Abstract
The Kenneth Burke Society was founded during Burke’s lifetime by scholars in communication, literature, sociology, and other fields to promote the study and application of Burke’s copious works and fertile ideas. Burke had become the leading writer on rhetorical theory in the twentieth century, as well as a notable literary critic, fiction writer, poet, and translator. His century of scholarly publication—including posthumous works twenty-five years after his death in 1993—have provided plenty for members of the Society to analyze, debate, and elaborate upon. The Society has sponsored triennial conferences in the United States since 1990, featuring notable keynote speakers, seminars in various topics led by Burke scholars, and social events, including music performances by Burke’s talented family. The Society also has supported an online journal, a number of edited books drawn from its conferences, a listserv, and a newsletter (now discontinued). It is affiliated with a half-dozen other scholarly organizations. Most members of the Society are in the United States and Canada, where the study of rhetoric has grown in importance particularly during the latter part of the twentieth century (with Burke’s help) and up until the present. Recently, interest in rhetoric and in Burke has returned to Europe, which developed rhetorical theory and made it a central art in public education for more than 2000 years. The first “Burke” conference in Europe was held in 2013. The Kenneth Burke Society has made outreach to Europe a central goal in its future development.
Highlights
The Kenneth Burke Society was founded during Burke’s lifetime by scholars in communication, literature, sociology, and other fields to promote the study and application of Burke’s copious works and fertile ideas
The Society has sponsored triennial conferences in the United States since 1990, featuring notable keynote speakers, seminars in various topics led by Burke scholars, and social events, including music performances by Burke’s talented family
Most members of the Society are in the United States and Canada, where the study of rhetoric has grown in importance during the latter part of the twentieth century and up until the present
Summary
11 The third issue of the Kenneth Burke Society Newsletter included notes about some of these affiliations, as well as minutes from some of their meetings (October 1987). Bertelson of Bloomsburg University (Pennsylvania) took over as newsletter editor in 1989 in time to announce the first triennial Kenneth Burke Conference would be in a quaint little 19th Century religious colony in New Harmony, Indiana in 1990. Bernie Brock, who was the first to introduce Burke’s pentadic method in a rhetorical criticism textbook, edited the volume from the Airlie, Virginia conference, Kenneth Burke and the 21st Century.. Greig Henderson and David Cratis Williams edited the volume from the Duquesne conference, Unending Conversations: New Writings by and about Kenneth Burke, which included unpublished work by Burke..
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