Keyword: action hour

Stick!

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In a relay race, as a runner nears the teammate to whom she will handoff her baton, she signals her approach by calling out, “Stick!” Different from the stick that pairs with a carrot or the police officer’s truncheon, both instruments of discipline and (potential) violence, the sprinter’s stick is a shared object that changes hands in a split second which encapsulates months and even years of teamwork and practice.

One hand holds a green baton in a fist over a second hand, palm open to receive it.

As the 2014-2016 term ends, and I prepare to handoff leadership of the Coalition of Women Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition to Lisa Mastrangelo, our next President, we follow in the footsteps of the 11 Coalition Presidents who have come before us over the past 27 years: Kathleen Ethel Welch, Andrea A. Lunsford, Cheryl Glenn, Shirley Wilson Logan, Kris Ratcliffe, Joyce Irene Middleton, Kate Adams, Lynée Lewis Gaillet, Barb L’Eplattenier, Nancy Myers, and Liz Tasker Davis. (See years served.) All of us—along with all of the next Presidents—are thrilled to announce the establishment of a new Coalition Award: The President’s Dissertation Award, which will be given every other year at the Feminisms and Rhetorics Conference along with the Lisa Ede Mentoring Award and the Nan Johnson Outstanding Graduate Student Travel Award.

A list of 2014-16 CWSHRC AB members.

A list of 2014-16 CWSHRC Advisory Board members.

The Coalition team is anchored by the Advisory Board, which is comprised of 30 elected members, including the Coalition’s 6-person Executive Board. This term, the EB included President Jenn Fishman, Vice President Lisa Mastrangelo, Treasurer Marta Hess, Secretary Tarez Samra Graban, Immediate Past President Liz Tasker Davis, and Member at Large Nancy Myers. As the current term comes to a close, several AB members are concluding their service, and we thank them most sincerely: Maureen Goggin, Jacque McLeod Rogers, Dora Ramirez-Dhoore, Shirley Rose, and Liz Tasker Davis as well as Andrea A. Lunsford, who will become an ex officio member of the Advisory Board.

Ex officio or non-voting AB members provide both leadership and insight. They include both former long-serving AB members and colleagues appointed to specific Coalition roles: Archivist and Historian, Director of Digital Media and Outreach, Feminisms and Rhetorics Chairs or Co-Chairs, Web Coordinator, and Peitho Editor(s). In October at FemRhet 2015 in Tempe, AZ, we announced the next 2 conference locations: In 2017 our University of Dayton, OH, colleagues Liz Mackay, Patrick Thomas, Margaret Strain, and Susan Tollinger will be our hosts, and in 2019 FemRhet will convene at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, VA, hosted by Jen Almjed, Elisabeth Gunnior, and Traci Zimmerman. In the last months we also filled 2 new Coalition positions: Alexis Ramsey-Tobinne will serve as our first Archivist and Historian, while Trish Fancher will serve as our first Director of Digital Media and Outreach.

Action Hour Poster

Action Hour poster with event details(designed by Trish Fancher).

The real heart of the Coalition is the membership, and Coalition members, working together with feminist colleagues from all quarters of the profession, positively outdid themselves at CCCC 2016 or, as it was known on social media, #4C16. To start, 2 dozen colleagues, including representatives from the Asian/Asian American, Black, and Latinx Caucuses and the Disabilities Studies SIG, offered 12 concurrent microworkshops that engaged audience members-turned-participants in discovering new strategies for all kinds of feminist action both in and outside the classroom, both online and off. Coalition members also hosted 10 mentoring tables, where facilitators led conversations about everything from editorial collaborations and formulating research questions for historical scholarship to feminist WPA work, undergraduate research mentorship, and feminist transnational scholarship.

Cristina Ramirez pictured with her book, /Occupying Our Space/.

Cristina Ramirez pictured with her book.

During our Wednesday night session, we also announced the recipient of the 2016 Winifred Bryan Horner Book Award. The Selection Committee this year was chaired by Liz Tasker Davis and included Jane Donawerth, Liz Kimball, Arabella Lyon, and Hui Wu. They read 10 stellar works, which individually and together speak to the vibrancy of feminist scholarship in feminist pedagogy, practice, history, and theory in our field. With great pleasure and appreciation, they gave honorable mention to Carolyn Skinner’s monograph Women Physicians & Professional Ethos in Nineteenth Century America (SIUP, 2014), and they gave this year’s award to Cristina Devereaux Ramirez’s monograph Occupying Our Space: The Mestiza Rhetorics of Mexican Women Journalists and Activists, 1875-1942 (UAP, 2015) (Watch Cristina accept the award here!)

