PHOTO: View of Koper Harbor from my hotel room at the Hotel Koper.

The International Conference on Argumentation, Rhetoric, Debate and the Pedagogy of Empowerment THINKING AND SPEAKING A BETTER WORLD held in Koper, Slovenia began last Friday and ended Sunday afternoon.

Over 120 paid participants including over 80 presenters attended the event, and consisted of argumentation scholars, debate scholars and enthusiasts, pedagogy experts and teachers from 18 different nations, including Iran, Singapore, Hong Kong, USA and many European nations among others. The conference featured panels along three different tracks - argumentation, debate and pedagogy.  The keynote videos will be posted at http://debate.uvm.edu/debateblog/doctortuna/VideoBlog/VideoBlog.html

Friday featured the argumentation keynote by Peter Houtlosser of the Netherlands, panels and a reception featuring wines and delicious snacks from the region of Primorska.

<== Bahador Sedeghi of Iran and Steve Woods of the USA

Saturday was a full day of conference events, including many panels, the pedagogy keynote by Alfred Snider of the USA (me), and a wonderful banquet at the Gostilona Hvartini that overlooks the beautiful Koper harbor from high atop a hill. Attendees faced the challenge of eating all the food in the many course meal, but delicious local wines helped the process. The fellowship was loud, enthusiastic and genuine.

Sunday was notable because so many people were out of bed and attending the early morning sessions. Steve Woods of the USA gave the debate keynote. More panels and then there was a session held by editors of the Controversia and Argumentation journals. Finally, the closing ceremony was held and even then nearly 80 people were still going strong.

There was a decided interdisciplinary feel at the conference, as those who came for one area attended and enjoyed sessions in the others. Extremely interesting panels made the event a rigorous intellectual experience.

<== The Koper Museum, the main venue

Here is an alphabetical list of the presentations by author’s last name:

THEODORA ACHOURIOTI

Netherlands

IN DEFENSE OF NORMATIVE THEORIES OF ARGUMENTATION

GREGOR ADLEŠIČ

Slovenia

THE USE OF CASUISTRY IN SOLVING OF ETHICAL DILEMMAS IN HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL STUDIES

BILAL AMJARSO

Netherlands

Addressing anticipated countermoves as a form of strategic manoeuvring

RUTH AMOSSY

Israel

Constructing an ethos of war witness and responsible citizen in WWI: Ethos reconsidered

CORINA ANDONE

Netherlands

The Strategy of Pointing Out an Inconsistency: Some Variants

ROK AVBAR

Slovenia

History: a modest contribution to a better world

ROZALIA BAKO, GIZELLA HORVATH AND TUNDE SZABO

Romania

ENHANCING SOCIAL COMMUNICATION THROUGH DEBATE

HENRIK BOHLIN

Sweden

THE PARADOX OF CRITICAL THINKING

HENRIK BOHLIN, MARIA WOLRATH SÖDERBERG, ANDERS ULLHOLM AND ANDERS BURMAN

Sweden

Critical Thinking for a Pluralistic University

MOJCA SCHLAMBERGER BREZAR

Slovenia

The connection between topoi and connectives in French political debates

<== Lobby at Koper Museum

VILMA BRODNIK

Slovenia

DEBATE TECHNIQUES IN THE HISTORY CLASSROOM

ANNE M. CANAVAN

USA

DEBATE AND COMPOSITION: STRANGE BEDFELLOWS?

BOSTJAN DEBELAK

Slovenia

RHETORIC AND DISCUSSION IN THE NEW SCHOOL SYSTEM

EMMANUELLE DANBLON AND GALIA YANOSHEVSKY

Belgium and Israel

The Educational Force of the Universal Audience

EMMANUEL DE JONGE

Belgium

Disenchantment, resentment and inaction: a new form of revolutionary ideal? The rhetoric and argumentation of altermondialist discourses.

JERNEJA DOMAJNKO
Slovenia
Influence of debating on argumentation practice

LOKE WING FATT &  CHEONG EN MIN

Singapore

Assisting Inter-Tertiary Debaters

LOKE WING FAT & HEWLENS WONG

Singapore

Asian debate format -  an evaluation

ANDREAS FELTEN

Germany

DEBATE IN GERMAN CLASSROOMS – THE NEED OF: 1. A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF DEBATE AND ITS BENEFITS AND 2. NEW FORMATS

MIHA GARTNER

Slovenia

Using debate in the second d and third class Gymnazija

ANCA GATA

Romania

Political Police in the Romanian Public Sphere: Contemporary Controversies and Representations

VIOLETA GERDEN

Slovenia

REFORMS OF MARIA THERESA AND JOSEPH THE SECOND WERE GOOD FOR SLOVENIAN PEASANTS

MATEJA GLUŠIČ LENARČIČ

Slovenia

Can debate be useful when teaching English in secondary schools?

