Call for Nominations: Presidents Dissertation Award

/in ,

Dear Coalition Friends:

I am pleased to circulate the call for nominations for the CFSHRC’s Presidents Dissertation Award for 2020.

In recognition of the close relationship between scholarly excellence and professional leadership, the Presidents Dissertation Award is given to the author(s) of a recently completed doctoral dissertation that makes an outstanding contribution to our understanding of feminist histories, theories, and pedagogies of rhetoric and composition. This annual award is adjudicated every year and carries a $200.00 honorarium, but it is presented in odd years at the biennial Feminisms and Rhetorics Conference.

Eligibility

For the 2020 Award, any doctoral dissertation that engages feminist histories, theories, and/or pedagogies of rhetoric and composition — and is completed between 6/1/2019 and 5/31/2020 — is eligible.

Review Criteria

The doctoral dissertations that receive this award will not only rigorously engage extant feminist research and scholarship in rhetoric and composition, reflective of the many cultural and intellectual traditions that comprise our field; they will also enhance our understanding of feminist academic work in rhetoric and composition through the methods and methodologies they employ, the critical praxes they model, and the conclusions they draw along with the invitations they offer for subsequent inquiry and exchange.

Nomination Contact and Procedure

The deadline for nominations, including self-nomination, is June 15, 2020. Send Tarez Samra Graban, Immediate Past President (tarez.graban@gmail.com), an electronic copy of the completed dissertation in its final form, as it was submitted to the author’s (or authors’) home institution. Please also provide documentation of completion, including date of submission. The 2020 and 2021 Award recipients would typically be invited to receive their awards in person at the 2021 Feminisms and Rhetorics Conference, but plans will be in place to confer awards in alternative formats for the coming year. (Please stay tuned.)

For a list of past award winners, and to learn more about our awards in general, please visit the Awards page on our website.

With thanks and well wishes,
-Tarez Graban
Immediate Past President

Feminisms & Rhetorics Conference 2021 and 2023 Updates

/in , , ,

Dear Friends of the Coalition,

In light of the uncertainty surrounding COVID-19 and the time at which larger gatherings may again be possible, and in respect for already ongoing conversations regarding future directions for the Feminisms and Rhetorics conference, the CFSHRC Advisory Board, at our meeting late last month, made the decision not to hold a Feminisms and Rhetorics conference in 2021. At the same meeting, the Board agreed to form a task force to explore ways that we might support Coalition members and friends via alternative interactions to help fill in the “conference gap.” Please stay tuned for future engagement opportunities!

As you may be aware, the Coalition sponsors two awards—the Nan Johnson Outstanding Graduate Student Travel Award and the Shirley Wilson Logan Diversity Scholarship Award—that support attendees and presenters at the Feminisms and Rhetorics conference. We are looking into alternative possibilities for implementing these awards for the 2021 cycle.

In addition, we encourage Coalition members to apply for two awards that we would have announced at the 2021 FemRhet conference: the Presidents Dissertation Award and the Lisa Ede Mentoring Award. Winners of these awards for 2021 will be announced via alternative channels. More details about each of these awards, along with information about how to apply, can be found here: https://cfshrc.org/awards/.

Lastly, the Advisory Board decided to temporarily suspend the submission process for site host applications for the Feminisms and Rhetorics 2023 conference. Although the unknowns with regard to meeting regulations, travel, and the like are still many, we hope to reopen the call for hosts by no later than September 15, 2020. In the meantime, if you have questions regarding conference hosting, either in advance of submitting a proposal or otherwise, please reach out to Wendy Sharer, CFSHRC President, at president@cfshrc.org. You are also welcome to view our recently updated conference-hosting FAQs at https://cfshrc.org/femrhet-conference-call-for-hosts/.

Be safe and stay well,

Wendy Sharer, President

Stepping Into the Unknown Together

/in , ,

Greetings, Friends.

