Feminisms and Rhetorics 2025 Decisions Are Out

Hi, everyone!

We received hundreds of proposals for this year’s conference, which were reviewed by members of the Coalition, past FemRhet conference participants, and members of UNH’s conference committee in consultation with anti-racist reviewing processes. Thank you to everyone who submitted and/or reviewed proposals. A huge thanks to the Conference Planning Committee for overseeing this process and keeping us organized. The Conference Planning Committee is:

  • Chair: Patrick Thomas
  • Holly Anderson
  • Cristy Beemer
  • Moushumi Biswas
  • Erica Cirillo McCarthy
  • Rhea Lathan

For everyone who was invited to present, please complete the following steps:

1. To accept or decline this invitation, please complete the Invitation Acceptance form here no later than March 1, 2025. This form should be completed by all presenters. If you cannot accept this invitation, please select the “decline” on the Invitation Acceptance form by March 1st. (Direct link to invitation acceptance form: https://forms.gle/8a7wK67LByAYSQPK7)

2. Please note that to reserve your place in the program, online registration will be available in April through our conference website: https://femrhet2025.cfshrc.org/

Accessibility Guide: conference planners are hard at work composing the accessibility guide for the conference. It will be available to attendees as soon as it is completed.

If you have any questions about the conference, please direct them to the 2025 Feminisms and Rhetorics Conference Committee:  feminismsandrhetorics@gmail.com. 

Best wishes,

Becca Richards, President CFSHRC

Lisa Ede Mentoring Award: Call for Nominations

Please consider submitting a nomination for the Lisa Ede Mentoring Award. See the details regarding nomination below!

LISA EDE MENTORING AWARD

The Lisa Ede Mentoring Award is presented biennially in odd years to an individual or group with a career-long record of mentorship. In this case, “mentoring” can include formal and informal advising of students and colleagues; leadership in campus, professional and/or local communities; and other activities that align with the overall mission and goals of the Coalition. The award carries an honorarium of $200 per person or $500 for a group of three or more people and is announced at the Feminisms & Rhetorics Conference.

Please see the award description for eligibility criteria, previous award winners, and nomination/application details.

Applications are due April 4, 2025.

Feel free to contact me (jenoch1@umd.edu) with any questions. I look forward to receiving your nominations and applications!

You’re Invited: Graduate Engagement Committee Feminist Coalition Open House (1/21 OR 1/22)

Dear Graduate Students,

Please join us for one of our forthcoming Graduate Engagement Committee CFSHRC Open House sessions either January 21st (10 am PT/12pm CT/1pm EST) or 22nd (4 pm PT/6pm CT/7pm EST). Each one-hour session is informal and designed to let you meet members of the Coalition and other graduate students interested in intersectional feminist work across Writing and Rhetoric Studies, as well as to learn about the Coalition’s resources, opportunities, and emphases.

There is nothing to prepare! Just rsvp for the zoom link, and we’ll look forward to seeing you. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to one of our co-chairs, Erin Green (egreen11@umd.edu) or Kate Pantelides (kate.pantelides@mtsu.edu).

  1. Tuesday, January 21 at 1pm Eastern: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUlduyorjkiHNCdcsuJ2661eiibT1ewGQf9
  1. Wednesday, January 22 at 7pm Eastern: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIkcuyoqjkqGt1f30mfL_RQIAYzFm1m7hB-

Best,
The CFSHRC Graduate Student Engagement Committee

Let’s Talk About It: Coalitional Conversations We Need to Have (April 9, 2025 6-8pm)

Dear CFSHRC friends and colleagues,

As you make your plans for attending CCCC 2025 in Baltimore, make sure you arrive in time to attend the annual CFSHRC Wednesday Night Event (April 9) from 6-8pm in the Baltimore Convention Center Meeting Room 308.

We invite all conference-goers—(bring your friends!)—to make the most of this occasion to be together and attend small-group roundtable discussions about issues that help build our coalition during our Wednesday night event, “Let’s Talk About It: Coalitional Conversations We Need To Have.” In the past four years, many of you have expressed feeling isolated as one of a few, or maybe even the only composition and rhetoric scholar on their campuses. After the COVID closures and cancellations of 2020-2021, we sought out opportunities to gather in new ways, and we have learned to treasure the times that we are together. To that end, our Wednesday evening of Cs event provides an opportunity for us to get together and talk about the urgent topics of our lives.

