Interdisciplinary Genre Studies Network

Workshop one

Genre: theory and methodology

6 October 2012

Organised by

The University of Birmingham

in cooperation with

Birmingham City Library

Preliminary Programme

09:30            Coffee and Registration

10:00             Welcome: Dr Natasha Rulyova, the University of Birmingham, UK, the organiser of the AHRC-funded Genre Studies Network (September 2012-June 2013)          

10:15             Guest speaker: Sam Leith, London, UK, an award-nominated columnist, novelist and journalist, the author of the book You Talkin' To Me?: Rhetoric from Aristotle to Obama (London: Profile Books Ltd., 2011). He regularly contributes to

 The Spectator, The Wall Street Journal Europe, The Evening Standard, The Prospect and The Guardian.

11:00             Speaker: Prof. Carolyn Miller, SAS Institute Distinguished Professor of Rhetoric and Technical Communication at North Carolina State University, USA

(See her seminal essay on genre ‘Genre as Social Action’, Quarterly Journal of Speech 70 (May 1984): 151–167; her other publications on digital rhetoric, rhetorical theory, genre and other subjects can be found at: http://www4.ncsu.edu/~crmiller/publications.htm)

12:00             Lunch

13:00 Speaker: Dr Garin Dowd (the University of West London, UK) has written about genre theory and the genre in the work of Samuel Beckett; he has also co-edited (with L. Stevenson and J. Strong) Genre Matters: Essays in Theory and Criticism (Bristol: Intellect Books, 2006) (for further info see his website at: http://www.research.uwl.ac.uk/staffprofiles/view_profile.aspx?email=garin.dowd@uwl.ac.uk)

14:00 Speaker: Dr Natasha Artemeva (Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada) has published many articles on genre analysis and co-edited (with Aviva Freedman)  Rhetorical Genre Studies and Beyond (Winnipeg, University of Manitoba: Inkshed Publications, 2008) (website for further info see her at: http://http-server.carleton.ca/~nartemev/)

15:00 Coffee Break

15:15 Roundtable: What informs our judgement about the genre of a text?

16:45 Concluding Remarks

If you wish to attend please contact Natasha Rulyova at n.e.rulyova@bham.ac.uk