I step into the role of Coalition President with immense gratitude to our Immediate Past President, Tarez Graban. Her tireless work has created a firm foundation upon which I now have the pleasure of building. Furthermore, her help as I figure out the position has been invaluable. Thank you, Tarez!

I also want to send a shout out to the other brilliant and dedicated members of the 2020-2022 Executive Board: Jessica Enoch, Vice President; Jane Greer, Treasurer; Cristy Beemer, Secretary; and Mudiwa Pettus, Member-at-Large. What a luxury to have such great people around me!

At the same time, I am, like most of us, filled with uncertainty as we face the unknowns of the COVID-19 pandemic. What I do know for certain, though, is that the encouragement and ingenuity of feminist colleagues and friends are essential to get us through these times. To that end, I look forward to working with the incredible people on the Executive and Advisory Boards to provide encouragement and spread the benefits of ingenuity widely to Coalition members and friends. The Coalition has sustained me through many difficult times since I joined as a graduate student back in the late 1990s, and I hope to contribute to efforts that will sustain and elevate others over the next two years and beyond.

Even before the COVID outbreak we, as an organization, were working hard to address challenges and cultivate opportunities, including how to make our scholarly venues more welcoming for more contributors and how to mentor and support the many diverse scholars entering and enriching the field. As President, my intent is to continue and expand these efforts, but I will need your help. I know I will fail at some things, and I will do my best to learn from those failures. I am committed to using my privilege to confront the conditions that create and sustain it.

Over the next few weeks, you will receive announcements and updates about various Coalition-related initiatives via our mailing list, website, and social media outlets (many thanks to our out-going Director of Digital Media and Outreach, Patricia Fancher, and our in-coming DDMO, Sweta Baniya!). I welcome your reactions, thoughts, and suggestions on any of these matters. Please feel free to email me at President@cfshrc.org.

Wishing you peace and strength,

Wendy Sharer

President, 2020-2022

 

 

Welcome Our New Advisory Board Members and Executive Officers

/in ,

We are proud to announce five new members to the Coalition Advisory Board for the 2020-2022 term. These new board members will contribute to the Coalition by advising the Executive Officers and serving on a range of different task forces and committees related to the Feminisms and Rhetorics conference, our journal Peitho, mentoring programs, awards, and guiding future Coalition endeavors to support feminist scholars.

Join us in welcoming Heather Brook Adams, Tamika Carey, Patricia Fancher, Sherita Roundtree, and Patrick Thomas to the Coalition Advisory Board.

Heather Brook Adams

Heather Brook Adams is an Assistant Professor in the English Department at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Her research performs feminist historiography of the recent past and investigates rhetorics of reproduction, pregnancy, and motherhood in relation to affect, gender, race, and class. Her book project, “Rhetorics of Shame: A Recent History of Righteous Reproduction” explores rhetorical shaming and blaming practices, both private and public, that have shaped—and that continue to shape—discussions of women’s reproduction and sexual wellbeing. Dr. Adams’s scholarly and pedagogical interests also include rhetorics of health and medicine; visual rhetorics; ethnographic methods; decolonial and intersectional theories; and undergraduate research.

Tamika L. Carey

Tamika L. Carey is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Virginia. She holds a doctorate in Composition and Cultural Rhetorics and a Certificate in Advanced Studies in Women and Gender Studies from Syracuse University. An interdisciplinary scholar, Dr. Carey’s primary field is Rhetoric and Composition and her specific research and teaching focuses on African American Rhetorics and Literacies, Feminist Rhetorics, Black Women’s Writing and Intellectual Traditions, and the memoir. Dr. Carey is the author of Rhetorical Healing: The Reeducation of Contemporary Black Womanhood ​(SUNY 2016), a feminist critique of Black women’s self-help and wellness culture.

Patricia Fancher

Patricia Fancher is a lecturer at the University of California, Santa Barbara where she teaches
and researches digital media, technical rhetoric, and feminist rhetorics. Her research on gender
and digital media has been published in Rhetoric Review, Present Tense, Composition Studies,
Computers & Composition, Enculturation and Peitho in addition to several edited collections. She is currently complete a book project entitled “Embodying Computing,” which locates a queer techne in the history of the invention of digital computing.

