Revisiting the Past through Rhetorics of Memory and Amnesia: Selected Papers from the 50th Meeting of the Linguistic Circle of Manitoba and North Dakota

As the 21st century’s first decade draws to a close, we are reminded of events of the past, both distant and recent. Many resulted in violent conflict. This volume investigates how our 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 of this book examine the ways in which rhetoric acts as a catalyst not only for cultural memory but also cultural amnesia. Both scholars and the general public will find the analyses in these chapters informative, insightful, and provocative. The authors delve into literary fiction, accounts of history, and even the vocabulary of the English language to examine what and how we remember and forget. Assembled from coast to coast across the US and Canada, the authors demonstrate how several rhetorics at once are often at play, from Wallace Stegner’s fiction to the architecture of urban Toronto, the US Air Force Memorial in Arlington, Virginia, and even in rural cemeteries.

Dale Sullivan is a professor of English at North Dakota State University. He has published in several journals, among them Rhetorica, Rhetoric Society Quarterly, Rhetoric Review, Hermes, and Technical Communication Quarterly. His primary research interests include the rhetoric of religion, the rhetoric of science, and the rhetoric of agriculture and food. Bruce Maylath is a professor of English at North Dakota State University. His current research takes up translation issues in technical communication. Books he has co-edited include Approaches to Teaching Non-Native English Speakers across the Curriculum and Language Awareness: A History and Implementations. His other publications appear in numerous books and journals. Russel Hirst is an associate professor of English at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He directs his department's program in technical communication. His research interests are in history of rhetoric as well as in style and information design for scientific and technical communication.