Whether you were in Houston for 4C16 and want to reminisce or you couldn’t make it and are curious, you can peruse the Action Hour program and click through Trish Fancher’s Storify retrospective: #thefeministsarecoming #4C16. It just may be the case that two hashtags related to our activities were the most tweeted during the conference: #FemU, the hashtag microworkshop leader Christine Martorana asked us to use, inspired by the Bitch Media article “Beyond the Feminist Classroom” by Trish Kahle; and our very own hashtag, #CWSHRC! You can even see for yourself via video:

 

For my part, I can think of no better way to have started the Houston convention and no better way to end the 2014-2016 term. As we race ahead to not only a new term but also new leadership on the Executive and Advisory Boards, a new editor at the helm of our journal, Peitho, and new ways of naming ourselves and working together, I know I look forward to all of it and especially to coalitioning with all of you.

 

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In the fore, Charlie Cat sits with an Action Hour program; behind her, a fortune teller cat contemplates the past, present, and future.

 

 

 

#thefeministsarecoming to #4C16

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Perhaps of course, a conference themed around “writing strategies for action” would bring out the feminist teachers, writers, and strategists in droves! Certainly, one does not have to look long or hard at the conference program to see where and when the feminist action will be taking place.

The image depicts the orange program cover emblazoned with 4Cs and a rocket taking off.

The image depicts the orange program cover emblazoned with 4Cs and a rocket taking off.

Some of the highlights include:

Wednesday, April 6th from 9am-5pm
Hilton Grand Ballroom B, Level Four
Feminist Workshop
Action through Care

Sponsored by the CCCC Committee on the Status of Women, this workshop will address a range of perspectives on ways we engage as feminist professionals: through mentoring of students and colleagues, through our feminist pedagogical techniques, and through examination of disciplinary questions. At the workshop we look to address issues of care, both in how it is framed at home and in the institution. Participants explore and define care as it impacts how mothering/parenthood and work-life balance are perceived and handled in the institution; how we work as educators to manage the flexibility and inflexibility of academic career trajectories; how we navigate family-unfriendly environments in order to create family-friendly ones; and how the classic frame of care work is reflected in the work that rhetoric/composition teachers/scholars occupy.

The day will include two panel presentations—The Value of Care Work: Family Caretakers and the Impact on Labor and The Ethics of Care: Taking Stock of Caretaking in the Institution—with extended discussions of each presentation, which will extend into broader consideration of how to open up dialogue in a variety of spaces on the issue of care. The activities will encourage interaction between presenters and participants, will provide opportunities to create a plan of action for the future, and will allow space for feedback on academic projects.

 

​​The words "Performing Feminist Action" appear in red font against a rough and cracked cement background.

​​The words “Performing Feminist Action” appear in red font against a rough and cracked cement background.

Wednesday, April 6th at 6:30pm
Hilton Ballroom of the Americas, Salon A, Level 2
Coalition of Women Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition
Performing Feminist Action

The Coalition of Women Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition (CWSHRC) is an
activist organization. Think about it. Twenty-five years ago when the group was founded, how
could a learned society dedicated to feminist research, histories of women, and studies of gender and sexuality in rhetoric and composition be anything else? Certainly, the Coalition’s founders understood that the personal and professional are political. They also knew the importance of coalitions, of groups that represent, of alliances that capacitate everyone to act.

This year at CCCC we have partnered with 22 colleagues, including members of the Asian and Asian American, Black, and Latinx Caucuses and the Disabilities Studies SIG, to offer a dozen concurrent microworkshops that feature ideas and strategies for performing feminist action. Participants will have time, during the first hour of our two-hour session, to participate in not one, not two, but three different workshops, and everyone will be able to learn from all 12 after the fact in Peitho 19.1.

The words "workshop & mentoring" appear in black font above "Coalition of Women Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition" (in red font) against a rough cement background.

“Workshop & Mentoring” appear in black above “Coalition of Women Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition” (in red) on a cement background.

This year, too, we will feature our signature mentoring tables, and we will be celebrating all kinds of good news, including the recipient of the 2016 Winifred Bryan Horner Book Award and the selection of the Coalition’s first Archivist and Historian, our first Director of Digital Media and Outreach, and the next editor of Peitho.

Plan to join us. All are welcome to attend, learn, and act!

