Idaho State University to host Intermountain Graduate Conference featuring keynote speaker Ira Allen

Allen will give the IGC’s keynote address, “Rhetoric, Witness, Loss: Becoming, Impossibly,” on March 8 from 5 to 6 p.m. in the Salmon River Suite of the ISU Pond Student Union Building. Taking responses to contested sites in Lebanon’s Civil War as a point of departure, Allen’s talk will explore questions of bearing witness—the rhetorical presentation of individual trauma as an address of public concerns—and how witness narratives inflect charged conversations among citizens in current media environments.

In addition, Allen will hold a workshop on publishing interdisciplinary work on March 7, from 7 to 8 p.m. in room 256 of the Liberal Arts Building. This event is also free and open to the public.

Thanks to support from Idaho State University’s Cultural Events Committee, this talk is free and open to the public.

Allen is currently an assistant professor of rhetoric, writing and media studies at Northern Arizona University. Prior to his current appointment, he was an assistant professor of rhetoric and composition at the American University of Beirut. His book “The Ethical Fantasy of Rhetorical Theory” was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in 2018.

For more information, contact the Intermountain Graduate Conference at samurich@isu.edu.