Proposal Submission Portal for FemRhets 2023 @ Spelman is Open!
The submission portal for proposals to FemRhets 2023 at Spelman College is open! Please submit your proposals here: https://femrhet2023.cfshrc.org/cfp/.
CFP: Topic Proposals for Peitho Special Issues
The Peitho editorial team invites those interested in serving as guest editors to send topic proposals for special issues of Peitho. Traditionally, these are our summer issues, so guest editors must be available to help finish the issue during the summer. This editorial team’s term goes through Summer 2025, and we are looking for special issue topics for Summer 2024 and 2025.
The Peitho editorial team and editorial board will review topic proposals and make a decision for Summer 2024. Proposals not selected for Summer 2024 will automatically be considered for Summer 2025 or for a Cluster Conversation section in a fall, spring, or winter issue unless prospective guest editors request otherwise.
Those who sent proposals for special issues for Summer 2023 and opted to have their proposals roll over to be reconsidered for Summer 2024: the proposals are going to be considered in this round; please let us know if you would like to make any changes or updates to your original proposal.
We invite topic proposals on a wide range of topics related to feminist theories and gendered practices, including but not limited to:
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archival scholarship
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digital interventions
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emerging pedagogies
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feminist methodologies
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global rhetorics
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historical research
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Indigenous studies
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institutional critiques
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issues of embodiment
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LGBTQ+ studies
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minoritized rhetorics
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rhetorical theory
Special issues can include traditional scholarly articles as well as other kinds of projects, such as video content (with captions), Recoveries and Reconsiderations pieces, cluster conversations, manifestos, and book reviews. Guest editors are expected to adhere to the practices expressed in the Anti-Racist Scholarly Reviewing Practices: A Heuristic for Editors, Reviewers, and Authors statement.
Examples of past special issues of Peitho:
Fall/Winter 2014, “The Critical Place of the Networked Archive”
Fall/Winter 2015, “Looking Forward: The Next 25 Years of Feminist Scholarship in Rhetoric and
Composition” (25th anniversary of the Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition)
Summer 2019, “Rhetorical Pasts, Rhetorical Futures: Reflecting on the Legacy of Our Bodies, Ourselves and the Future of Feminist Health Literacy”
Summer 2020, “Transgender Rhetorics”
Summer 2021, “On Race, Feminism, and Rhetoric”
Topic proposals for special issues should include the following:
An editorial board-facing description (1000-1500 words) of the idea for the special issue, along with an explanation of why the guest editors (you) are interested in the topic. What needs will this special issue meet — in research, teaching, academia, and/or community work? Have other journals had special issues on this topic? Have scholarly presses published edited collections on this topic? If so, how would this special issue build on the previous work? This description should include a brief review of the previous scholarship on the topic and a bibliography.
A public-facing call for article proposals (500-750 words): this can use some of the same language as the description for the editorial board, but it should also include a timeline and criteria for review of proposals and brief explanation of the review process. Invited submissions are acceptable if there is transparency about these decisions, so invited submissions need to be addressed in the public-facing call for proposals if guest editors plan to invite submissions, such as for a cluster conversation. Book reviews and Recoveries and Reconsiderations pieces should be addressed in the public-facing CFP as well, if those are planned as part of the special issue.
CVs from the guest editors. If this is a collaboration, please provide a brief note about previous collaborative projects and/or how and why you decided to form a partnership together for this proposal.
The editorial board and editorial team will review topic proposals using the following criteria from our reviewer guidelines:
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Timeliness of or need for research on the topic (new or little-known material? New understanding of known material?)
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Engagement with current scholarship in rhetoric and feminist studies
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Commitment to methods and practices of feminist scholarship
Topic Proposals for Summer 2024 Special Issue Due: May 15, 2023
Decision from Editorial Team: June 2, 2023
2022 Presidents Dissertation Award Winner and Honorable Mentions
At CCCC in Chicago I had the pleasure of announcing the winner and honorable mentions for the 2022 Presidents Dissertation Award, and I am thrilled to share the good news here with those of you who were not able to attend in person.