Sherita Roundtree

Sherita V. Roundtree is an Assistant Professor of English at Towson University. She studies ways to develop diverse representation and equitable access for students, teachers, and scholars who write in, instruct in, and theorize about writing classrooms. Her current work centralizes the teaching efficacy, pedagogical approaches, and “noise” of Black women graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) who teach or have taught first- and/or second-level composition courses. Considering Black women GTAs’ feelings of preparedness and approaches to teaching composition, Roundtree explores the networks of support they utilize and how they do or do not use resources to navigate pedagogical challenges.

Patrick Thomas

Patrick Thomas is an Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies at Dayton University. He teaches and studies Digital Literacies and New Media. His research intersects literacy studies, writing technologies, empirical methodologies, and computer-mediated communication. His current research projects include a study of mobile technologies’ effects on students’ writing practices and an investigation of transcontextual writing practices – that is, how people write across time and space – among professional writers. With Pamela Takayoshi, he has edited the collection Literacy in Practice: Writing in Private, Public, and Working Lives (Routledge Press). He has published in the journals Computers and Composition, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, and Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy.

Executive Board

We are also proud to announce the Executive Board for the 2020-2022 term. Join us in thanking these stellar feminist scholars and mentors for their leadership.

President: Wendy Sharer
Vice President: Jessica Enoch
Treasurer: Jane Greer
Secretary: Cristy Beemer
Member at Large: Mudiwa Pettus
Immediate Past President: Tarez Samra Graban

Wendy Sharer, President

Wendy Sharer, Professor of English at East Carolina University is very excited to take on the role of President and hopes she can live up to the leadership standards set by her predecessors. She joined the Coalition in the late 1990’s, and, in 2008, she and Michelle Eble collaborated on “In Their Own Words: The History & Influence of the Coalition,” a video in honor of the Coalition’s 20th anniversary. She is author, co-author, or co-editor of five books, including Reclaiming Accountability (Utah State UP, 2016); Working in the Archives (SIUP 2010); 1977: A Cultural Moment in Composition (Parlor 2007); Vote & Voice: Women’s Organizations and Political Literacy, 1915–1930 (SIUP 2004), and Rhetorical Education in America (Alabama 2004). Beginning in 2001 and ending just this past fall, she held Writing Program Administrator roles at East Carolina, including Director of Composition and Director of the Quality Enhancement Plan. At home, she has 9 cats (some were inherited!) and a very old pup named Nittany.

Vice President, Jessica Enoch

Jessica Enoch, Director of Academic Writing at the University of Maryland, specializes in feminist rhetorics and pedagogies, rhetorical education, histories of rhetoric and composition, and literacy studies. Author of Refiguring Rhetorical Education: Women Teaching African American, Native American, and Chicano/a Students 1965-1991 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP), and editor of Burke in the Archives: Using the Past to Transform the Future of Burkean Studies (with Dana Anderson, Columbia: U of South Carolina Press), her articles have appeared in places such as College Composition and Communication, College English, and Rhetoric Society Quarterly. Her most recent book Domestic Occupations: Spatial Rhetorics and Women’s Work was awarded the Coalition’s Winifred Bryan Horner Outstanding Book Award.

Jane Greer, Treasurer

Jane Greer is Professor of English and Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and she has been named a University of Missouri Curators’ Distinguished Teaching Professor. She is the editor of Girls and Literacy in America: Historical Perspectives to the Present (ABC-Clio 2003); Pedagogies of Public Memory: Teaching at Museums, Archives, and Memorials, coedited with Laurie Grobman (Routledge 2015); and The Naylor Report on Undergraduate Research in Writing Studies, coedited with Dominic DelliCarpini and Jenn Fishman (Parlor Press 2020). Her scholarship has appeared in College English, CCC, Peitho, and Women’s Studies Quarterly. She served on the Advisory Board of the CFSHRC from 2015 to 2018, and on the Executive Board as Member-at-Large from 2018-2020. At UMKC, she teaches composition courses as well as classes on the rhetorical practices of girls and women.