MATEJA GODEC

Slovenia

INTRODUCING DEBATE AND DEBATE TECHNIQUES IN THE CURRICULUM AT HIGH SCHOOL GIMNAZIJA FRANCA MIKLOŠIČA LJUTOMER

SAM GREENLAND

Hong Kong

Comparative approached to debate training

A. FRANCISCA SNOECK HENKEMANS

Netherlands

Manoeuvring strategically with metonymy in the confrontation and argumentation stages of a discussion

SCOTT HERNDON

USA

The importance of arguing about political process

MICHAEL HOPPMANN AND  KARSTEN STÖLZGEN

Germany

TEACHING RHETORIC IN A PLAYFUL WAY

HEDVIKA DERMOL HVALA

Slovenia

LACK OF RHETORIC SKILLS IN SLOVENE POPULATION

HENRIKE JANSEN

Netherlands

Argument form and rhetorical effectiveness - Reductio ad absurdum as a presentational device

 

EDELMAN JURINČIČ

SLOVENIA

The Introducing Debate Training in Boarding schools

GORAZD JURMAN

Slovenia

Debating and the philosophy class

PRIMOZ KARNAR

Slovenia

Transition from Debating in Karl Popper to British Parliamentary Debate Format

CARL L. KELL

USA

The rhetoric of success – master arguments of western culture

PAVEL KOLTAJ

Slovenia

Transcribing children's argumentation

DANIELA KOZLOVIC

Slovenia

DEBATE AS A PHILOSOPHICAL PASSAGE TO THE OTHER

LILIAN BERMEJO LUQUE

Spain

The Ad Baculum as a fallacy. False vs. bad argumentation

NATAŠA MAKOVECKI

Slovenia

RHETORIC IN ENGLISH LESSONS IN A THREE-YEAR VOCATIONAL PROGRAMME IN  SECONDARY EDUCATION: Experiences from teaching practice

TAMARA MALEŠEVIČ
Slovenia

DE BONO'S LESSONS FOR IMPROVING THINKING EFFECTIVENESS IN THE CONTEXT OF SLOVENIA’S SCHOOLS 

ANITA MIRJANIČ

Slovenia

RHETORIC IN THE MIDDLE SCHOOL - STIMULATING THE ARGUMENTATION

<== Jerneja Domajnko, Sam Greenland, Chris Burk, Peter Mesarec, Sam Nelson, James Thomas after the closing ceremonies

ANITA MIRJANIČ

Slovenia

PHILOSOPHY FOR THE CHILDREN IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS –Encouraging the critical thinking

MIRJANA MISKOVIC-LUKOVIC
Serbia

Constructing a national identity: The politics of representation in the Serbian public discourse

DIMA MOHAMMED

Netherlands/Palestine

Public debate as an argumentative activity type: a pragma-dialectical perspective

SAM NELSON

USA

The "desportification" of debate: Stop making points, start building arguments.

SAM NELSON, JAMES THOMAS & ADAM BARRY

USA

Debate in the prison

BOGOMIR NEMEC

Slovenia

THE DEATH OF CAESAR BROUGHT THE POSSIBILITY FOR FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

EITHAN ORKIBI

Israel

The Ethos of responsibility in student discourse on better society

The case of the French student movement during the Algerian War (1954-1962)

GEORGIOS PAPAGOUNOS AND MANOLIS POLYCHRONIDES

Greece

Teaching argumentation to health care professionals.

TANJA PLEVNIK

Slovenia

DEVELOPING FROM THE TEACHER AS THE WORKER TO THE TEACHER AS THE INTELLECTUAL

LEAH E. POLCAR

Netherlands

Using questions and answers in a critical discussion:  The reconstruction of question-answer discourse as argumentative discourse

MANOLIS POLYCHRONIDES

Greece

Testing whether debating as an extracurricular activity promotes democratic values and skills

DIANA-ELENA POPA
Romania
The Discourse of Culture in the Romanian Public Sphere

BORIS RADOSAVLJEVIČ

Slovenia

LONG DEBATE FORMATS

ZORA RUTAR

Slovenia

THREE LEVELS OF ASSURING COMPLEX AND CRITICAL THINKING

BAHADOR SADEGHI

Iran

The Pragmatic Analysis of Speech Acts Produced by Iranian EFL Students: Politeness in Focus

ANJA SERC

Slovenia

Interplay of rhetorical theory and discourse theory

NORSHIMA ZAINAL SHAH

Ireland

Critical Thinking and Language skills as components of employability of Malaysian Computer Science Graduates