The winner of the 2022 award is Dr. Katie Bramlett, currently Assistant Professor of English and Director of the Writing Across the Curriculum Program at California State University, East Bay. Bramlett completed her dissertation, “Genres of Memory and Asian/American Activism,” at the University of Maryland. 
In the dissertation, Bramlett deconstructs the narrative layers of Asian and Asian American history—narratives mediated by colonialism, anti-Asian rhetoric, patriarchy, and activism—through in-depth analyses of specific activism. This intersectional and decolonial approach complicates traditional stereotypes and brings to light the activism surrounding three genres commemorating Asian and Asian American women. Bramlett explains
how memorials to Filipina Suffrage activists, Japanese “Comfort Women,” and Afro-Asian activist Grace Lee Boggs remember past activism and reframe current conversations about Asian/American women. At a time of increased Asian hate in the United States, Bramlett’s work reminds readers that the struggle to counter race-based violence requires critiquing the systemic racism entrenched in history.
One judge characterizes the dissertation as a model for scholarship: “Bramlett’s analysis of past activism provides a model for how we, as a field, can look at resistance to biocapital, racial violence across contexts contemporarily.”
Another judge concurs, adding, “This work engages many forms of rhetoric and invites us to expand how we think about memory and feminist rhetorics. It also engages in historical research in a fresh way that connects it to our current political atmosphere.”
Congratulations, Katie!
The selection committee also identified two honorable mentions from among the many entries received. Honorable mentions went to Dr. Danielle Griffin, Postdoctoral Researcher in the Teaching of Writing at the University of Delaware, for her dissertation “Working Literacies: Gender, Labor, and Literacy in Early Modern England,” which was completed at the University of Maryland, and to Dr. Melissa Marie Stone, Assistant Professor of English at Appalachian State University, for her dissertation “Rhetorics of Menstruation: Mattering Menstrual Healthcare Technologies,” which was completed at North Carolina State University.
Griffin explores the literacy abilities and practices of early modern working women, paying attention to the ways that ideologies of patriarchy and labor, as well as the institutionalization of poor relief, mediated their engagements with literacy. Analyzing the often-overlooked literacy artifacts of economically disadvantaged groups, Griffin deftly explains how that evidence sheds light on the literacy of working women of the time period at different points in their lives. This work illuminates the complex ideological interconnections of gender, labor, and literacy to energize conversations about women and labor as well as histories of literacy and rhetorical education.
One judge notes the strength of the dissertation and offers this assessment: “From the Literature Review to the Conclusion, this dissertation provides readers with a superbly close analysis of a group marginalized by history. Uncovering the literacy practices of these multifaceted early modern women is a key goal of the Coalition.”
In “Rhetorics of Menstruation: Mattering Menstrual Healthcare Technologies,” Stone identifies the difficult material-discursive circumstances communities face in their interactions with menstruation. By applying material feminist approaches to analyze the rhetorical implications of material arrangements that include menstruating bodies, reproductive health discourses, menstrual healthcare technologies, and their ersatz technical instructions, Stone advances the call for more scholarship in material feminist rhetorics and social justice. Technologies associated with menstruation have historically followed a hegemonic patriarchal bias advocating efficiency and invisibility concerning women’s health care needs. Stone’s dissertation project provides astute insight into the importance of menstrual healthcare and more inclusive technological designs and instructional compositions at a time when period poverty is beginning to be taken seriously by some governments and industries.
One judge provides the following praise for this dissertation: “This work is long overdue and comes at a time when activists are finally getting governments to take women’s health care concerns more seriously. It’s a solidly feminist approach and an important topic in light of moves towards establishing ‘Menstruation Czars’ and advocating ‘Period Poverty Policies’ that many vulnerable individuals need.”
Congratulations to Danielle and Melissa!
In closing, I want to offer my sincere thanks to the 2022 Presidents Dissertation Award Committee: Ashley Canter Meredith, Sarah Hallenbeck, Maureen Johnson, Emily January Petersen, and Aaron A. Toscano (Chair). This group dedicated a lot of time to reading and discussing many excellent submissions. Your work on behalf of feminist scholars is greatly appreciated!
Best,
Wendy Sharer, Immediate Past President and Awards Coordinator
FemRhet 2023: Awards Committees Volunteers Needed
Hello Coalition!
