While words may elicit mental images, pictures act directly on our sensibilities by actually placing events visually in front of us, as if they were in fact unfolding before our eyes, says Jens Kjeldsen.

This ability to create presence is one of the qualities he will explore in a free public lecture Thursday entitled “Four Rhetorical Potentials of Images.”

A professor of rhetoric at Norway’s University of Bergen and Sweden’s Södertörn University, Kjeldsen is also president of the Rhetoric Society of Europe.

His lecture, one of two campus appearances this week sponsored by the Centre for Research in Reasoning, Argumentation and Rhetoric, is set for April 25 at 2 p.m. in room 209, Essex Hall.

A workshop in the same location on Friday, April 26, from 1 to 4 p.m. will feature:

• Kjeldsen speaking on “Virtues of Visual Argumentation;”
• Leo Groarke on “Going Multi-modal: What is a Mode of Argument and Why does it Matter?” and
• J. Anthony Blair on “Is Visual Logic Different?”

A discussion will follow each program.