Panel 2
One prominent dichotomy that appears in much discourse about passion is the pitting of logic or reason against passion or affect. The dichotomy enters discourses about pedagogy in the form of arguments for formal logic in the classroom vs. passionate attempts at persuasion. It enters discourses about journalism and media in the form of rather passionate claims that journalism ought be objective which somehow precludes passion. It enters discourses about communication in the form of scholarship that would theorize passion and communication as separate entities. In your position paper, drawing from the abstracts you submitted, your own or others work, and your particular theoretical position, please elaborate your thoughts on this prominent dichotomy. How are we to understand this troubling relationship between “reason” and “passion” that pervades academic scholarship and everyday discourse? Are they separate entities or emergent from the same social processes? What will the consequences be of maintaining such a dichotomy? What consequences have we already faced as a result? Where might we go from here? In what ways has this dichotomy informed your own work, or in what ways has your work sought to challenge it?