One of the hallmarks of Kenneth Burke’s work is a deep-rooted suspicion of entrenched antagonism, of the bitterly contested either/or. Confronting a Western tradition mired in dualisms, and a social world fractured along binaristic lines, Burke traced these all-too-common symptoms to their source in the human symbolic condition and, not content simply with this diagnosis, he also sought a cure: the disciplined cultivation of transcendence via “ultimate” terms (A Rhetoric of Motives 186-89). As Burke writes in Attitudes Toward History, “When approached from a certain point of view, A and B are ‘opposites.’ We mean by ‘transcendence’ the adoption of another point of view from which they cease to be opposites” (336). Although inspired in part by his reading of Plato, Burke’s vision of transcendence avoids the pitfalls of the transcendental, but instead is grounded solidly in the necessity of our embodied symbolicity. In Burke’s skilled hands, transcendence becomes not the elimination of perspective, of partisanship, but the embrace of transcendence by perspective—because only by rigorously acknowledging the symbolic nature of perspective can we move beyond the stagnant stalemate of reified social, political, and philosophical binaries.

This theme calls on conference participants to explore the relevance of Burkean thought for the transcendence of conflicts, whether enduring (as in the American “racial divide”) or ephemeral (as in the humanitarian crises of today). Over the course of the convention, a combination of keynote speakers, featured presenters, and seminar leaders will engage in their various incarnations the pressures of symbolicity, the multiple dimensions of perspective, and the possibilities of transcendence.

Featuring diverse opportunities for engagement with Burke’s enduring relevance, the seventh triennial expects to continue the interdisciplinary tradition of past triennials, with participation by scholars from communication, rhetoric, literary theory, sociology, American studies, critical/cultural studies, and theology (among other fields). Most triennials have produced books of conference proceedings and all have promoted work by their participants leading to important articles and books on Burkean subjects.