In recent years, we have seen school and program closures, the banning of books and DEI initiatives, racism, homophobia, climate change catastrophes, white supremacy, global violence, campus protests, and transphobia. While some pursue “business as usual” or a “return to (a new) normal,” the Coalition leadership will structure 45-minutes for members to talk and write about “It.”

First, we hope you’ll attend. But additionally, we’re asking for your input and expertise to make our Wednesday evening event engaging, meaningful, and coalitional. Below, fill out the survey to suggest topics and/or volunteer to serve as discussion leader. Discussion leaders will guide groups of 4-8 in documenting feminist coalitional thinking about these exigencies.

We will also continue our tradition of hosting mentoring tables for the second hour (7-8pm). If you would like suggest a topic for a mentoring table and/or volunteer to host/organize a mentoring table, please submit your ideas below. In the past. we’ve had mentoring tables on: mid-career life, parenting and the academy, alt-ac, the job market, writing a book, publishing in journals, career changes, approaching retirement, archival research, queer pedagogies, feminist historiography, community-engaged teaching, etc. You don’t have to do any prep work for table mentoring; just come and share your hard-earned lived experiences with others.

Here’s the link to the survey: https://forms.gle/5v9D3btDowBCiF4a8

Please submit your survey responses by February 15, 2025, so we have plenty of time to plan the event. Thanks, in advance, for your guidance and attention. We hope to see you in Baltimore!

Best,
Becca Richards, President

Fall 2024 Peitho Issue is Live!

The Fall 2024 issue of Peitho is now live! This issue features articles advancing feminist rhetoric-propaganda studies, critiquing an exhibit, and reflecting on writing center work. We also have a Cluster Conversation on intersectional and queer approaches to surveillance studies, plus three Recoveries and Reconsiderations pieces dealing with archives and translation.
A collage of photos of roses created by Talitha May, taken at the International Rose Test Garden in Portland, Oregon. Emerging from the lower left corner are roses in variegated colors: pink, white, yellow, red. The upper right corner and background of the image are burgundy, with 'Peitho 27.1 Fall 2024' in a yellow sans serif font in all caps. May remarks, 'The piece takes inspiration from a fragment by Ibycus in which she nursed a baby among rose blossoms as well as the ideas of rhetoric and context.'
Alt text: Peitho 21.7, Fall 2025 Cover featuring a bouquet of roses.

Peitho Announces Incoming Co-Editors in 2025!

Welcome to the new Peitho Editors!

The Coalition is thrilled to early-announce the next co-editors of Peitho: Bryna Siegel Finer, Jamie White-Farnham, and Cathryn Molloy! Bryna, Jamie, and Cathryn will shadow the current editorial team until June 2025, when they officially begin their term with issue 28.1 (the Fall 2025 issue). They are a long collaborating team with years of experience, an interest in cross-disciplinary synergy, innovative ideas to help maintain and grow the journal’s reputation, and a strong desire to mentor current and future generations of its contributors. Individually, they have each served in editorial positions; collectively, they have co-edited three scholarly volumes—Writing Program Architecture with Utah State Press (Jamie and Bryna, 2017), Women’s Health Advocacy with Routledge (Cathryn, Bryna, and Jamie, 2019), Confronting Toxic Rhetoric with Peter Lang Publishers (Cathryn, Bryna, and Jamie, 2025)—and collaborated on a fourth, Rhetorics of Menopause (forthcoming in 2025).


Image 1: Photo of Bryna Siegel Finer
Bryna Siegel Finer is professor of English and Director of Undergraduate Writing Programs at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Her academic interests include writing across the curriculum, rhetorics of health and medicine, writing teacher education, first-year writing, and developmental/basic writing. She is currently co-editor of the Writing Spaces book series, where she has worked with contributors to the series’ Activities and Assignments Archive and is collaborating with other editors on the new seventh volume. She is also associate editor of the Rhetoric of Health and Medicine (RHM) journal, where she manages much of the journal’s web content and the Graphic Medicine column. She spent three years as the book reviews editor for Composition Studies, soliciting and managing submissions and pitching review essays to well-known scholars in the field. Her published work has appeared in Rhetoric of Health & Medicine, Rhetoric Review, Teaching Writing in the Two-Year College, Praxis, Composition Studies, and the Journal of Teaching Writing, among others. She is also co-author of the book Patients Making Meaning: Theorizing Sources of Information and Forms of Support in Women’s Health (Jamie White-Farnham and Cathryn Molloy)​.


