15:30 Panel Presentations 5: Burke as Artist Forum Peter Mortensen Thinking with Burke at a University Art Museum
    Joel Overall “Think of it, Mal, to have two mediums”: (re)Introducing Kenneth Burke as Musician and Writer
    Sven Hollebeke
    Panel Presenations 6: Scientific Ecologies: Burke & Climate Museum space: space museum third floor Joanna Nowakowska From “One Little Fellow Named Ecology” to Ecological Rhetoric: Revisiting Kenneth Burke’s Green Legacy
    Savannah Paige Murray An Environmental Justice Enthymeme: The Topoi and Troubles of Patagonia's Tools for Grassroots Activists
    Waldemar Petermann Attitudes toward Science, Policy and Fish
    Esben Bjerggaard Nielsen So Many Marvels of Technology: Indexing the Climate Rhetoric of a Danish Prime Minister
    Panel Presentations 7: Counter-Statement: Burke, Protest and Unheard Voices Museum space: room second floor Adefunke Eruobodo Rhetoric in a Precarious World: A Feminist Analysis of Women Protest
    Betsy Verhoeven Reappropriating Rallies through Elevating Emotions
    Natalia Serebriannikova From Identity to Action: Ukrainian Business Rhetoric in Wartime Information Fields (2022–2025)
    Maria Alicja Terlikowska You may be seen, but not heard. Analysis of the terministic screens in narratives about children and the Hurt.
    Panel Presentations 8: Identification in the Political Experience Museum space: room second floor Alireza Eshraghi When Identification Backfires: The Risks of Rhetorical Alignment in Authoritarian Contexts — The Case of Iran
    Pölcz, Ádám Identification and Dramatization in Contemporary Hungarian Political Communication: A Kenneth Burkean Perspective
    Justina Amakali Rhetoric of reverence and consubstantiality: National mourning and unity in Namibia after the passing of Founding President Sam Nujoma
    Sean Zwagerman Polarization, Identification, and Rhetorical Trying
    15:30 - 16:00 Informal Reception Botanical Garden
  • Day 2:
  • DAY 2 — Thursday 2 July 2026 — De Krook Library
    Time Programme Location Speaker(s) Title
    08:45–09:00 Coffee & Registration Foyer
    09:00–10:00 Keynote 2 – The Scene of Kairotic Writing Blauwe Vogel Iben Brinch
    10:00–10:30 Coffee Break Foyer
    10:30–12:00 Panel Presentations 9: Burke, Literacy and Languages Vos Durga Bhusal Weaving Voices at the Edge: Multimodal Transliteracy Practice as Rhetorical Resilience for Multilingual Writers
    Kacper Andrychowski Kenneth Burke in Poland – The Project for Burke’s Polish Monography and New Translations of His Works
    Ingrida Tatolytė Translation as Identification: Burke‘S Rhetorical Theory and Translatorial Ethos
    Richard H. Thames A Forthcoming "Symbolic"?
    Panel Presentations 10: PANEL President Donald Trump's Authoritarian Rhetoric Haas Clarke Rountree “The Office of the Presidency and Donald Trump: Grammatical Incongruities and
    James Klumpp "Trump and His Followers": A Rhetorical Construction
    Jouni Tilli “An Appetite for Destruction: Form as Trump’s Rhetorical Appeal”
    Panel Presentations 11: Online Equipment: Burke and Language in a Digital Age Blauwe Vogel Steven Mailloux Redefining Rhetoric for the Digital Age: Dramatism and Artificial Intelligence
    Ira Allen Is Machine Translation Equipment for Living?
    Naoki Kambe Perspective by Incongruity and Visual Rhetoric in the Digital Age
    ALTERNATIVE PRESENTATION David Blakesley: The Aesthetics of Cinematic Storytelling: Outtakes and Experiments from The Wordman Film Phosphotron
    12:00–13:30 Lunch Break Krookcafé
    13:30–15:00 Panel Presentations 12: Political Design Haas Michael Ristich Political Experience Architecture: Reimagining Burke’s “Scene” as Institutional Design in an Era of Democratic Backsliding
    Cody Hunter How does American Social Hierarchy Look through Anarchist Glasses?: An “anarchist squint” as a comic corrective to “hierarchic psychosis”
    Scott Wible Making Public Policy “In Terms of” Design
    Ferruh Yilmaz The Ambiguity of Populist Logic
    Panel Presentations 13: Burke in the Classroom: Rhetoric and Education Blauwe Vogel Ana Vlah Rhetorical Education for the Modern Age: Reframing Rhetoric as a Contemporary Superpower
    April Cobos Meaningful Community Engaged Learning in the College Classroom in an Age of Disillusionment
    Panel Presentations 14: Burke, Man and Agency Phosphotron Byron Hawk The Paradox of “Agentness”: Listening, Distributed Agency, and Letting Go 
    Satoru Aonuma Electronic Personality, Legal Person, and the Burkean Definition of Man: A Rhetorical Reading of the European Parliament’s 2017 Resolution on Civil Law Rules on Robotics
    Matthew Hill The Life and Death of Rhetorical AI
    15:00–15:15 Coffee Break Foyer
    15:15–16:15 Panel Discussion: Burke & Books Blauwe Vogel

