Just Rhetoric: A Selection of Essays from the 21st Biennial Conference of the Rhetoric Society of America

Edited by Stephanie Jones, Gwendolyn D. Pough, and Erin J. Rand Information and Pricing 978-1-64317-520-1 (paperback, $37.95); 978-1-64317-521-8 (PDF, $0); 978-1-64317-522-5 (EPUB, $0) © 2026 by the Rhetoric Society of America and the individual authors. 298 pages, with notes, illustrations, and bibliography. Parlor Press donates all proceeds from sale of the paperback edition to the Rhetoric Society of America. Bookstores: Order by fax, mail, or phone. See our "Sales and Ordering Page" for details. About This Book Just Rhetoric: A Selection of Essays from the 21st Biennial Conference of the Rhetoric Society of America brings together twenty-three innovative essays that reflect the intellectual energy and urgency of the 2024 RSA conference. Edited by Stephanie Jones, Gwendolyn D. Pough, and Erin J. Rand, the volume takes up the conference theme—Just Rhetoric—as both a provocation and a call to action. What does it mean to call something “just rhetoric”? This collection resists the phrase’s dismissiveness and instead reclaims rhetoric as a vital tool for engaging the most pressing issues of our time. Across three thematic sections—rhetorical theory and praxis, media and technology, and movements and communities—contributors demonstrate how rhetorical study illuminates and intervenes in questions of justice, equity, and collective life. The essays traverse global traditions and contemporary contexts, examining African and Islamic rhetorical histories, disability and accessibility, climate change, digital activism, archival recovery, and community-based movements. Contributors attend to the rhetorical dimensions of Black Lives Matter, environmental justice, Indigenous and decolonial practices, and LGBTQ+ advocacy, while also exploring classrooms, writing centers, and digital spaces as sites of rhetorical action. Taken together, these essays present rhetoric as more than critique: it is a creative, analytical, and ethical practice capable of shaping publics, challenging injustice, and imagining new futures. Just Rhetoric offers readers a curated snapshot of current work in the field—work that insists rhetoric has never been “just” anything, but is instead central to how we understand, contest, and remake the world. Contributors include Maha Baddar, James P. Beasley, Mavis Boatemaa Beckson, Abby Breyer, Lindy E. Briggette, Caylie Cox, Quinn Dannies, Heidi L. Eichbauer, J. Moisés García-Rentería, Kiera Gilbert, Byron Hawk, Cody Hunter, Rency Luan, Shiva Mainaly, Keith D. Miller, Lindsey Novak, Jeff Pruchnic, Jessica L. Ridgeway, Marc C. Santos, Susan A. Sci, Nancy Small, Stacey K. Sowards, Emily Stones, and S. J. Williamson. About the Editors Stephanie Jones is Assistant Professor of English in Digital Rhetoric at the University of Oregon. Her PhD is from Syracuse University in Composition and Cultural Rhetoric and Women and Gender Studies. She was awarded the 2021 Geneva Smitherman Award for Research in Black Language, Literacies, Cultures, and Rhetorics from NCTE/CCCC Black Caucus, the 2023 Rhetoric Society of America Dissertation Award, the 2023 NWSA/Routledge Book Series Prize on “Subversive Histories, Feminist Futures,” and the 2024 Provost Inclusive Excellence Scholar at the University of Oregon. Her most recent publication is “Dangerous Moves: On Reclaiming Video Gaming through Black Feminist Rhetoric and Remix” featured in Rhetorica Rising: Feminist Rhetorical Methods for Social Change (University of South Carolina Press). Her research explores Afrofuturist Feminisms, Black Feminist Rhetorical Studies, Black Digital Rhetorics, and Video Game Studies. Gwendolyn D. Pough is Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies, Dean’s Professor of the Humanities, and Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives at Syracuse University. She has published numerous essays, articles, and creative works including the groundbreaking Check It While I Wreck It: Black Womanhood, Hip-Hop Culture and the Public Sphere. She has co-edited several journal special issues and anthologies including the recently released Hip Hop Studies and Queer Black Feminisms. She is also the author of twelve novels and a novella under the pen name Gwyneth Bolton. She is a past Chair of the Conference on College Composition and Communication and the current President of Rhetoric Society of America. Erin J. Rand (she/her) is Associate Professor in Communication and Rhetorical Studies and affiliated with LGBTQ Studies and Women’s and Gender Studies at Syracuse University. Her scholarship examines rhetorics of gender and sexuality in public discourse, focusing particularly on queer and feminist modes of agency, dissent, and social protest. Her work can be found in journals such as Quarterly Journal of Speech, Rhetoric and Public Affairs, Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, QED: A Journal in GLBTQ World Making, and Women’s Studies in Communication. Rand is the author of Minor Troubles: Racial Figurations of Youth Sexuality and Childhood’s Queerness (Ohio State University Press, 2025) and Reclaiming Queer: Activist and Academic Rhetorics of Resistance (University of Alabama Press, 2014). Rand serves on the Board of Directors of the Rhetoric Society of America.