Cristy Beemer, Secretary

Cristy “Cris” Beemer is an Associate Professor of English, Director of Composition, and Coordinator of the Professional and Technical Writing Program at the University of New Hampshire where she was awarded a College of Liberal Arts Excellence in Teaching Award in 2015. Cris’s research focuses on feminist rhetoric in classical, early modern, and contemporary contexts. She has published articles in Peitho, Rhetoric Review, and Teaching English at a Two-Year College, among others. Cris is currently working on her book project, “From the Margins of Healthcare: Breast Cancer and the Rhetoric of the Online Peer-to-Peer Healthcare Community.” Cris has been involved with the Coalition since 2003 presenting and serving on several task forces, and is thrilled to join the Executive Board to give back to the community that has made such an impact on her work.

Mudiwa Pettus, Member at Large

Mudiwa Pettus is an Assistant Professor at Medgar Evers College, a senior college of the City University of New York. Her research interests are located at the intersections of rhetorical education, public intellectualism, and racial politics, with a focus on the Post-Reconstruction/Pre-Harlem Renaissance era. Her work appears or is forthcoming in the National Review of Black Politics, Rhetoric Review, Rhetorica, and A Gathering of Tribes.

Tarez Samra Graban, Immediate Past President

Tarez Samra Graban, Associate Professor of English at Florida State University, joined the Coalition as a graduate student, and has served the Advisory Board since 2010. At FSU, and at Indiana University before that, she has held roles in L2 curriculum coordination, writing program administration, and co-directorship of a fellowship program in the data humanities, and completed a research fellowship with the University of South Africa. Her research and teaching is centered in histories of rhetoric, histories and theories of composition, global and comparative rhetorics, feminist rhetorical theory, and digital humanities. Lately, her work attends to rhetoric as epistemology, writing as text technology, and alterity as cultural apparatus. In her term as Coalition President, she expanded opportunities for mentoring, saw the establishment of new awards, spearheaded the redesign of the organization’s website, and hosted the celebration of the Coalition’s 30th Anniversary, among many other projects to support the Coalition’s expanding membership and mission.

Passing the Baton: Caring for One Another in An Altered Reality

/in , ,

Dear Coalition Friends,

Growing up, my siblings and I heard three consistent messages from our parents: “Make your way in the world by asking as little of it as possible,” “Do the most good for the most people along the way,” and “When you arrive, ask what you could do better.” To my parents’ credit, these were the messages that got them where they are today, my Mom having migrated with her family via railroad to the West Coast as a child, and my Dad having spent 15 years in refugee housing and political displacement, before finally making his way to the U.S. from contested Palestine as a young adult. I’m intensely proud of my parents for these reasons and more — for surviving and thriving and establishing such meaningful legacies. In turn, at various of my own junctures or “arrivals”, I’ve tried to take stock, often in painfully reflective ways: “How have I done? What have I managed? Where have I failed?”

Notice my affinity with failure. Those who know me well, know I can spend hours discussing my failures. And while this post — the Coalition President’s outgoing message — should be a reflective occasion to ruminate on success, I cannot in good faith consider any presidential accomplishments as mine. They are ours.

So, how did we get here (April 15, 2020) so quickly, and how do I account for all that has transpired in the past 24 months  — even in the past month, as the ground has shifted beneath us in the wake of COVID-19 and subsequently altered our realities? I can’t account for all of that in the space of a single post, but I can — with equal measures of gratitude and pride — outline some of the Coalition’s accomplishments, pointing particularly to the efforts of a tremendous Executive Board and Advisory Board, of Peitho journal’s tireless editorial team, of Patricia Fancher and Alexis Ramsey-Tobienne (our inaugural colleagues in two new and vital outreach roles), of Casey Miles (our web coordinator from 2017-2019), and of our many dedicated task forces and volunteer groups.

