MEDIA CONTACT: Polly Burks
561-297-2595, pburks@fau.edu

FAU Hosts 11th Biennial Wake Forest Argumentation Conference

BOCA RATON, FL (January 30, 2006) - Florida Atlantic University will host the 11th biennial Wake Forest Argumentation Conference from Thursday, February 16 through Saturday, February 18 in the Nursing Building on FAU's Boca Raton campus, 777 Glades Road. The conference theme is "Contemporary Perspectives on Argumentation," and will feature 10 free public lectures by internationally recognized argumentation scholars.

The keynote address, "Coming to Grips with Strategic Maneuvering in Argumentative Discourse," will be presented by Frans van Eemeren on Thursday, February 16 at 7 p.m. Eemeren is a professor in the department of speech communication, argumentation theory and rhetoric at the University of Amsterdam and director of the research program 'Argumentation in discourse' at the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis. A reception will follow the lecture.

Lectures on Friday include "When Foundations Fail: Argument without Institutions of Fact" with James Klumpp of the University of Maryland; "Argument Complexity, Controversy and the Cybersphere" with G. Thomas Goodnight of the University of Southern California; "From Public Noise to Public Deliberation: Framing and Reframing Argumentative Discourse in the Public Sphere" with Veleria Fabj of Lynn University and Matthew J. Sobnosky of Hofstra University; and "Argumentation Schemes and the Ontological Consequences of Integrative Argumentative Moves," with Laszlo Komlosi of the University of Pecs.

Saturday lectures include "Argumentation and Democracy: Is There Any Hope?" with J. Anthony Blair of Windsor University; and "Argument from Definition and the Liberty/Security Trade-off in the Post-Cold War World," with Marilyn J. Young of Florida State University.

The conference is sponsored by the FAU department of communication and the comparative studies program in the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters. For further information, call David Williams, conference director and associate professor in FAU's department of communication, at 561-297-0045 or dcwill@fau.edu.

- FAU -