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 herehttps://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!

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.us/meeting/register/tZEkcemhrD4uGtG-ZouYMvLtGTcJHDTyQfr0

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.

 

Call for Associate Editor of Peitho

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.

MENTORS NEEDED: CFSHRC Online Mentoring Program

In response to continued interest, the Coalition is again offering our online mentoring program this year. A version of the announcement below about the program went out in early September, and we received many responses, but we received several more requests for mentors than we can accommodate based on the number of people who volunteered to serve as mentors.  If you are able to serve as an online mentor, please contact Wendy Sharer (sharerw@ecu.edu), Immediate Past President, at your earliest convenience.  

We welcome all who are interested, but we have particular need for scholars who can help in the following research and professional development areas:

  • Article and/or book preparation, including dissertation-to-publication advice
  • Time management and work/life balance
  • Rhetorics of science, health, and medicine
  • Feminist pedagogy
  • Digital rhetorics/writing
  • Administration/moving into administrative roles

My sincere thanks in advance for your assistance!

-Wendy Sharer, Immediate Past President

___________________________________________________________

CFSHRC Online Mentoring Program, 2022-2023

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 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 sharerw@ecu.edu.

All best,

Wendy Sharer,
Immediate Past President

Peitho Editorial Board Chair and Board Members

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

Tracing the Stream Virtual Symposium in Honor of Jacqueline Jones Royster: Register!

Dear Colleagues,

Please see this announcement for the Tracing the Stream Virtual Symposium in Honor of Jacqueline Jones Royster. This is sure to be a fabulous event!

Online Mentoring Program, 2022-2023

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 16, 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 sharerw@ecu.edu.

All best,

Wendy Sharer,
Immediate Past President

Welcome to our new Archivists & Historians!

The Coalition is pleased to announce the appointments of Michael Healy and Michelle Smith to the role of Archivist and Historian! We are thrilled to gain their support and expertise as we expand, diversify, and publicize our digital and physical archival holdings while also ensuring that those holdings are searchable and accessible to a broad swath of scholars and researchers.

Headshot of Michael Healy in dark blue collard shirt with blue glasses and window in background

Michael Healy

Michael Healy completed his dissertation, Tracing Techne: Distributed Histories of Invention, Creativity, and Text-Technologies in Rhetoric and Composition Scholarship from the 1990s, at Florida State University in 2021 and, this fall, begins a position at Western Kentucky University. Michael’s background in online archiving and digital curation includes serving as a research fellow for FSU’s Linked Women’s Pedagogues Project. As a research fellow, Michael gathered and curated data and metadata highlighting women’s pedagogical and intellectual labor. Additionally, during his time at FSU, Michael served as a graduate co-administrator for the Museum of Everyday Writing, an online archive that he helped develop and maintain while also collaborating with undergraduate interns on the curation of artifacts and exhibits for the museum.

Headshot of Michelle Smith with blue blouse, grass and trees in the background

Michelle Smith

Michelle Smith joins us from Clemson University where she is an Assistant Professor of English. Michelle brings passion for archival research and experience as an archival researcher to the position, as her publications engage archives ranging from the Kenneth Burke archives at Penn State University to the National Archives in D.C. In addition, her 2021 book, Utopian Genderscapes: Rhetorics of Women’s Work in the Early Industrial Age (Southern Illinois UP), draws heavily on the archival records of three nineteenth-century utopian communities. Her exceptional archival work earned the book an honorable mention for the Coalition’s 2022 Winifred Bryan Horner Outstanding Book Award.

Welcome, Michael and Michelle!!

Effusive thanks are due to outgoing Archivist and Historian, Alexis Ramsey-Tobienne. Alexis served for six years as the Coalition’s inaugural Archivist and Historian and was instrumental in collecting, sorting, and launching an online, searchable archive of administrative records and scholarship from the Coalition, including items related to our annual “Wednesday Evening Event” at CCCC, the biennial Feminisms & Rhetorics conference, and CFSHRC’s journal, Peitho. Alexis also chaired the search committee that identified her successors. THANK YOU, Alexis, for your foundational work on our archives and your dedication to ensuring their future!

Thanks are also due to the other members of the Archivist and Historian Search Committee, Tarez Samra Graban, Rebecca Dingo, and Jen Almjeld. Your efforts on the Coalition’s behalf are greatly appreciated!