As an organization, we have much to celebrate: not least a new web presence and the migration of Peitho to a digitally native publication; the creation of two new awards to equip our colleagues across all ranks and from underrepresented groups to do the work that they love, as well as an impressive and expansive slate of award winners; the revision of fiscal and actual policies to support FemRhet conference hosts, and to give more outwardly and charitably to affiliate organizations in various stages of growth; the establishment of an active, thoughtful social media presence; and the nurturing of an exceptional volunteer base on social media and in person.

We have piloted a virtual manuscript mentoring program, celebrated the Coalition’s 30th anniversary, begun writing our own histories, and planned — then cancelled — what would have been a visionary session on “Connecting Coalitions, Arts, and Pedagogies of Human Rights” at 4C 2020. We may even be featured in an upcoming episode of Charles Woods’ The Big Rhetorical Podcast.

We have also developed new and more ways and forms of supporting one another in doing the Coalition’s work, revised our Bylaws, created documentation to better assist ad-hoc volunteers in taking on projects, stood in solidarity with sister organizations and allied groups, offered financial support for conference meet-ups and other collaborations, and  tried to ensure that our public meetings act simultaneously as tributes to long-time members and past leaders and occasions for welcoming newer members and future leaders. (This becomes increasingly important as we experience generational shifts and anticipate retirements, but this year, especially, we have mourned the passing of two dear colleagues and one past president: Nan Johnson on 8/31/19 and Joyce Irene Middleton on 4/13/20.)

For their work between 2018-2020 on adjudicating existing awards and articulating new ones, revising or articulating policies and guidelines, planning meetups, mentoring at conferences or online, working towards more nuanced graduate student outreach, assisting with Coalition 4C events, and hosting FemRhet 2019, I would also like to acknowledge the following stellar volunteers from our membership: Jen Almjeld, Erin Andersen, Sweta Baniya, Alicia Brazeau, Amanda Brooks, Alexandra Cavallaro, Sherri Craig, Jane Donawerth, Rebecca Dingo, Julianna Edmonds, Mary Fratini, Katherine Fredlund, Cory Geraths, Michelle Grue, Denise Landrum Geyer, Evan Groundwater, Holly Hassel, Gavin Johnson, Rachelle Joplin, Tammie Kennedy, Stephanie Larson, Amy Lueck, Andrea Lunsford, Liane Malinowski, Katie Manthey, Londi Martin, Alexis McGee, Caitlyn McKay, Lydia McDermott, Janine Morris, Sarah Mosely, Kate Navickas, Kate Pantelides, Paula Patch, Dara Regaignon, Becky Rickley, Mary Sheridan, Rebekah Sims, Carolyn Skinner, Patrick Thomas, Erin Wecker, Patty Wilde, and Traci Zimmerman. Without them, none of this would be possible. [Please, if I have forgotten to name you here, e-mail me!]

Absent from this post, of course, are the “failed” initiatives — “failed” in that they are still pressing, still urgent, and still not complete — including our relationship with and plans for future Feminisms and Rhetorics conferences, and our attempts to meet the life needs of a growing membership, not only during the present moment of school closures and social distancing, but also into our new “normal.” Absent are the ongoing labors that come with being a public-facing organization in a moment of such marked shifts in disciplinary ethos, and the challenges of being an organization that is so visibly engendered. Some of these labors have led to stalemate or postponement because the timing wasn’t right, and others have had a profound influence on the way we do business, but are as yet unrealized in concrete outcomes.

There is no easy way to quantify the labors that constitute these less-visible engagements, these “non-arrivals” in one sense, but without them we’d have no way of ensuring our own growth. I am grateful for some of these unrealized aspirations inasmuch as they reflect a deep-seated commitment to doing and to caring. They demonstrate that the Coalition is comprised of many complementary “we’s” moreso than it is representative of a single unified “we.” Caring for one another can be difficult work, and yet I hope we have done it well and are on the path toward doing it better.

