The Blogora: The Rhetoric Society of America

 

Here Endeth the Lesson


Submitted by Jim Aune on November 22, 2009 - 12:35pm


Psalm 109: 8. It just gets worse and worse. Scared yet?

 

New Stuff on Cicero


Submitted by Jim Aune on November 21, 2009 - 10:57am


The second volume of Robert Harris's Empire series is just out: Lustrum, which covers 63 BCE, Cicero's eventful year as Consul. And I somehow missed Joy Connolly's State of Speech, which looks important.

 

Habits II


Submitted by Jim Aune on November 21, 2009 - 10:43am


Here's my next question. WHEN do you write? A lot of people recommend when first getting up in the morning, but I've found, with every major project from my dissertation onwards, that I do best when I write from about 1-4 p.m. during the week (not on weekends). And I always stop writing when I have more to say, so I can pick up the thread easily the next day. I never impose page quotas, though, just the 3-hour time limit. I've always reserved evenings for reading, usually from about 8-midnight.

 

"Don't Poke Scalia!"


Submitted by Jim Aune on November 20, 2009 - 10:40am


My Ph.D. student Ryan Malphurs has an excellent co-authored article on Supreme Court oral argument here at The Jury Expert.

 

More on Levi-Strauss


Submitted by Jim Aune on November 19, 2009 - 6:50am


A nifty overview by the great Marshall Sahlins.

 

Habits of Highly Successful Scholars


Submitted by Jim Aune on November 18, 2009 - 8:07pm


I'm finally getting back to work on my Gastonia 1929 project (which I've been working on now for over 20 years), and I yet again notice that my notetaking habits are a mess. For books, I take notes on the inside cover/blank pages, for articles or books I don't own usually in a dedicated notebook for the topic or else I type them up. I've never been able to make notecards work for me. Once upon a time, we used to teach courses on research and writing as an introduction to graduate school, but I don't think such things exist any more.

 

NCA Town Hall on Politics in Our Organization: A Declaration of Human Rights

Submitted by Adria on November 17, 2009 - 8:26am


Per Jim and Professor Hogan's exchange on the previous blog post, I want to talk about the town hall forum NCA held this year in Chicago on the role of politics in the organization. I thoroughly enjoyed MANY panels this year, but the Town Hall Forum is my favorite part of my trip this year. I found the discussion to be, on the whole, interrogative (from all sides) and, I truly believe, very fruitful.

 

Non-Communication Association


Submitted by Jim Aune on November 16, 2009 - 7:10pm


Once again, our public relations bites. . . .

 

Clause-Bound Constitutional Jurisprudence


Submitted by Jim Aune on November 16, 2009 - 2:19pm


The non-Establishment principle trumps student free speech. And I am puzzled, but I haven't read the briefs yet. I can't help but think that a valedictorian's message is not the school district speaking, and that, yet again, we don't really understand how to make the First Amendment *mean* rhetorically in the absence of lawyerly clause-bound readings:

 

The Hot News from NCA


Submitted by Jim Aune on November 13, 2009 - 6:48pm


A discussion of PowerPoint?