Workshop 12: Rétorica y Memoria en America Latina/Rhetoric & Memory in Latin America

Half Synchronous and Half Asynchronous (June 1-4)

Workshop Leaders:

Christa J. Olson, University of Wisconsin-Madison: christa.olson@wisc.edu
María Alejandra Vitale, University of Buenos Aires: alejandravitale@filo.uba.ar

This workshop invites participants to investigate the historical and contemporary intersections of rhetoric and memory in Latin America. Using examples drawn from across the Americas, we will examine decolonial practices rooted in Indigenous knowledge, the role of “archives of repression” in responding to political violence, efforts to preserve the memory of those murdered or disappeared by authoritarian regimes, and the use of the past in dominant political imaginaries. The workshop will introduce scholars interested in rhetoric and memory studies to Latin America’s deep tradition of scholarship and practice in those areas. For scholars working on Latin American rhetorics, the workshop will provide a deep dive into histories and scholarship through the frame of memory. Readings for the workshop will include analyses of political rhetoric; theoretical discussions of memory, archives, and decoloniality; and case studies drawn from different historical periods. This will be a multilingual workshop. Readings and discussion will take place in multiple languages. Though fluency in Spanish and English is not required, participants should have some reading and oral comprehension in both languages.

Christa Olson is a rhetorical historian focusing on trans-American visual cultures. In her research, she returns repeatedly to the rhetorical sources and consequences of nationalism. She is the author of Constitutive Visions: Indigeneity and Commonplaces of National Identity in Republican Ecuador and has published articles on visual culture, historiography, and Américan rhetoric in Rhetoric Society Quarterly, Quarterly Journal of Speech, Advances in the History of Rhetoric, and Literacy in Composition Studies. Olson’s current research examines the visual history of U.S.-Latin American relations in order to understand how U.S. publics came to see themselves as particularly American among Americans. She is a regular contributor to Reading the Pictures, an online venue dedicated to public-facing analysis of photojournalism.

María Alejandra Vitale holds a PhD in Linguistics at University of Buenos Aires, where she works as a Professor and Researcher at the Institute of Linguistics. She has obtained a Postdoctoral Degree in Linguistic Studies at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil. She is the Editor of the electronic journal Rétor, of the Argentine Association of Rhetoric, of which she has been President. She was President of the Latin American Association of Rhetoric and she is the President of the Ibero-American Organization of Rhetoric. She has specialized in the study of South American coup speeches, political discourse and intelligence services. Among other books, she has published ¿Cómo pudo suceder? Prensa escrita y golpismo en la Argentina (EUDEBA, 2015), Vigilar la sociedad. Estudios discursivos de inteligencia policial bonaerense (Biblos, 2016) y Rutinas del mal. Estudios discursivos sobre archivos de la represión (EUDEBA, in print).