The Third International Conference on Argumentation, Rhetoric, Debate and the Pedagogy of Empowerment, Thinking and Speaking a Better World, concluded in Maribor, Slovenia on Sunday 24 October 2010. The conference featured scholars, experts and enthusiasts from nineteen countries.
During the sessions there were over 50 papers presented on a variety of topics. There were two keynote speeches, one by Debbie Newman (former president of the Cambridge Union, England and Wales debate champion, former head of the English Speaking Union's Centre for Speech and Debate, and world champion schools coach for England) from the UK on "The Noisy Classroom" and one from Sam Greenland (Sydney University, WUDC semifinalist, current World Debating Council President) on "Measuring Debate's Impact on Classroom Performance."
Eighty attendees spent three days sharing ideas, scholarship and fellowship while networking on future projects. A major panel discussion on "Cultural Variation - Debate and Argument" had participants from Yemen, Morocco, Hungary, Venezuela, Japan, UK and USA. There was a lavish banquet on Saturday night and productive discussions during the twenty panel sessions that were held.
Papers from this conference as well as the 2006 and 2008 events will be published in a volume entitled Thinking and Speaking a Better World edited by Alfred Snider of the University of Vermont and David Cratis Williams of Florida Atlantic University due out at the end of 2011.
Videos of many of the presentations, both keynotes, and the panel discussion on culture will be available in coming weeks at the conference websites.
There will be an announcement soon about the fourth and next conference.
Further details can be found at the conference websites:
Basic information at http://debate.uvm.edu/debateblog/better/Welcome.html
News blog at http://betterworldconference.blogspot.com/
The conference was organized by the Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, University of Maribor in Slovenia http://www.uni-mb.si/ , ZIP, Za in proti, zavod za kulturo dialoga/Pro et contra, institute for culture of dialogue http://www.zainproti.com/ , and the World Debate Institute of the University of Vermont http://debate.uvm.edu/debateblog/wdi/Welcome.html .
The organizers are grateful for the support of our sponsor QatarDebate http://www.qatardebate.org/ .
Thanks to organizers Boris Vezjak, Alfred Snider and Bojana Skrt. Special thanks to Peter Mesarec, Monica Sobocan and Aljoša Polšak.
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