Apply to be the next Digital Media and Outreach Director

The CFSHRC is seeking the organization’s next Digital Media and Outreach Director. Applications are due 1/15/2020.

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 listerv 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.

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Calling for Intellectual Labor and Discussion

Dear Coalition Friends and Colleagues:

As co-editors of a proposed collection, Rhetorics of Reproduction: Rights, Health, and Justice, we wanted to let you know why we’re looking forward to this year’s Feminisms and Rhetorics conference.

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Call for Applications: Peitho Journal Associate Editor

The Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition (CFSHRC) seeks an Associate Editor for Peitho, its quarterly peer-reviewed online journal. The Associate Editor holds primary responsibility for book reviews (identifying new titles for review, soliciting reviewers, working with reviews to revise and edit reviews prior to publication, etc.) in each issue and for the annual “Recoveries and Reconsiderations” feature of the journal.

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#CallingAllFeminists to WSRL 2019

Dear Coalition Friends and Colleagues,

As organizer of the 2019 Western States Rhetoric and Literacy Conference, I invite you to submit your proposal(s) in response to our CFP, if you haven’t already done so. This year, we’d love you to join us on October 25-26 at Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana, to explore our theme of “Contemplative Rhetorics and Literacies.” While there is always a chance that we’ll have inches of snow on the ground by late October, it is more likely that our weather will be crisp, sunny and beautiful, providing an unmatched natural backdrop for the conference.

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2019 Feminisms and Rhetorics Conference: Redefining Feminist Activism

The School of Writing, Rhetoric and Technical Communication at James Madison University invites proposals for the 12th Biennial Feminisms and Rhetorics Conference to be held at Hotel Madison in Harrisonburg, VA, November 13-16, 2019.

This year’s theme invites participants to reflect on or redefine current trends in and future possibilities for grassroots feminist activism in what we are calling “DIY feminist activism”– advocacy work that prioritizes inclusion and diversity by engaging in projects that are freestanding, self-supporting, and/or crowdsourced. DIY feminist activism is in tune with overlapping identities and, thus, is inherently intersectional; it celebrates the power of individuals to spearhead innovative, creative solutions to issues and problems that are often neglected or mishandled when left to institutional powers.   Read more

CFP: Rhetorical Pasts, Rhetorical Futures: Reflecting on the Legacy of Our Bodies, Ourselves and the Future of Feminist Health Literacy

We are pleased to publish this call for proposals for a Special Issue of Peitho: Journal of the Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition

image of 3 different copies of our boidies our selves

Rhetorical Pasts, Rhetorical Futures: Reflecting on the Legacy of Our Bodies, Ourselves and the Future of Feminist Health Literacy

Special Issue Editors
Sara DiCaglio, Assistant Professor, Texas A&M University 
Lori Beth De Hertogh, Assistant Professor, James Madison University

On April 2, 2018, the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective announced that they would no longer publish updated print or digital versions of their foundational text, Our Bodies, Ourselves (OBOS) due to financial pressures and the changing nature of online health information. Since its original publication in 1970, OBOS (then called Women and Their Bodies) has provided “evidence-based information on girls’ and women’s reproductive health and sexuality” to millions worldwide. It was included in the Library of Congress’ 2012 exhibit “Books That Shaped America” and recognized by Time magazine as one of the best 100 nonfiction books published in English (OBOS, About Us). As Susan Wells aptly puts it: “Our Bodies, Ourselves was not just a routine women’s health manual with a feminist twist. Nothing like it was available when the book was first published in 1970” and it was eagerly consumed by “an audience of women hungry for this information” (2). Read more

Call for Nominations for the CFSHRC Advisory Board (2018-2020 Term)

The Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition seeks nominations** for its active Advisory Board for the 2018-2020 term. Both peer- and self-nominations are encouraged and accepted. Founded in 1989, and dedicated to fostering inquiry in feminist histories, theories, and pedagogies of rhetoric and composition, the Coalition promotes intersectionality, collaboration, and communication in several areas:

  • the advancement of feminist research and pedagogy across histories, locales, identities, materialities, and media;
  • the education and mentoring of feminist faculty and graduate students in scholarship, research methods, praxis, and the politics of the profession.

As an organization of dedicated individuals and groups, we seek to cultivate a dynamic, intellectually challenging, and professionally nurturing community. We welcome and sustain all who do feminist work, inclusive of all genders, sexualities, races, classes, nationalities, religions, abilities, and other identities, in their research and/or classrooms.

Most importantly, we are a busy and growing organization, offering many opportunities for involvement. Advisory Board members contribute to the Coalition in the following ways:

  • serving on organizational committees (e.g., book award, article award, research award, ad hoc committees);
  • serving on the editorial board of the peer-edited, semi-annual journal Peitho;
  • liaising with the conference organizers of our biennial Feminisms and Rhetorics conference;
  • facilitating mentoring tables at the Coalition’s annual 4Cs session;
  • and attending scheduled Advisory Board meetings during the 2018-2020 term
among other possible ways to serve!

Please submit all nominations to Tarez Graban (tarez.graban@gmail.com) by March 11, 2018. Initial nominations should include the nominee’s namecurrent institutional affiliation, and e-mail contact information.

With thanks,

Tarez Samra Graban
Vice-President, CFSHRC

**Nominees need not already be members of the Coalition, but they will be asked to join upon accepting their nomination.

Peitho Journal Seeks First Web Coordinator

Peitho, the flagship journal of the Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition (CFSHRC), seeks its first web coordinator to serve a 2-year term (May 1, 2018 to April 30, 2020). As part of a highly collaborative editorial team, the web coordinator will work with Peitho’s editors to upload each issue of the journal (currently published twice per year), archive past issues, help remediate the annual 4C Wednesday night SIG into a digital format, and liaise with the Coalition’s general web coordinator as needed. Read more

Small Scholarship Program for Students in Missouri

In response to the NAACP Travel Advisory in effect for the state of Missouri, in response to the Coalition’s decision to cancel its appearance at the 4C18 SIG, and subsidized in part by a generous gift from an anonymous donor, the Coalition would like to announce that there are funds available for a small scholarship program this year.

Specifically, these funds are available to support undergraduate and graduate students currently enrolled in an English/Composition or Women’s Studies undergraduate or graduate program in the state of Missouri with demonstrated financial need to travel to other conferences in 2018.  Conferences may include (but are not limited to) RSA, WPA, Computers and Writing, Watson, Conference on Community Writing, or Cultural Rhetorics. The Coalition is pleased to offer three (3) travel awards at $300 apiece. 

Nominations for scholarships are due by May 1, 2018 to Lisa Mastrangelo (lmastrangelo919@gmail.com). Undergraduate/graduate students are encouraged to nominate themselves. All nominations should include the following items:

1) A brief cover letter and cv

2) A brief statement of eligibility/support from a current professor or advisor.

4C19 Coalition SIG CFP: Building Out From ‘The Margins’: New Directions in Intersectionality

Twenty-five years ago, in “Mapping the Margins,” Kimberlé Crenshaw provided feminist academics and activists with the critical vocabulary they needed to define identity politics at various intersections of sexism and racism, in turn equipping us with structural, political, and representational “frameworks” for thinking about the fraught or hybrid spaces we occupy. Emphasizing frameworks over “totalizing theor[ies] of identity” (Crenshaw 1244), the Coalition’s 2019 Wednesday evening session dedicates itself to an interrogation and exploration of how those intersections look today, and of where intersectionality has led us as a Coalition, and as a field.

We invite proposals for brief critical talks to form the basis of a roundtable discussion on any of the following questions: Read more