By now you have likely seen the exciting CFP for Feminisms and Rhetorics at Spelman College, September 30- October 3. In anticipation of this amazing event, the Coalition needs your help reviewing submissions for a handful of awards to be presented in Atlanta.Are you able to help by serving on an award committee? If so, please follow this link and complete the brief survey of interest: https://forms.gle/oj8JZG7vUct5yiAo9Awards to be made at FemRhet 2023 are described briefly below. More details about each award, including submission and past recipient information, can be found on the CFSHRC website’s Awards page: https://cfshrc.org/awards/.
- The 2023 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 award is adjudicated every year and carries a $200.00 honorarium.
- The Shirley Wilson Logan Diversity Scholarship Award is intended to encourage feminist scholarship (particularly historical in nature) by graduate scholars from diverse and historically un or underrepresented groups. The award will be given to first-time presenters at the Feminisms and Rhetorics conference and includes both a monetary award ($500 each for up to 6 awardees) and participation in a specially designated session at the Feminisms and Rhetorics conference.
- The Nan Johnson Graduate Student Travel Award is presented biennially in odd years to graduate students working in the field of composition and rhetoric and it recognizes outstanding scholarship and research in the areas of feminist pedagogy, practice, history, and theory. The award is designed to enable students to attend the Feminisms and Rhetorics conference by providing $200.00 travel stipends plus conference registration.
- The Lisa Ede Mentoring Award is presented biennially in odd years to an individual or group with a career-record of mentorship, including 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 $200.00 per person or $500.00 for a group of three or more people and is announced at the biennial Feminisms and Rhetorics Conference.
My thanks in advance for your willingness to help, and feel free to contact me at sharerw@ecu.edu if you have questions. -Wendy Sharer, Immediate Past President and Awards Coordinator
CFP for Feminisms and Rhetorics 2023 @ Spelman College
I’m thrilled to circulate this CFP for Feminisms and Rhetorics 2023 at Spelman College! More information on the conference to come, but I hope you’ll apply and pass this announcement along to colleagues and friends! I hope, too, to see you all in Atlanta!
CFP: https://femrhet2023.cfshrc.org/cfp/
Dilemmas in Feminist Ethnographic Methodologies
Are you interested in learning more about feminist ethnographic research methods? Join Coalition colleagues for our second webinar of the Advancing the Agenda series, Dilemmas in Feminist Ethnographic Methodologies!
Feminist ethnography considers various dilemmas that concern researchers, participants, and the spaces of the projects where we conduct our studies. In some ways, feminist ethnographic research thrives on these dilemmas in its interrogation of power dynamics and intersectionalities. In this webinar, Kelly Opdycke and Lauren Rosenberg, two qualitative researchers, tease out some of the dilemmas that continually arise as they work towards enacting ethical feminist principles. This webinar involves attendees in considering creative ways they might work through dilemmas in their own current and future research
We’ll convene on Friday, February 24 from 3-4:30pm Eastern Time/noon-1:30pm Pacific Time. Please register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwpf-uoqz8rE9HZc4qu4Rx0BBchl7GVdAgO
Kelly Opdycke (she/they) lectures and organizes with other contingent faculty in the Department of Communication Studies at California State University, Northridge and the Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at California State University, Los Angeles. Her research interests include critical university studies, disability studies, and poor queer studies. She hopes for a more care-oriented, less neoliberal university.
Lauren Rosenberg (she/her) is an associate professor of Rhetoric and Writing Studies in the English department at the University of Texas at El Paso where she also directs First-Year Composition. Her research focuses on the writing practices of adult populations that are underrepresented in composition studies, longitudinal methodologies for qualitative research, and feminist research ethics.
The Coalition thanks Nancy Small (Associate Professor, University of Wyoming) and JWells (Assistant Professor, University of Kentucky) and the Advancing the Agenda Committee for organizing this event!
Coalition Event Weds Night of CCCC and 2023 Feminisms and Rhetorics News
Greetings, Colleagues!
I’m writing with great excitement to let you know about Coalition events at the Conference on College Composition and Communication and details regarding the 2023 Feminisms and Rhetorics conference.
