The Public Address Conference has met biennially at the nation’s premier sites of rhetoric study for nearly 25 years.

Held during several days, the event assembles national leaders in the study of rhetoric and public address. Although it has undergone changes from time to time, its basic structure has remained the same: A series of lectures, each followed by formal responses from a select group of scholars and extended periods of question and answer from attendees.

Past themes have included: “Discourse of Violence, Discourses of Community” (2002, University of Georgia), “Constituting Political Culture” (2004, University of Maryland), “Arts of Praise and Blame” (2006, Vanderbilt University), “Representing the Republic (2008, University of Wisconsin), and “Human Rights Rhetoric” (2010, University of Pittsburgh). 

Conceived by the late Michael Leff, former chair of the Department of Communication at the University of Memphis, and David Zarefsky, professor emeritus in the Department of Communication Studies at Northwestern University's School of Communication, the conference first met at the University of Wisconsin in 1988.