Aspecial session sponsored by the Program in Writing and Rhetoric, "Between Getting Free and Living Free: DJing Contemporary Black Rhetorics" on Friday, May 13 at 11:00 via Zoom, featuring Professors Tamika Carey from the University of Virginia and LaToya Sawyer from St. John's University, Daniel Gray Kontar, Founder and Executive Director of TWELVE Literary Arts, and Lynnée Denise Bonner aka DJ Lynnée Denise, and moderated by yours truly.​​​​

Part of what will make this session special is that it will bring scholars and artists together in conversation to explore Black Rhetoric as an area of study within the broader field of Rhetoric and Composition. What is Black Rhetoric? Why is Rhetoric such a crucial area for Black study? What are some of the practices and strategies that are a part of our contemporary moment, and make up Black rhetorical traditions over the long arc? What debates and dialogues are taking place within and across Black communities to enable collective action? What strategies for collective action emerge from those debates and dialogues? What discursive practices contribute to community building, and to individual and collective identity formation? This session will touch on many of these questions, and will feature comments on what's possible in scholarship and teaching in this important area of study. We'll also make connections to how DJ culture and the practices of DJs in multiple music traditions can inform big questions about liberation--and how people use discourse in the everyday.

As with our prior sessions on Mexican American, and Asian and Asian American Rhetorics, this session is part of the ongoing kickoff for PWR's Notation in Cultural Rhetorics: an opportunity for students to explore a wide range of rhetorical traditions and practices that are not taken up deeply enough in most university-level studies of writing, rhetoric and communication, and for students to gain experience communicating for diverse audiences and contexts. You can find more information about the Notation here: https://pwrnotations.stanford.edu/about/about-ncr

Please save the date and plan to join us on the 13th for what I promise you will be a compelling--and fun--conversation!