Abstract

The “Rhetoric in the Twenty-First Century: An Interactive Symposium” hosted by Centre for Medieval & Renaissance Studies (CMRS), Oxford from July 3–7, 2012, organized by James J. Murphy, Professor Emeritus of English at the University of California–Davis, and Nicholas J.Crowe, (CMRS), illustrates the resilience of rhetoric as a discipline. Rhetoric, a discipline shunned by twentieth-century Oxonians, was on full display at the conference, suggesting that twenty-first century Oxford is interested in things rhetorical. This report describes the form of the conference and the rhetorical notions advanced, discussed, and debated by the participants. The conference included important scholars of rhetoric as keynote or priming speakers: Sir Brian Vickers, Peter Mack, Jennifer Richards, and James Murphy. Enacting the spirit of rhetoric and scholastic disputation, the symposium delegates put the ideas presented by the priming speakers to the test of argumentation in planned responses to each priming speaker and in a parliamentary style debate. The symposium was deemed as success. The Oxford setting sponsored an atmosphere supportive of dialogue and civil disagreement necessary to the understanding of the rhetorical tradition’s future.