Octalogs I, II, and III (1988; 1997; 2010) have become important touchstones in our field, offering myriad perspectives concerning histories of rhetoric and rhetorical studies. In “Rhetorical Historiography and the Octalogs,” a reflection on all three Octalogs published in Rhetoric Review in 2011, James J. Murphy asks: “What will be the concerns of the speakers in the [next] session?” (240).

Octalog IV was originally intended to be presented at the 2020 Conference on College Communication and Composition (CCCC)—exactly ten years since Octalog III—but a global pandemic put all of that hold, amid other volatile events that punctuated 2020 with escalating police violence against people of color, continued mass shootings, and political insurrection, among others. While the last three Octalogs have focused primarily on historiography and histories of rhetoric, the panelists of Octalog IV broadens the scope by examining how we study, teach, and “do” rhetoric in the current political contexts that face us all.