COURSES AND WORKSHOPS
COURSES AND WORKSHOPS
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ADVANCED INTERNATIONAL SEMINARS OF DISCOURSE STUDIES (AISDS)
The Advanced International Seminars of Discourse Studies (AISDS) is a training program for specialists in various fields of discourse studies open to PhD students and junior and senior researchers in any discipline of the humanities and social sciences. Each seminar centers on a particular area of discourse studies and is conducted by a prominent international scholar in the field. The aim of AISDS is to provide scholars with specialized tranining on the latest theoretical and methodological developments in the field. For each group, a maximum of 25 people will be selected by the seminar faciliator. The small group size allows participants to engage in sophisticated analysis and discussion with the seminar faciliator and the other participants from around the world.
See details below on our upcoming edition of AISDS on the rhetorical analysis of text and discourse. The pre-registration period for this seminar is open until August 25th, 2026.
The Rhetorical Analysis of Text and Discourse
Professor Michael Burke
University College Roosevelt, Utrecht University, The Netherlands
Weekly sessions from 26 October to 30 November 2026 (6 sessions)
Time: 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM (CET/UTC+1)
Fully online
Price: €470 (course certificate included)
Pre-registration deadline: 25 August 2026
Registration deadline for admitted participants: 5 October 2026
Course description:
The Rhetorical Analysis of Text and Discourse has become somewhat neglected in the field of text and discourse studies. The methodological and analytic ideas of Aristotle and Cicero, and many others, are most certainly still useful in the analysis of text and discourse. This seminar will introduce you to these methods and theories.
This seminar is mainly designed for academics and graduate students with specialized knowledge in Language and Discourse Studies. The seminar will especially be of use to scholars working in the fields of discourse analysis, critical discourse analysis, pragmatics, and stylistics. However, it will also be of interest to any scholar working with language and communication in the fields of business, journalism, law, and politics. No knowledge of classical rhetoric is required. Admissions will be limited to 25 scholars from around the world.
Over this six-week seminar, participants will receive training in the Rhetorical Analysis of Text and Discourse, with a focus on how it can be applied in their own research. The focus will be on skills acquisition. Each session will be roughly split between a short lecture followed by group work and discussion. During the course, we will analyze different forms of texts.
Program:
There will be two hours of weekly meetings over a six-week period. The sessions are comprised of combinations of lectures, workshop activities, discussion, and presentations.
Session 1. An introduction to rhetoric and rhetorical analysis: from past to present
Session 2. Aristotle and his logos, ethos and pathos
Session 3. Cicero and his five canons of rhetoric
Session 4. Figures, Virtue and Style
Session 5: Argumentation and fallacious reasoning
Session 6: Modern persuasion theories and models: From framing to influence
About the Professor:
Michael Burke is a Professor of Rhetoric (Utrecht University 2013-2025) and a former Honours Dean (Utrecht University 2016-2021). He is currently teaching in the area of language, communication and leadership at University College Roosevelt (the Netherlands), where he recently won the college ‘teacher of the year’ award (2025). He is also a former Chair of the Poetics and Linguistics Association (PALA, 2010-2012), and he currently serves on the advisory and editorial boards of a number of language journals. Over the past twenty-five years he has published a range of articles and books in the areas of stylistics and rhetoric. These include:
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Burke, M., & Gavins, J. (Eds.) (2025). Style as Motivated Choice: In memory of Peter Verdonk (1934-2021). (Linguistic Approaches to Literature; Vol. 44). John Benjamins.
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Burke, M. (Ed.) (2023). The Routledge Handbook of Stylistics. (2 ed.) New York: Routledge.
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Burke, M., & Vlah, A. (2023). Teaching the enthymeme: On becoming a critical-rhetorical consumer of verbal and visual arguments. In D. Tomić, J. Vlašić Duić, & E. Pletikos Olof (Eds.), Rhetorical Research and Didactics: RHEFINE. Rhetoric for innovative education (pp. 37-55). University of Warsaw
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Burke, M. (2023). Rhetoric and Poetics: The Classical Heritage of Stylistics. In M. Burke (Ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Stylistics (2 ed., pp. 11-31). New York: Routledge.
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Burke, M. (2023). Introduction Stylistics: From Classical Rhetoric to Cognitive Neuroscience. In The Routledge Handbook of Stylistics (2 ed., pp. 1-8). New York: Routledge.
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Burke, M. (2017). Stylistics: Critical Concepts in Linguistics. (Critical Concepts in Linguistics). London: CRC Press / Taylor & Francis Group.
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Burke, M., & Troscianko, E. T. (Eds.) (2017). Cognitive Literary Science: Dialogues Between Literature and Cognition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Burke, M. (2016). Discourse Implicature, Quintilian and the Lucidity Principle: Rhetorical Phenomena in Pragmatics. Topics in Linguistics, 1-16. Article 17/1.
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Burke, M., Fialho, O., & Zyngier , S. (Eds.) (2016). Scientific Approaches to Literature in Learning Environments. (Linguistic approaches to literature; Vol. 24). John Benjamins.
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Burke, M. (2013). The Rhetorical Neuroscience of Style: On the Primacy of Style Elements during Literary Discourse Processing. Journal of Literary Semantics, 42(2), 199-216.
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Burke, M. (2013). Rhetorical Pedagogy: Shaping an Intellectually Critical Citizenry. Utrecht University.
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Burke, M. (2011). Literary Reading, Cognition and Emotion: An Exploration of the Oceanic Mind. London: Routledge.
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Burke, M. (2010). Rhetoric and Persuasion. In P. Hogan (Ed.), The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the Language Sciences (pp. 715-717). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Past Editions of AISDS
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