Image 2: Photo of Jamie White-Farnham
Jamie White-Farnham is professor of writing and Director of the Jim Dan Hill Library and Markwood Center for Learning, Innovation and Collaboration (CLIC) at the University of Wisconsin-Superior, where she provides oversight for a collaborative team of 13 professionals and 15 student employees, and facilitates strategic initiatives at the university level. Her research areas include feminism and rhetoric, women’s health rhetoric, grammar and language change, and higher education administration. From 2018-2022, Jamie served as an Associate Editor at Prompt: A Journal of Academic Writing Assignments, managing desk-reviews and giving vital first-round feedback to the editors on submissions from a variety of disciplines on the authors’ engagement with relevant literature, research methods and methodologies, manuscript organization. In this role, she mentored first-time scholars and offered one-on-one guidance to all contributors through the revision process. She is also author or co-author of 18 academic articles, and co-author of the book Patients Making Meaning: Theorizing Sources of Information and Forms of Support in Women’s Health (with Bryna Siegel Finer and Cathryn Molloy)​.


Image 3: Photo of Cathryn Molloy
Cathryn Molloy is professor of writing studies at the University of Delaware. Her research interests include rhetoric of health and medicine, mental health rhetoric, feminist methodologies, and disability studies. Prior to joining the Department of English in 2023, Cathryn was a faculty member and associate director of the School of Writing, Rhetoric and Technical Communication at James Madison University for eleven years. She has been on the editing team of the Rhetoric of Health and Medicine (RHM) journal since 2017, stepping into the lead co-editor position in 2020. During her term as co-editor, she has worked with her team to get the journal indexed at Scopus and has worked to implement anti-racist reviewing and editing practices that align with feminist ideologies. She is also author of the book Rhetorical Ethos in Health and Medicine: Patient Credibility, Stigma, and Misdiagnosis (2020) and co-author of the book Patients Making Meaning: Theorizing Sources of Information and Forms of Support in Women’s Health (with Bryna Siegel Finer and Jamie White-Farnham)​.

The incoming co-editors will join Jennifer Nish, who continues as Associate Editor, and Hannah Taylor, who continues as Web Coordinator. While it is still too early to bid goodbye to our current editors, Rebecca Dingo and Clancy Ratliff (they’re not going anywhere just yet!), we are excited for this next chapter in the journal’s history. The current editorial team have done much to foster Peitho’s legacy of cutting-edge feminist scholarship, introducing new features and collaborating with WAC Clearinghouse in vital ways; we know that vital work will continue with Bryna, Jamie, and Cathryn at the helm.

Peitho’s Editorial Board would like to acknowledge the other outstanding applicants for this position and to thank them, sincerely, for sharing their materials with us and for investing so much heart into the application and interviewing process. We wish them our very best and look forward to collaborating in other ways!

Apply to be the next Digital Media and Outreach Director (2025-2027)

Dear Coalition members,

Are you active on social media and/or do you study social media rhetorics and writing? If so, the CFSHRC would love for you to apply to be the next Digital Media and Outreach Director (DMOD). Applications are due 1/31/2025.

Overview: Over the past several years, digital media use within the Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition has increased considerably. Currently, the CFSHRC boasts not only a long-standing mailing list and website but also Facebook and Twitter accounts, along with a team of volunteers who contribute to regular content and livetweet at conferences. Eager to make the most of these resources while meeting the demands of effective communication both within and beyond the Coalition, we are pleased to recruit the next CFSHRC Digital Media and Outreach Director to lead these endeavors.

The Coalition maintains its social media presence with the following goals in mind:

  • Represent intersectional feminist perspectives, voices, images, and concerns both in and beyond university
  • Share professional opportunities
  • Celebrate and amplify members’ accomplishments
  • Promote feminist research in rhet/comp.