Finally, I’m grateful for the labors of the incoming Executive and Advisory Boards, and genuinely excited for their envisioning under the tutelage of Wendy Sharer, our wildly capable yet characteristically humble Incoming President, who has ambitious and important plans. Please join me in welcoming Wendy and this incredible slate of new colleagues.

In service,
Tarez Graban
Outgoing President 2018-2020

#thefeministsareinplace … but plans are still moving forward

/in ,

Coalition Friends,

Carving out a shared moment from pressing institutional demands, family crises, juggled responsibilities, and compulsory homeschooling, members of The Advisory and Executive Boards met virtually as scheduled on March 25 to address a full and timely meeting agenda. Some of us were still reeling from the slew of cancellations announced the week prior. Some of us were caring for relatives who are ill. Some of us were still navigating conflicting and uncertain missives from our local or state governments about how to conduct ourselves and our lives on a day-to-day basis. But most of us were glad for the opportunity to “see” one another, and to think and talk focusedly about concerns that are still pressing in the midst of our altered realities.

Uncertainties aside, I’m excited for the good that is ahead. We discussed and voted on several initiatives, moved some to the back burner and promoted others to the front. We began preparations for a new and incoming leadership team. We made some decisions about the Feminisms and Rhetorics conference. We established our priorities for programs and campaigns that we know our students and colleagues need, and some need fairly urgently. Most importantly, we considered how, when, where, and how quickly we should act on those initiatives with an ethic of care, and how to do this as transparently as possible. Please watch for additional posts in the days and weeks that follow, with relevant announcements and profiles of our incoming leadership team, and know that we’re rolling things out as quickly as we can, but thoughtfully. Distinctive of the Coalition is our marked interest in communicating openly and honestly about what we want to do, what we need to do, and what we can do.

As with anything we do, this upcoming slate of needs and desires requires more labor than our small group of leaders can reasonably take on, and because we take you and your burdens very seriously and very much to heart, we’ll soon be putting out our regular calls for your help and your involvement. When you see those calls circulate, I hope you’ll recognize that they are calling for you, and that you’ll feel both enabled and compelled to respond.

With gratitude for your engagement,
-Tarez Graban
CFSHRC President 2018-2020

p.s. – If you haven’t already, come browse our new site; check out awards and other initiatives, Peitho journal, and let us know what else you’d like to see.

2020 Book Award & Feminist Research Grant

/in ,

While we cannot celebrate the 2020 award winners in person at CCCC 2020,  it is ever more important for us to create space to celebrate each other and our scholarly community. Please join us in celebrating this year’s award winners: Jess Enoch, Cheryl Glenn, Pamela VanHaitsma, & Tobi Jacobi.

 

2020 Winifred Bryan Horner Book Award Winner Jess Enoch for Domestic occupations: Spatial Rhetorics and Women’s Work

We are delighted to announce that the  2020 Winifred Bryan Horner Book Award Winner Jess Enoch for Domestic occupations: Spatial Rhetorics and Women’s Work.

 Domestic Occupations is a feminist rhetorical history exploring women’s complex and changing relationship to the home and how that affected their entry into the workplace. Author Jessica Enoch examines the spatial rhetorics that defined the home in the mid- to late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and considers how its construction and reconstruction–from discursive description to physical composition–has greatly shaped women’s efforts at taking on new kinds of work. In doing so, Enoch exposes the ways dominant discourses regarding women’s home life and work life–rhetorics that often assumed a white middle-class status–were complicated when differently raced, cultured, and classed women encountered them.Enoch explores how three different groups of women workers–teachers, domestic scientists, and World War II factory employees–contended with the physical and ideological space of the home, examining how this everyday yet powerful space thwarted or enabled their financial and familial security as well as their intellectual engagements and work-related opportunities.