CCCC Coalition Event: I’m looking forward to gathering with Coalition members and feminist scholars at our Wednesday night event at the Conference on College Composition and Communication. We’ll be meeting on February 15th from 6pm-8pm in the International Ballroom South.
All are welcome to this event; please bring a friend (or three!). To make our event more broadly accessible, we ask that people wear masks to better protect each other from airborne illnesses, including COVID-19. Thank you, in advance, for supporting one another.
For the first half of the evening, our keynote panel, “Emerging Feminist Scholars: Listening and Learning from Graduate Student Researchers” (CFP here), will showcase the following presenters and their presentations:
- Michelle Flahive (PhD Candidate, she/her, Texas Tech University), “Researching Graduate Student Instructor Mentorship Collectively: Applying a Chicana Feminist Methodology of Research at a Predominantly White Institution”
- Danielle Koepke (PhD Candidate, she/her, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee), “Complicating Ethics of Care: What I Learned about Caring for Stories and Storytellers from the Promotores de Salud”
- Abigail Long (PhD Candidate, she/her, Syracuse University), “Engaging a Feminist Ethic of Seamfulness”
- Nelesi Rodriguez (PhD candidate, she/her, U of Pittsburgh), “Accumulation in Ananya Dance Theatre as a Transnational Feminist Method for Invention in Movement”
The second half of the evening will be dedicated to mentoring tables: more information on these tables to follow!
2023 Feminisms and Rhetorics Conference: I’m also thrilled to announce that the 2023 Feminisms and Rhetorics conference will be held at Spelman College from Saturday, September 30, 2023 to Tuesday, October 3, 2023. The Call for Papers will be ready for distribution by CCCC. Thank you to Dr. Michelle Bachelor Robinson and the Spelman Host Committee, as well as the Coalition’s Conference Committee for all their work!
Welcome Jennifer Nish to the Peitho Editorial Team
Dr. Jennifer Nish, incoming Associate Editor
We are pleased to announce that Dr. Jennifer Nish will serve as the next Associate Editor of Peitho.
Dr. Nish is Assistant Professor of Technical Communication and Rhetoric at Texas Tech University. Her research interests include transnational feminism, activist rhetoric, disability, and digital media. Her book, Activist Literacies: Transnational Feminisms and Social Media Rhetorics, was recently published by the University of South Carolina Press. She has published and forthcoming work in Peitho, Genre and the Performance of Publics, and College Composition and Communication. Her ongoing research explores writing program administration, crip community, and the pandemic-era rhetoric and activism of ME/CFS and Long Covid communities.
Peitho’s Associate Editor supports the journal in several ways, but two very important ones: assisting with the author mentoring program, and managing all aspects of book reviews in each issue. Dr. Nish is a long-standing and dedicated manuscript reviewer for Peitho, and she brings to her new role innovative ideas for diversifying the journal’s pool of book reviewers and reviews, in order to highlight the work of underrepresented, multiply marginalized, and/or first-time book authors. She also brings extensive experience with and a deep commitment to mentoring, in and between institutions, within organizations, and across the profession. Finally, she brings prior editorial experience on first-year writing textbooks and conference proceedings.
We could not be more pleased to welcome her to the journal’s editorial team!
CFP Peitho Cluster Conversation: Reclaiming the Work of Wendy Bishop as Rhetorical Feminist Mentoring
Cluster Conversation: Reclaiming the Work of Wendy Bishop as Rhetorical Feminist Mentoring
“Just as Virgil led Dante into the underworld, through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, so we will do for others.”
-Cheryl Glenn, Rhetorical Feminism and This Thing Called Hope
If academics ever needed “this thing called hope,” we need it now in a time when Hell and Purgatory seem much closer than Heaven. Even as the pandemic has made visible, as well as exacerbated, problems with student success, retention, and mental health, previous struggles with enrollment, shrinking budgets, and sweeping challenges to the relevance and viability of higher education have created a crisis culture that is shaking the very foundations of our institutions. The Great Resignation continues to sweep dedicated faculty from classrooms and offices, while students struggle with the very technologies that are supposed to give them greater flexibility to persist yet often contribute to their failure to thrive. As academia lurches forward into an ever-uncertain future, those who remain search for sustainable means not simply to survive but to transform the conditions we collectively face.