Position description: The Digital Media and Outreach Director will report directly to a designated member of the Executive Board. General responsibilities will include:

Overseeing communication across available digital platforms to promote effective communication among current and prospective Coalition members and the greater professional community;

Generating and regularly posting appropriate content to the Coalition’s social media platforms and coordinating across platforms as appropriate;

  • Maintaining and purposefully increasing listserv use;
  • Generating meaningful website content, such as organizational news, member profiles, mentoring spotlights, and so on in collaboration with Coalition President and Immediate Past President.
  • Working with available data and, when needed, generating new data about CFSHRC digital media practices.
  • Preserve an archive of social media content and data

The Digital Media Outreach Director will not work alone. Instead, the Director will establish and supervise committees, task forces, and teams as needed, working in accordance with the CFSHRC Bylaws.

We encourage applicants to bring creative and innovative strategies for the future direction of the Coalition’s digital media presence. Applicants are encouraged to get to know the Coalition’s current digital resources, including our website and our Facebook page and Twitter account.

Eligibility: The new CFSHRC Digital Media and Outreach Director must hold a terminal degree (i.e., PhD, MFA) and must be a current member of the Coalition. To confirm membership status, contact Treasurer David Gold (dpg@umich.edu) no later than 1/15/2024. Additional consideration will be given to applicants who have an established record of relevant research, teaching, and/or service. CFSHRC Executive Board members (including the Member at Large) are ineligible to apply.

Appointment: The DMOD will serve a two-year term beginning April 15, 2025 and ending April 14, 2027. DMODs would be allowed to serve a second term, if they choose.The new DMOD will be selected by a committee established by the current DMOD. If not already a member of the Coalition Advisory Board (AB), the new DMOD will also have ex officio status on the Board.

Since the Digital Media and Outreach Director will need to be an active participant in the Coalition’s two main conferences, CCCC and (in alternate years) Feminisms and Rhetorics, the Director will receive a $500 stipend over a two-year term, plus one free conference registration in each year of the two-year term where the Coalition has a strong presence.

To apply: Email a cover letter and CV to Sweta Baniya, current Director of Outreach and Digital Media at baniya@vt.edu. In the letter, please address your qualifications for fulfilling both the goals and the general responsibilities as listed above, including (but not limited to) your relevant scholarship and/or scholarly projects and links to digital projects and social media accounts. We also welcome your innovative ideas for the future of the Coalition’s digital presence. Citations for or links to work are welcome.

Copies of the Coalition’s recent Digital Task Force Report and Social Media Guide use are available upon request; please send inquiries to Sweta Baniya at baniya@vt.edu.

Applications are due January 31, 2025 and final decisions will be made by March 15, 2025 allowing both incoming and outgoing DMOM to overlap as they transition roles.

2024-2025 Online Mentoring Program

Greetings!

In response to continued interest, the Coalition is pleased to offer our online mentoring program again this year! Whether you are new to the program or are returning to it, the online mentoring arrangement is a way for us to share knowledge about research, teaching, activism, and professional development by matching mentor-mentee pairs who will collaboratively establish a schedule whereby the mentee can make good progress on an agreed-upon project (i.e., job market/prepping application materials; planning research projects/fieldwork; writing/revising materials for publication; developing a syllabus; applying for grants; etc.) within six months or less. Mentors and mentees may continue to work together beyond one six-month cycle if desired.

We are seeking both mentors and mentees. If you are interested in participating either as a mentor, a mentee, or both, please fill out this registration form by FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, indicating your interest. There is a spot on the form to indicate whether you want to continue with last year’s arrangement, as well.

We want to be as flexible as possible so that mentoring pairs can figure out what works best for them, but we do offer some suggestions for getting started:

  • Determine which specific project you would like to work on with a mentor, or whether you would like help with less tangible things, such as gaining confidence in coursework or dealing with challenges in your workplace.
  • Determine how long you plan to commit. You may wish to start with a six-month commitment, and see how it goes.
  • Determine how often you would like to check-in with your mentor/mentee. Do you want to engage weekly, bi-weekly, monthly? What makes the most sense for your goals and schedules?
  • Determine which medium works best for your relationship (Zoom, WebEx, Facetime, email, phone, etc.).

Feel free to direct any questions to jenoch1@umd.edu

All best,

Jess Enoch
Immediate Past President

Spring 2024 issue of Peitho Live at the WAC Clearinghouse!