    Key Speaker: Christian Kock

    Dana Anderson, David Blakesley, Clarke Rountree 
    Boat Tour through Ghent
    18:30–21:30 Conference Dinner Pakhuis
  • Day 3:
  • DAY 3 — Friday 3 July 2026 — De Krook Library
    Time Programme Location Speaker(s) Title
    08:45–09:00 Coffee & Registration Foyer
    9:00-10:00 Keynote 3 – Burke in the Archives: Twenty-Five Years On Blauwe Vogel Jessica Enoch
    10:00 -10:30 Coffee Break  Foyer
    10:30–12:00 Panel Presentations 15: A Digital Connection: Online Identification Vos Agnieszka Kampka What do I know, and who am I? The rhetoric of citizenship and identity of social media young users
    Courtney J. Wright Logan Paul and Golden Localism
    Steven W. Schoen Attention as Scene: The Temporality of Digital Sense-Making
    Joshua Fishlock Constructing Your Hierarchy: Identifying With Online Communities
    Panel Presentations 16: Burke & Identification Haas Kevin R McClure Consubstantiality, Identification, and the Rhetoric of Division
    Emma Moghabghab Algorithmic Governance and the Problem of Identification: From Curated Collectives to Rhetorical Resistance
    James P. Beasley Resisting Identification: Burke, Persuasion, and Post-Human Communication
    Jarosław Chojnacki From Persuasion to Identification: The Relevance of Officia Oratoris in a Divided World
    Panel Presentations 17: "PANEL: Rhetoric After Identification: Trans-Atlantic Perspectives on Division, Opacity, and Democratic Futures" Blauwe Vogel David R. Gruber  Jason Kalin Thore Fisker
    Panel Presentations 18: Political Leadership and their Voices Phosphotron Niki Sopanen “Rotten with Rejuvenation: Toward the Purification by Conspiracy”. A Burkean Inquiry into Xi Jinping Thought, with Conspiratorial Characteristics
    Marta Kobylska Presidential Rhetoric and Motivation: US Non-Military Action in Ukraine
    Stefan-Sebastian Maftei The “Banned Candidate”: A Burkean Reading of „Salvation” Rhetoric in Romania’s Last Presidential Elections
    12:00–13:30 Lunch Break Krookcafé
    13:30–15:00 Panel Presentations 19: The Online Debate Vos Saulutė Juzelėnienė Naming the Monster: The Rhetoric of Evil and Redemption in Narcissism Discourse
    Rochelle Gregory, Marc Azard and Ben Sword Orientation in a Precarious World: Moving With and From Kenneth Burke’s Permanence and Change in the COVID-19 Vaccine Debate
    Veronika Nagy Participatory Digital Storytelling and the Rhetorics of Risk in Health Surveillance
    Panel Presentations 20: Identification and Belonging Haas Sarah Hae-In Idzik “Misfit” Transnational Adoptees and Asian American Identification
    Dana Anderson Greetings from the Gulf of America: Renaming and the (Re)Constitution of National Identity
    Sisanda Nkoala Rhetoric, Resistance, and Reclaiming the 'We': From language as symbolic action to coded resistance
    Panel Presentations 21: Theorisation of Burke in the 21st Century Blauwe Vogel Rebekka Lykke Ringgaard Accusations and the Negative: Revisiting Kenneth Burke’s Moral Grammar of Order
    Agnieszka Szurek Reinventing Burke’s Attitudes: Locality, Genre, and Prosumer Worlds
    Jonathan Lavery Socratic Epistemic Triage

    Valerie R. Renegar

    & Kirsti Cole

    		 The Burkean Skeleton Key: Strategic Canonicity in Precarious Times
    ALTERNATIVE PRESENTATION: Burke Watching: An Interactive, Visual Guide through the Human Barnyard Foyer De Krook Cody Hunter & Quinn Dannies,
    15:00-15:30 Coffee Break Foyer
    15:30-16:30 Closing Roundtable: Letters to Burke Blauwe Vogel
    Closing Words & Reception Blauwe Vogel

Contact

Questions? Contact movingforwardkb@ugent.be or the organizers (kris.rutten@ugent.be & amanda.adam@ugent.be).