CALL FOR PAPERS:
POROI invites authors to submit to a special issue that develops the theme of “Impact.” Extending conversations, experiments, arguments, and lines of thought from ARSTM’s 2026 preconference at RSA, we invite papers from all authors pursuing research projects that question, for example,
* How should rhetorical scholars conceptualize “impact” and assess the public reach of scientific knowledge and practice at a time when widespread misinformation drives public skepticism of science?
* What can rhetorical histories about the rhetoric of science, technology, and medicine add to cross-disciplinary initiatives aimed at expanding understandings of “impact” in the sciences specifically and the modern academic research enterprise generally?
* How should we reconceptualize “impact” in ways that address ongoing inequities in how research is supported, rewarded, and shared?
* How can our institutions support forms of research that are high-impact (community-engaged scholarship, for example) but traditionally unrewarded by standard metrics of academic success and promotion?
* What extant rhetorical theories and traditions might assist in studying science’s impact, and what does our research add to those theories and traditions?
Impact, ARSTM’s 2026 RSA preconference examined, can function like a “god term” in knowledge production, invoking a mandatory, much-sought but ill-defined good. Universities want more and more impact, often defined by the number of citations accrued by the most prestigious scientists. But counter-movements to this reductive understanding of impact are underway. For example, the Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) emphasizes the limitations of citation counts as a measure of research quality and enjoins global stakeholders to seek alternative measurements of scholarly impact that achieve “consistency and transparency” and “directly address the structural inequalities in academia.” This special issue of POROI will take up this theme, extending rhetoricians’ long-standing interest in the question of why particular forms of scientific research gain broad public impact and others receive little to no attention.
How can we interrogate the measures currently used to evaluate research and community engagement? How can we articulate more just rubrics for distributing institutional resources, with specific attention to inequities arising from race-, gender-, geography-, and class-based disparities in scholarly publishing? How can scientists reach cynical and distracted public audiences? And how can we, as rhetoricians, broaden our sense of which audiences our work can and should attempt to impact?
As these questions suggest, rhetorical scholars have a lot to offer conversations about impact, and the discipline may benefit if we intervene in them. In theoretical terms, a rhetorical perspective on “impact” may further illuminate the term as it intersects with such concepts as kairos; magnitude or megethos; scale; telos; power and rhetorical force, among others. If rhetoric is, as Thomas Farrell wrote, “the art, the fine and useful art, of making things matter,” then what does an examination of the many uses of “impact” offer rhetoricians of science, technology, and medicine? In line with counter-movements such as DORA, as rhetorical scholars, we can work to expand impact to encompass broader means of assessing scholarly work’s value, including its impact on students as well as other community stakeholders.
We pursue these ideas at a moment of unprecedented instability in the scientific enterprise. As we question the relationship between “impact” and knowledge production, we ask foundational questions about the role of science, technology, and medicine amidst a global rise of mistrust in experts and anti-science conspiracy. In the US context, as national grants for scientific research continue to be dismantled and research agendas that violate executive dictates are pushed out of the academy, researchers now face potentially career-ending questions about whether to produce scientific scholarship with potentially important communal impacts or to settle for researching politically safe topics. In short: even as this special issue addresses familiar questions to the RSTM sub-field, it intends to do so while facing the unique exigencies of our contemporary polycrisis.
Submission Guidelines:
We welcome a wide range of submission formats, including traditional academic essays of at least 2000 words, multimedia projects, video or audio essays, interactive digital work, and other experimental forms that push the boundaries of rhetorical scholarship. Submissions are due by August 15th. Proposals should be submitted through POROI’s submission system, with a note saying the submission is for the special issue on impact: [https://pubs.lib.uiowa.edu/poroi/submit/start/](https://pubs.lib.uiowa.edu/poroi/submit/start/).
For reference, you can find the journal’s style guide here: (https://pubs.lib.uiowa.edu/poroi/site/styleguide/).
For inquiries, contact Benjamin Firgens at b.a.firgens.
DUSTIN A. GREENWALT
Assistant Professor
HE/HIM/HIS
SCHOOL OF COMMUNICATION STUDIES
MAIL CODE 6605
SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY
2002A COMMUNICATIONS BUILDING 1100 LINCOLN DRIVE
CARBONDALE, ILLINOIS 62901
Dustin.Greenwalt