Food Rhetoric @ RSA2026

Image features the original Portland Public Market building, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

As many scholars head to #RSA2026 this week, here’s a round-up of food-related and food adjacent research being presented this year. A human (Kelli) made this list so there are bound to be errors, so if you are presenting on food rhetorics and would like your own presentation added to this list, please contact me at kellirgill[at]gmail.com.

Yall, this list is long! No complaints here though.

Spotlight Session in Rhetorical Criticism: Food Rhetorics and In/Dignities

4:15 - 5:30pm Friday, 22nd May, 2026

Location Broadway 3

Speakers: Amy M Young, Justin Eckstein, Jennifer L LeMesurier, Donovan Conley, Michael Benjamin

In/Dignities of the Polycrisis: The Anthropocene as Staggered Collapse

8:00 - 9:15am Friday, 22nd May, 2026

Location Duniway - Capt. Gray 2

Speakers: Byron Hawk, John Purfield, Kelsey Chapates, Ian Campbell, Ira Allen

In/Dignity and Indigenous Breastfeeding: Rematriating Relational Infant Feeding Rhetorics through Storytelling

9:30 - 10:45am Friday, 22nd May, 2026

Location Broadway 2

Speaker: Tara Knight

Recognizing Indigenous Dignity: Bringing Indigenous Material Rhetorics into the Classroom

9:30 - 10:45am Friday, 22nd May, 2026

Location Galleria 2

Speaker: Yavanna M Brownlee

Rhetorics of Care + Care-full Rhetoric

9:30 - 10:45am Friday, 22nd May, 2026

Location Grand Ballroom 1

Speakers: Erin D McClellan, Phaedra C. Pezzullo, Millicent Elewosi, Pamela Pietrucci, Joaquin Torre

Wellness as Topoi in the Rhetoric of Health and Medicine

11:00am - 12:15pm Friday, 22nd May, 2026

Location Duniway - Capt. Gray 2

 Speakers: Meredith A. Johnson, Nathan R. Johnson, Paula Mathieu, Justin Eckstein, Catherine Gouge

Dignified Labor: The Legibility (and Performativity) of Feminized Labor

through Technologies

2:45 - 4:00pm Friday, 22nd May, 2026

Location Duniway - Capt. Gray 2

Speakers: Kelsey Alexander, Megan Zahay, Grace Boulanger, Sarah Lawler

Rhetorical Sustainability: Distributions of Rhetorical Energy in Cajun

South Louisiana

2:45 - 4:00pm Friday, 22nd May, 2026

Location Broadway 2

Speaker: Tyler Martinez

Multisensory Critical Rhetorics of Place and Home

2:45 - 4:00pm Friday, 22nd May, 2026

Location Studio

Speakers: Jonathan W Stone, Nathan Wood, Sabiha Ahmad Khan, Bryan Picciotto

Authoritative Blurring: Homesteading, Aesthetics, and Opacity

2:45 - 4:00pm Friday, 22nd May, 2026

Location Parlor B

Speaker: Marissa B Jones

Of Rituals and Rites/Rights

8:00 - 9:15am Saturday, 23rd May, 2026

Location Pavilion West

Speakers: Jackson Tucker, Meg Hultgren, Jimmy Hamill, Timothy Oleksiak

Translation as Rhetorical Mediation: Our Hunger for Justice in the Age of Gen-AI

Nancy Bou Ayash 9:30 - 10:45am Saturday, 23rd May, 2026

Location Pavilion West

Rhetorics of Health through UnMedicine: Purity, Filth, Dignity, and Ableism in Right-Wing Digital Communities

11:00am - 12:15pm Saturday, 23rd May, 2026

Location Parlor B

Speaker: Anwen Jones

The Indignity of Farming in White Ecologies: Precarity in the Hyperobject of Industrial Food Systems

8:00 - 9:15am Sunday, 24th May, 2026

Location Pavilion East

Speaker: Michael Gallaway

Living Like Their Ancestors: Homesteading Tradwives, Settler Colonialism, and Gendered Conservative Aesthetics

8:00 - 9:15am Sunday, 24th May, 2026

Location Executive

Speaker: Emma E Newton