Dear friends,

On behalf of the editorial team, I’m happy to announce the spring 2024 issue of Peitho, now at its new location, the WAC Clearinghouse! Three cheers for the co-editors, Rebecca Dingo and Clancy Ratliff, for overseeing this exciting transition.

https://wac.colostate.edu/peitho/archives/v26n3/

The issue has some great articles and book reviews, plus a Cluster Conversation on feminist new materialisms, featuring undergraduate research!

Oh, and for those on the Editorial Team: we choose the bear.

A print (etching and aquatint) showing an elf woman in a tree. She is nude and is using a long branch to point downward at a bear who is looking up at her. In the background are other leafy branches and a scenic cove. The print has a pink tint, and at the top left is the word Peitho. At the top right is written '26.3 Spring 2024.' Around the whole image is a black frame. The original art is by Max Klinger and is titled Bear and Elf (Bär und Elfe). It was created in 1881 and is in the National Gallery of Art’s public domain collection of images.

Happy reading!

Becca Richards, President CFSHRC

Call for Applications: Peitho Journal Editor(s)

Call for Peitho Editor/Co-Editors

The Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition (CFSHRC) is seeking an editor–or a pair of co-editors–for Peitho, our quarterly peer-reviewed online journal, beginning June 1, 2025, with early onboarding to begin on or around January 1, 2025.

In supporting the Coalition’s mission, Peitho seeks to publish research that advances the feminist study of our profession, including

  • Peer-reviewed scholarly texts (i.e., essays, webtexts, standalone videos);
  • Book reviews;
  • Recoveries and Reconsiderations;
  • Special edited content, including scholarship presented at the Coalition’s Wednesday night CCCC session.

In cooperation with an associate editor (Jennifer Nish will hold this position until Summer 2026) and Peitho’s editorial team, the editor has purview over the editorial content and production process of the journal, including forming the editorial board, issuing calls for papers, refining the journal’s submission process, and publishing the journal. The editor also has the support of its Editorial Board and of the Coalition’s Executive Board for all matters requiring approval.

Qualifications: A strong candidate or candidate team will have:

  • A strong record of feminist academic work, including research and scholarship, teaching, mentoring, and service;
  • A strong record of affiliation with the Coalition (i.e., membership, Coalition-related service work, participation in Feminisms and Rhetorics conferences, involvement in Peitho);
  • Working knowledge of available resources for digital scholarship and digital publication;
  • Demonstrated skill or relevant experience with information management and task delegation;
  • Relevant editorial experience and a vision for the future of the journal;
  • A career record of collaboration or coalition-building, as well as outstanding planning and communication skills;
  • A firm commitment of support from their home institutions (i.e., release time, interns or research assistants).

Responsibilities:

  • Serve as editor for four years, assuming responsibility for Peitho 27.1 (Fall 2025) through Peitho 30.4 (Summer 2029);
  • Manage the submission, editorial, and online publication processes for four issues of Peitho per year (Fall launched by December; Winter launched by March; Spring launched by June; and Summer launched by September) in coordination with the Associate Editor;
  • Maintain and model good communication with members of the editorial team and with authors;
  • Participate in the search for a new Associate Editor and Web Coordinator when needed;
  • Serve as an ex officio (nonvoting) member of the CFSHRC Advisory Board and attend regular Board meetings at the Wednesday afternoons at CCCC and during the biennial Feminisms and Rhetorics conference.

Compensation

Upon approval from the Coalition’s Executive Board, the Editor(s) shall be allocated an annual operating budget of up to $3,000 per year, in an account established by the Editor(s), to provide funding for software and technology, training, interns, stipends, publicity, and other costs associated with the development of regular and special issues. In addition, Editors receive a $250 courtesy remuneration each year, as well as free conference registration (up to $250) each year.

Applicants should email a CV and cover letter, describing their qualifications and detailing how their institution will support their editorship, to Tarez Graban, tgraban@fsu.edu, by September 30, 2024. Application review and interviews will be completed by November 30. Sample application letters are available upon request, and several members of Peitho’s editorial team and editorial board are on hand to answer questions about the role or to offer ad-hoc mentoring in advance of the application deadline. Please send all queries to Tarez Graban at tgraban@fsu.edu.