Honorable Mention: Cheryl Glenn for Rhetorical Feminism and this Thing Called Hope

Rhetoric and feminism have yet to coalesce into a singular recognizable field. In Rhetorical Feminism and his Thing Called Hope, author Cheryl Glenn advances the feminist rhetorical project by introducing a new theory of rhetorical feminism. Clarifying how feminist rhetorical practices have given rise to this innovative approach, Rhetorical Feminism and This Thing Called Hope equips the field with tools for a more expansive and productive dialogue. Glenn’s rhetorical feminism offers an alternative to hegemonic rhetorical histories, theories, and practices articulated in Western culture. This alternative theory engages, addresses, and supports feminist rhetorical practices that include openness, authentic dialogue and deliberation, interrogation of the status quo, collaboration, respect, and progress.

Honorable Mention: Pamela VanHaitsma for Queering Romantic Engagement in the Postal Age: A Rhetorical Education.

In Queering Romantic Engagement, Pamela VanHaitsma complicates and nuances the way that we read same-sex letters sent in the 19th century. VanHaitsma uses letter writing manuals and other epistolary advice to re-read the romantic correspondence of free-born African American women Addie Brown and Rebecca Primus as well as the multigenre epistolary rhetoric of Yale student Albert Dodd. These case studies look across gender, race, class, and educational background as they also explore 19th century concepts of sexuality and romantic engagement. Both sets of correspondence reveal the multiple ways in which the letter writers incorporate but also queer cultural norms and cultural conventions. Queering our rhetorical readings of these texts raises important ways of re-thinking and re-viewing 19th century texts.

Nancy A. Myers Feminist Research Grant Award: Tobi Jacobi

The winner of this year’s Nancy A. Myers Feminist Research Grant Award goes to Dr. Tobi Jacobi of Colorado State University. Jacobi’s research will explore the literacy opportunities and rhetorical practices available for girls at the New York State Training School for Girls from 1904 to 1935. The training school was a residential reformatory school for girls 12-16 who were convicted of juvenile delinquency. Jacobi’s research focuses on writings such as letters, captioned photos, and reports penned by incarcerated girls, school staff and administrators, friends, and family that counternarrate much of the institutionally archived documentation of girls experiencing Progressive Era “training” at the school. Using a blend of archival and qualitative methods, the project will articulate “critical feminist rhetorical analysis with an emphasis on contemporary remix and circulation that calls attention to the neglected and suppressed voices of prisoners; by thinking across time and space, it values opportunities for both scholars and contemporary confined writers to work with archival documents and challenge monologic historical narratives.” The Feminist Research Grant Award will fund Jacobi’s travel to the Training School site as well as the New York State Archives.

We want to thank our MANY volunteers who reviewed nominations and award applications. All of our award committees are coordinated by Lisa Mastrangelo. The Winifred Bryan Horner Book Award committee included Lisa Mastrangelo (Chair), Hui Wu, Corey Geraths, Evan Groundwater, and Alicia Brazeau. The Nancy A. Myers Feminist Research Grant committee included the following volunteers: Lisa Shaver (chair), Andrea Lunsford, Jenn Fishman, Tammie Kennedy, and Denise Landrum-Geyer. Join us in thanking these coalition members for their generous service.

In a time of movement …

/in , , ,

… The Coalition has moved. In the midst of much surreality and uncertainty — and while we are contending with tripled workloads, juggled family obligations, frenetic updates and missives from our workplaces and schools, and the residual effects of hoarding (rather than helping) behavior — all of the Executive officers and Advisory Board members wish you good health, good discernment, peace, and safety. We’re continuing our work, but with cautious optimism and daily adjustments.

