Dale Sullivan and Bruce Maylath, both professors of English, have published the anthology, “Revisiting the Past through Rhetorics of Memory and Amnesia: Selected Papers from the 50th Meeting of the Linguistic Circle of Manitoba and North Dakota.” Their co-editor was Russel Hirst of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.
Assembled from coast to coast across the U.S. and Canada, the 21 contributors demonstrate how several rhetorics at once are often at play, from Wallace Stegner’s fiction to the architecture of urban Toronto, the U.S. Air Force Memorial in Arlington, Va., and even in rural cemeteries. Their chapters investigate how memories are shaped by rhetorics crafted by people who want audiences to remember events in specific ways. From the pivotal battle between Americans and British and their Loyalist allies during the American Revolution to North America’s First Nations conflicts with the white mainstream to current memories and rhetoric about the recent war in Iraq, the authors examine the ways in which rhetoric acts as a catalyst not only for cultural memory but also cultural amnesia.
The book’s 20 chapters grew out of a conference with the same theme, hosted by NDSU in 2007. The conference returns to NDSU this fall, with the theme “Language and Power,” for the 54th meeting of the newly renamed Language and Culture Circle of Manitoba and North Dakota. Participants from across the disciplines are invited to attend. Conference queries should be directed to program co-chair Bruce Maylath at bruce.maylath@ndsu.edu.
The book is available through Amazon.com or Cambridge Scholars Press. A full description of the book and links for ordering copies are found at www.c-s-p.org/Flyers/Revisiting-the-Past-through-Rhetorics-of-Memory-and-Amnesia – Selected-Papers-from-the-50th-Meeting-o1-4438-2555-7.htm.