POROI sponsors “The Rhetoric Seminar”
in which papers are distributed ahead of time via POROI's web
site. These will be linked from the main page as they become available.
Participants arrive ready to engage in a freewheeling interdisciplinary
exchange of ideas intended to help the writer revise the paper
for its targeted audience. Scholars from on- and off- campus are
invited to present their work at the Rhetoric seminar.
The “Public Rhetoric Seminar,” conducted
in community settings, focuses on public texts (speeches, reports,
policy statements, etc.) about issues of local, regional, state,
national, or global significance.
POROI sponsors Rhetoric Symposia and cross-disciplinary
conferences. Some of these have included Story Telling in
Science and Scholarship: The Role of Narrative in Various Dimensions
of Life and Inquiry; Rhetoric of the Human Sciences:
Language and Argument in Scholarship and Public Affairs;
and Inquiring Minds Want to Know: Rhetoric of Inquiry for
a New Century.
POROI is increasingly interested in communication
between academia and the general public and between academic and
artistic communities. The conference Infinite Respect, Enduring
Dignity: Voices and Visions on the September Attacks brought
together scholars, artists, and religious and political leaders
for two days of panels and performances devoted to exploring various
issues and emotions in the aftermath of the events of September
11, 2001. In October 2003, a national conference, The Promise
of Empathy, fostered a fuller, more holistic understanding
of the emergence of empathy as a topic of critical importance.
POROI's upcoming project is a semester of events concerning intellectual
properties including two conferences in the spring of 2005.