For now, allow me to announce the unveiling of three projects long in the works:

(1) Our new and permanent web location is live, here, at https://cfshrc.org. The old site (http://cwshrc.org) may remain online awhile longer but will be archived with no new activity after today. Our new web space has been designed by and will be maintained by the resourceful and insightful Academic Web Pages. AWP is woman-founded and -owned, and specializes in developing habitable and usable web spaces for academic organizations and small affiliates like ours. They have been patient, thoughtful, thorough, and responsive to our and our members’ needs and, as a result, have created a beautiful space for hosting the activities of the Coalition, Peitho, and Feminisms and Rhetorics. While we did not expect to be announcing this in the wake of COVID-19, please join us in celebrating and browsing the new site!

(2) With the new site will come a new and functioning mailing list. The current mailing list (coalition@cwshrc.org) will no longer be maintained. If you were subscribed to that list, we have automatically subscribed you to a new mailing list which we’ll be activating soon. Please watch for an announcement or two from a new list address. For the time being, if you have announcements you’d like to post or disseminate, please send them to admin@cfshrc.org and we’ll post on your behalf. And thank you for your patience as we get the new mailing mechanism established. (We’re working as quickly as we can in the midst of many other uncertainties.)

(3) The Feminisms and Rhetorics 2019 Conference Team has just published a stunning digital archive of the conference, which they and we invite you to visit at https://femrhetarchive19.wixsite.com/femrhet2019 (linked, also, from the FemRhet 2019 conference page). This was a JMU student project aimed to capture and embody all aspects of the conference in a generative and dynamic way. Please do visit and browse its features!

Finally, please also watch for a series of posts here between now and April 15, reporting on results of our annual Board meeting, recipients of this year’s scholarships and awards, plans to continue our online mentoring program, introduction of new Exec officers and AB members, followup from CCCC 2020, and announcements about FemRhet 2021, FemRhet 2023 and membership renewal for those members on an April to March cycle. Admittedly, some of this business now seems mundane while other business seems arduous, yet we know it is all necessary, and we thank you for bearing with us.

cum grato erga,
Tarez Graban (for the Board)
CFSHRC President 2018-2020

Cancellation of Coalition at CCCC 2020

/in , , , ,

Dear Colleagues,

With real regret, the CFSHRC is cancelling this year’s Action Hour event, ahead of official announcements from the CCCC. We especially regret any inconvenience this announcement may cause for our members in timing or otherwise, we thank you for your support and your kind messages this week and prior, and we hope for clear pathways forward for all your institutions and communities.

Although the evening is cancelled, the Coalition’s work continues. The Exec Officers and Advisory Board will hold their annual March meeting as scheduled on March 25, but remotely. We will vote, approve, and announce a new slate, among other things. Please watch for more announcements in the days following, particularly regarding how we will either remediate or reschedule “Art in the Times of Chaos” and mentoring tables, how we will celebrate our award and scholarship winners, and how plans are shaping for FemRhet 2021 and 2023.

Between now and then, please be well.
-Tarez Graban
CFSHRC President 2018-2020
On Behalf of the Coalition

Coalition at CCCC 2020

/in , , ,

Dear Colleagues,

Currently, many Coalition members are weighing a difficult choice regarding travel to CCCC. While we are heartened by CCCC’s close monitoring of the situation [https://cccc.ncte.org/cccc/cccc-2020-and-the-coronavirus], we are weighing those choices with you. We encourage all members to assess their situations and err on the side of their own and others’ safety and well-being. The Coalition is still scheduled to host its annual Wednesday “Action Hour,” featuring a keynote presentation by Dr. Alexandra Hidalgo: “Art in the Times of Chaos: Creative Collaborations Between Venezuelan Women Across Continents,” with interactive lecture, film clips, and Q&A, followed by conferral of awards and participation in mentoring tables. However, we will follow the lead of CCCC officers as they work to keep us updated on the coronavirus and any possibility of cancellation. We will circulate announcements should anything change. In addition, we are currently considering alternative options for enacting at least part of the evening, in the event of cancellation, and for disseminating results of the evening for those who could not attend. Those discussions are in the early stages and quite contingent; when more details are in place, we will share them.

With gratitude for you and your involvement,
CFSHRC Executive Board