In Rhetorical Feminism and This Thing Called Hope, Cheryl Glenn introduces rhetorical feminism as a hopeful tactic and theoretical stance that can create positive change through activism; intersectional identities; and inclusive theories, practices, methods, methodologies, teaching, administration, and mentoring. Glenn describes rhetorical feminist mentoring as “a generative model of ever-expansive teaching and mutually nourishing professionalism that can be shared, passed around, and passed on. Rhetorical feminist mentoring acknowledges that we academics ‘embody’ the discipline for the next generation of scholars, and it passes along and around a legacy of values, theories, habits, and assumptions that, especially when transformed, keep the discipline rolling” (173). While Wendy Bishop did not explicitly claim to be a feminist rhetorician, teacher, or mentor, her body of work, as well as the testimonials of those who knew her well, signal her participation in exactly the kinds of activities and activism that Glenn outlines in her book.
When Bishop died nearly twenty years ago in November of 2003, she was just fifty years old, but she had accomplished more than many people do in much longer careers. She authored or edited more than twenty books, crossed organizational borders (CCCC, AWP, MLA, WPA), often holding leadership positions, and she advocated for this very border crossing and intradisciplinary cross pollination within English Studies and beyond. Bishop transformed the binary of outsider/insider into a more inclusive, multivocal, multidisciplinary approach—an approach that others in the liberal arts are currently taking up to justify their existence within ever-shrinking institutions. We find that in this more fluid and flexible understanding of academic work lies hope not only for the future of our fields but also liberal education overall. In these difficult times, we need hope, we need examples and mentors, we need to find sustainable ways of working and being that enrich rather than drain us.
In this cluster conversation for the autumn 2023 issue of Peitho, we are interested in including work from a range of writers and scholars with diverse backgrounds and experiences. We especially welcome collaborations (especially between teachers and students, mentors and mentees, scholars and creative writers), mixed genres, remixes, and playful work. We ask that you write something—influenced or inspired by Bishop—that sustains you and others. For those not already familiar with Bishop’s work, we invite you to search out her books, articles, and poetry and write a piece inspired by her work. In what ways were you mentored by Wendy Bishop or her work? How did that mentoring affect your pedagogy, writing, administration, and/or life? How does Bishop’s work help you enact sustainable writing, pedagogical, and/or administrative practices? What “values, theories, habits, and assumptions” did Bishop espouse that you can you learn from and transform in ways that “keep the discipline rolling”?
This special issue will include longer pieces (up to 4,000 words) as well as shorter contributions and poems.
Please submit completed pieces to mgoldthw@sju.edu and cain@pfw.edu by June 1, 2023. Please also include a short biography (less than 100 words). We will provide notification of acceptance and suggestions for revision by July 1, 2023. Final drafts will be due on August 1, 2023.
Editors
Dr. Mary Ann Cain, Purdue University Fort Wayne (emerita)
Dr. Melissa A. Goldthwaite, Saint Joseph’s University
Advancing the Agenda Series: Rhetorical Then/Now: Reproductive Rights (Nov. 3)
Join us to reflect on Dobbs and Roe and how feminist rhetorical approaches might position us to best address reproductive rights in our pedagogy. This webinar, featuring Dr. Erin Clark Frost, offers opportunities for rhetorical reflection on where we started and where we might be headed post-Dobbs and provides space to consider how we can attend to our rights and those of our students.
We’ll convene on November 3rd from 12-1:30pm ET. Please register here: https://us02web.zoom.
Dr. Erin Clark Frost is a technical communication, rhetoric, and composition specialist. Her scholarly interests center on issues of gender and feminism in technical communication, most often as they manifest in rhetorics of health and medicine, environmental rhetorics, and risk communication. Her award-winning dissertation, “Theorizing an Apparent Feminism in Technical Communication,” included a study of ultrasound-for-abortion laws, and reproductive justice is a major focus of her scholarly attention. Her work has appeared in Computers and Composition, Journal of Business and Technical Communication, Technical Communication Quarterly, Programmatic Perspectives, and Peitho.
