"[1][2] The Society is composed of scholars from various disciplines who study rhetoric's history, theory, public practice, and pedagogical methods.
[3] The RSA was established in 1968, by directors that included Edward P. J. Corbett, Wayne C. Booth and Richard Hughes, introducing innovative programs and courses in rhetoric.
The learned societies of ACLS are national or international organizations in the humanities and related social sciences, accepted on the basis of their "substantial, distinctive, and distinguished contribution" to humanistic scholarship.
In other words, like the promoters of the RTE, the members of the RSA and its journal provided both an institutional forum and intellectual traditions that had the potential to galvanize the emerging discipline of rhetoric and composition within departments of English.
[7] An associate professor at the University of Texas at Arlington, Kneupper organized the society's national conferences until his death in 1989.