Dr. Michelle KellsAt this year's RSA Conference, I was fortunate to present alongside Michelle Kells, Assistant Professor at the UNM Rhetoric and Writing Program. The title of her presentation was "Vicente Ximenes and LBJ's Great Society: The Rhetoric of Mexican American Civil Rights Reform".
Dr. Vicente Ximenes is the first Hispanic appointed US Commissioner of Equal Employment. In 1967, he worked with President Johnson as Chairman of the President's Cabinet Committee on Mexican American Affairs.
Dr. Ximenes
Dr. Kells and Dr. Ximenes
The title of our panel was "Rhetoricizing Latina/o Issues" and was moderated by the extraordinary David Zarefsky, who is the Owen L. Coon Professor of Argumentation and Debate, Professor of Communication Studies at Northwestern University, former RSA President, and author of "Lincoln, Douglass, and Slavery: In the Crucible of Public Debate".
Dr. David Zarefsky***
In 2006, Dr. Michelle Kells published Héctor P. García: Everyday Rhetoric and Mexican American Civil Rights (Southern Illinois University Press). In 2004, she published and co-edited, with Victor Villanueva, Latino/a Discourses: On Language, Identity, and Literacy (Heinemann).
Dr. Kells' presentation on Vicente Ximenes at this year's RSA Conference and book about Hector P. Garcia prove that Mexican American/Hispanic rhetorics, alongside the rhetoric of civic discourse, continue to matter.
Photos courtesy of UNM, Sigma Tau Delta & Northwestern University
No comments:
Post a Comment