Performance is everywhere within the rhetorical tradition, and we all work on performance to some degree, whether our focus is oratory and other forms of oral communication, theories of linguistic performativity and language-based agency, pedagogy and the history of rhetorical education, assessment of individuals’, groups’, or machines’ performance abilities, identity-building rituals and everyday practices, or something else.

Despite the length and scope of this list, there are relatively few scholarly resources. We have no discipline-specific guide to past and present performance concepts and praxes; we have no map of developments in rhetorical performance over time, place, and technology; and we have no clearinghouse for new ideas and materials. This RSA workshop offered one strategy for addressing this lack.

Designed as a series of structured conversations, the workshop began with a survey of performance in the rhetorical tradition. Workshop leaders Jenn Fishman and Jeremy Wear lead early discussions about the resources rhetoric provides for studying performance and the resources performance offers for studying rhetoric. Subsequent sessions focused on defining and testing 7 different types of rhetorical performance in an effort to create a heuristic that could be used for reviewing past work as well as planning and undertaking new projects, whether pedagogical, creative, or critical.

Watch this space for news about the listserv discussed during the workshop as well as pictures of our interactive rhetoric and performance diagram.