Global Humanities department chair David Mirhady elected as president of the ISHR, 2022–24

At its biennial meeting in August in Nijmegen (Netherlands), the International Society for the History of Rhetoric (ISHR) elected SFU Global Humanities Department Chair David Mirhady as its President for 2022–24.

Mirhady's 2-year appointment means the next international ISHR conference, in 2024, will come to Vancouver where specialists will discuss the entire history of rhetoric! Scholars will come not just from all over North America and Europe, but from the Far East, South America, Africa, and the Near East.

Rhetoric is essentially about persuasive communication, so in its long history, it has influenced many areas, whether as one of the seven liberal arts of the Middle Ages, a guide to stylistic devices, or as the historical basis for the SFU School of Communication. As Mirhady says, "So much of what we understand today as global humanities is touched in one way or another by the history of rhetoric."

About David Mirhady

Mirhady is a specialist on the rhetorical theory and theoreticians of ancient Greece, where the discipline of rhetoric was born and where orators practised it, particularly in the assemblies, law courts, and public festivals of democratic Athens. Mirhady has gained an international reputation for publications on the rhetorical theory of Aristotle and on argumentation surrounding witness testimony and slave torture in Athens' law courts. He also hosts a website on early Greek rhetoric and rhetoricians.