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

The Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition (CFSHRC) seeks an Associate Editor for Peitho (https://cfshrc.org/peitho-journal/), 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, an annual forum for sharing innovative perspectives on existing feminist work, as well an incubator for new feminist research projects.

Additionally, the Associate Editor identifies mentors for authors whose work is identified by the Editor for participating in the journal’s mentoring program and facilitates communication between the mentor and the author as needed. The selected applicant can also expect to work with a supportive Editorial Team, and to participate in team meetings, CFSHRC Advisory Board meetings, and the CFSHRC Wednesday night open meeting held annually at the Conference for College Composition and Communication. For a full description of the editorial structure of the journal, please see our By-Laws, available here: https://cfshrc.org/about-peitho/#by-laws.

Associate Editor applicants should be current members of the CFSHRC in good standing. The selected applicant will hold the position for four years and be responsible for Peitho issues 25.1-28.4 (Fall 2022–Summer 2026).

For full consideration, please submit the following materials in a single PDF file (with your name in the filename) to Tarez Graban (tgraban@fsu.edu) by 10 November 2022:

• brief letter of application that addresses qualifications for the position;
• brief statement of institutional support, which can be folded into the application letter;
• list of three references;
• current vita.

 

Feel free to direct any questions to Tarez at the e-mail address above.

The Peitho Editorial Team welcomes Dr. Tarez Samra Graban as the new Editorial Board Chair!  Tarez is an Associate Professor of English at Florida State University and her work centers around feminist rhetorical theory, histories of rhetoric and composition, digital humanities, archival studies, and global and comparative rhetorics. She was the Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition President from 2018-2020. Her current work reconsiders the notion of feminist critique for textual scholars of transnational archives who must curate these spaces against neocolonial impulses. She has been tracing the mobile legacies of a select group of women activists, academicians, and elected leaders in southern Africa to learn more about how their rhetorical performances can and do challenge the democratization of information practices in their home countries and abroad. Most recently, she published with Hui Wu, the book Global Rhetorical Traditions which offers examples of global rhetorical instruction and practices through Asia, Africa, the Near East, the Middle East, Polynesia, and precolonial Europe translated into English—a truly ambitious and exemplary book! This came on the heels of Teaching through the Archives: Text, Collaboration, Activism, published with Wendy Hayden, which features chapters authored or co-authored by many Coalition members, that speak to how rhetoric and composition gives back to archival studies through its pedagogical innovation. Lastly, she continues to be active on the Linked Women Pedagogues project, a data discovery tool for tracing the intellectual contributions of under-represented women in rhetorical studies in the U.S. and abroad.

Tarez will lead the new slate of Peitho editorial board members listed below.  Welcome to Tarez and the rest of the board!

Mais Al-Khateeb

Ronisha Browdy

Christina Cedillo

Sherri Craig

Abby Dubisar

Lynée Lewis Gaillet

Tarez Samra Graban

Jane Greer

Jenna Hanchey

Holly Hassel

Jo Hsu

Charlotte Hogg

Stephanie Kerschbaum

Jennifer Nish

Kim Nguyen

Timothy Oleksiak

Ruth Osorio

Jessica Reyman

Jaquetta Shade-Johnson

Karrieann Soto Vega

Hui Wu