In their 2018 book, On African-American Rhetoric, Keith Gilyard and Adam Banks argue that “African-American Rhetoric is concerned with both the liberation of Black people and their participation in all facets of life in a multi-ethnic, multicultural society. As a field of study, it traces the arc of strategic language use by African-Americans as incorporated in forms such as slave narratives, spirituals, poetry, fiction, speeches, music, film, memes and other forms of online discourse.”

This session seeks abstracts that consider Black rhetorics in the senses Gilyard and Banks describe above and those that consider Black performance rhetorics, such as dance, public appearances, drag, music video, stage/concert performance.

Presentations might, but are not required to, engage with the conference theme by suggesting in what ways Black written and performance rhetorics might be considered surplus (profit, excess, surfeit, leftover, unwanted, leisure).