The Project on Rhetoric of Inquiry (POROI) is an interdisciplinary institute for research and public engagement housed at the Obermann Center at the University of Iowa. Its mission is to explore how scholarship and professional discourses are conducted through argument, how paradigms of knowledge are sensitive to social-political contexts, and how the presentation of scholarly and professional findings involves the recognition and negotiation of audiences.
Since its founding in 1980, POROI has provided resources for strengthening academic inquiry, creativity, and communication in the arts, humanities, sciences and professions. It is especially interested in communicative opportunities and problems that arise at the intersections between disciplines as well as between academia and diverse publics. In these respects, POROI applies the art of rhetoric to the conduct of inquiry. Its concerns range from the invention and construction of arguments to a marked interest in how discourse is interpreted, received, and disseminated in both technical and public spheres of argumentation. POROI is a constituent participant in Iowa’s Writing University Initiative.
The POROI Journal examines the rhetoric of knowledge production in and across venues, sites and disciplines; the ways knowledge flows between technical, public and personal spheres; and inquiry's argumentation, dissemination, reception and lived practices.
Executive Director
Naomi Greyser
Rhetoric; English
Executive Committee
Kembrew McLeod
Communication Studies
Deborah Whaley
American Studies, Program in African American Studies
Board of Directors
David Cunning
Philosophy
Frank Durham
School of Journalism and Mass Communication
Gigi Durham
Gender, Women's and Sexuality Studies; School of Journalism and Mass Communication
Deirdre Egan
Department of Rhetoric, Writing Center
Natalie Fixmer-Oraiz
Communication Studies
David Hingstman
Communication Studies
Jiyeon Kang
Communication Studies
John Nelson
Political Science
Thomas Oates
School of Journalism and Mass Communication
Iulian Vamanu
School of Library and Information Science
Travis Vogan
American Studies
Emily Wentzell
Anthropology
Founding Members
Deirdre McCloskey
Distinguished Professor of Economics, History, English, and Communications, University of Illinois at Chicago
Allan Megill
Professor of History, University of Virginia
John Nelson
Political Science
Friends and Former Board Members
James Elmborg
School of Information and Library Science
James Throgmorton, Emeritus
School of Urban and Regional Planning
Former Executive Directors
David Depew, Emeritus
Communication Studies
John Nelson
Political Science