LIDIJA ŠKET

Slovenia

FROM THE STORY TO THE CONVERSATION AND FROM THE CHILDREN’S  PHILOSOPHY TO CRITICAL THINKING

BOJANA SKRT, MATEJA GLUŠIČ LENARČIČ, NINA CERKVENIK, ANJA ŠERC, EDIN SARAČEVIĆ,, ANDREJA ŠUT, DUŠICA DOBERŠEK, PRIMOŽ KARNAR

Slovenia

TEN YEARS OF SLOVENIAN DEBATE

ALFRED SNIDER

USA

Internet debating – dissolving the tyranny of distance

<== Lobby in Koper Museum

MARIA WOLRATH SÖDERBERG

Sweden

Topical learning

TANJA STERGAR

Slovenia

Mini-debate and “balloon” formats

KARMEN ŠTERK

Slovenia

Argumentation between science and madness

ELISSA TAWITIAN AND IRENA PARADŽIK

Slovenia

DIFFERENCES IN USING DEBATE FORMATS IN ELEMENTARY IN AND IN HIGH SCHOOL HISTORY CLASSES

ASSIMAKIS TSERONIS

Netherlands

Qualification of a standpoint as a means to manage the burden of proof: the case of frankly and in fact

JAMES THOMAS

USA

LET THE SPORT CONTINUE: RESPONSE TO SAM NELSON’S CALL TO “DESPORTIFY” COMPETITIVE DEBATING

YVON TONNARD

Netherlands
How to identify strategic manoeuvring: the case of ignoring a standpoint

ANDERS ULLHOLM

Sweden

Unprincipled Critical Thinking

JAN ALBERT VAN LAAR

Netherlands

The consequences of advancing a standpoint.

TANJA RUPNIK VEC

Slovenia

METACOGNITION AND CRITICAL THINKING

BORIS VEZJAK

Slovenia

ARGUMENTATION IN SLOVENIAN POLITICS

IRENA BABIČ VREČAR

Slovenia 

EXPERIENCE GAINED BY TEACHING PROFESSIONALS – THEORETICAL SUBJECTS

DAVID CRATIS WILLIAMS

USA

Argumentatively Competent Citizens:  Building Blocks of Democracy

STEVEN WOODS

USA

Topicality and the Social Contract: Establishing Boundaries for Meaning or Competition?

STEVEN WOODS

USA

A Defense of Dissent: A Rhetorical Examination of the Undermining of Free Speech in Democracy

STEVEN WOODS & KORRY HARVEY

USA

Valuing Value Debate

<== Presentation in the Koper Museum main hall

STEVEN WOODS & KORRY HARVEY

USA

CASCAID: Advocacy beyond the Academy-Creating a Conference of Community

IGOR ZAGAR
Slovenia
Rhetoric in the new Slovene elementary school curriculum

VESNA ŽINKO
Slovenia

THE INDEPENDENCE OF SLOVENIA HAS MORE POSSIBILITIES FOR DEVELOPMENT THAN IN YUGOSLAVIA

JANJA ZMAVC

Slovenia

Ethos and pathos in Anaximenes' Rhetorica ad Alexandrum

Zdravko Zupančič

Slovenia

LECTURES EX CATHEDRA DO NOT EXIST 

MAJOR SPONSORS OF THE EVENT

University of Primorska, Faculty of Humanities, Koper

Educational Research Institute, Slovenia

ZIP – Pro and Contra, Institute for a Culture of Dialogue, Slovenia

World Debate Institute, University of Vermont

National Educational Institute, Republic of Slovenia

PROGRAM COMMITTEE

Argumentation:

Igor Zagar, Educational Research Institute and University of Primorska, Slovenia

Frans van Eemeren, Department of Speech Communication, Argumentation Theory and Rhetoric, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands

David Cratis Williams, Florida Atlantic University, USA

Debate:

Alfred Snider, World Debate Institute, University of Vermont, USA

Virginija Paksiene, Informal Education Debate Center, Lithuania

Omar Salahuddin. Multimedia University, Malaysia

Pedagogy:

Bojana Skrt, ZIP, Slovenia

Zora Rutar, National Education Institute, Slovenia

Maxwell Schnurer, Department of Communication, Humboldt State University, USA

<== At the banquet

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE:

Igor Zagar, Educational Research Institute and University of Primorska, Slovenia

Bojana Skrt, ZIP, Slovenia

Alfred Snider, World Debate Institute, University of Vermont, USA

The Organizing Committee wishes to extend special gratitude to:

Igor Bavcar, Istrabenz, main sponsor; Vesna Mikholic, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, premises; Tina Novak Pucer, Director Regional Museum Koper, premises; Beatriz Tomsic Cerkez, design; Matjaz Golobinek, SOLOS, printing; Zora Rutar, publicity; Jerneja Domajnko, Peter Mesarec, Anja Serc, Primoz Karnar, registration and assistance.