Hour 1: Concurrent Microworkshops

  • Action Rhetoric Project: Complicating Activism In and Outside the Classroom with Charlotte Hogg, Angela Moore, and Jazmine Wells
  • ART: Exploring the Intersections of Art and Feminist Intervention in Medicine with Maria Novotny and Elizabeth Horn-Walker
  • CCC: Coalition, Collaboration, and the 21st century Latin@ Caucus, sponsored by the Latin@ Caucus with  Iris Ruiz and Karrieann Soto
  • Composing Accessibility: The Rhetoric of Image Descriptions and Captions, sponsored by the Disability Studies SIG with Ruth Osorio and Chad Iwertz
  • Data Quest with Carolyn Ostrander
  • History, Theory, Pedagogy, Action: Critical Approaches to African American Rhetorical Call and Response, sponsored by the Black Caucus with Brittney Boykins, Rhea Lathan, and Staci Perryman-Clark
  • Intersecting Asian/American Rhetorical Studies and Feminisms: Histories, Visions, and Collaborative Actions, sponsored by the Asian and Asian American Caucus with Chanon Adsanatham, Karen Carter, Chenchen Huang, and Hui Wu
  • Interview, Involvement, and the Personal with Jessica Restaino
  • It’s Wiki Work: A Public Re/Covery of Forgotten Women in STEM Fields with Jeanne Law Bohannon
  • Spoken Words on a Digital Fridge: Playing Toward a Feminist Theory of Games with Danielle Roach, Megan Mize, and Daniel Cox
  • Using Hashtags to Hash out Feminism and Composition with Christine Martorana
  • Whose Bodies, Whose Selves? with Sara DiCaglio and colleagues

Hour 2: Mentoring Tables

  • Doing Digital Feminist Scholarship with Kathleen Welch and colleague(s)
  • Editorial Collaborations with Jess Enoch and Lynee Gaillet
  • Feminist WPA Work with Coretta Pittman and Lisa Mastrangelo
  • Formulating Research Questions for Historical Scholarship with Nan Johnson and Alexis McGee
  • Mentoring Undergraduate Researchers with Roxanne Aftanas and Jane Greer
  • New, Unexpected Sites for Historical Scholarship with Kate Adams and Nancy Myers
  • Place(s) of and for Feminism in Community Writing with Kaitlin Clinnin and Nora McCook
  • Preparing for the Job Search with Letizia Guglielmo, Lydia McDermott, and Erin Wecker
  • Transnational Feminist Scholarship with Rebecca Dingo and Bo Wang
  • Work/Life Balance with Whitney Myers and Hui Wu

"I <3 feminism" is spray painted in black (with a red heart) on a rough and cracked cement surface.

Thursday, April 7, 2016 at 6:30pm
GRB Room 351D, Level Three
Women’s Network SIG
A Landscape for Change: Our Spaces, Our Selves

Open to all CCCC attendees, this SIG is a participant-led sharing session on gender, professional labor, and workplace equity.

“A Landscape for Change: Our Spaces, Our Selves” is the theme for the 2016 Women’s Network SIG which has three main goals: (1) The meeting will allow CSWP membership to briefly update SIG attendees on the committee’s work during the previous year and at the CCCC 2015 convention; (2) It will provide a space for conversation related to gender, labor issues, workplace equity, policies that promote work-life balance, and other items related to the SIG theme that are raised by attendees; and (3) The SIG will conclude by identifying any “next steps” that can be communicated to the CSWP and/or taken up by attendees, thus enabling the SIG discussion to contribute to CSWP efforts and other potential outcomes as suggested by the participant-led discussion (as has been done in previous years).

Lupita Nyong’o with face imprinted by tracking dots used by the artists at the studio to transform her face into wise Maz Kanata for Star Wars VII. (CC)

Lupita Nyong’o with face imprinted by tracking dots used by to transform her into Maz Kanata for Star Wars VII. (CC)

The goal of the session is to provide CCCC members with an opportunity and safe space to discuss the status of women in the field with respect to a variety of working conditions and issues related to gender and workplace equity. In addition, the Women’s Network SIG provides an opportunity for mentoring, networking, and support for women faculty of all ranks. The SIG will be facilitated by members of the Committee on the Status of Women in the Profession (CSWP). Building off successes of the past three Women’s Network SIG meetings, the 2016 SIG will function in collaboration with the annual Feminist Workshop, which is also supported by the CSWP.

Lights, Camera, 4C16 Action!

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Open Call for Proposals
Performing Feminist Action: CWHSRC@4C16

The Coalition of Women Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition is an activist organization. Think about it. Twenty-five years ago, how could a learned society dedicated to feminist research, histories of women, and studies of gender and sexuality in rhetoric and composition be anything else? Certainly, the Coalition’s founders understood that the personal and professional are political. They also knew the importance of coalitions, of groups that represent, of alliances that capacitate everyone involved to act.

Today’s CWSHRC members share these goals and are eager to share strategies for taking action. To that end, at 4C16 the Coalition will host a Wednesday night Action Hour featuring up to a dozen concurrent micro-workshops or short, interactive lessons in both old and new ways of performing feminist action.

Proposals, including an abstract (140 characters) and description (250-300 words), can be submitted online through Friday, April 24th at 5pm Central: <http://tinyurl.com/CWSHRC-4C16>.

Download a copy of this CFP: <4C16-CWSHRC-ActionHourCall2>.

Some As to FAQs about the Coalition’s 4C16 Action Hour

Q: What is a micro-workshop?
A: Micro-workshops are focused and brief, 5- to 10-minute pedagogical interactions that engage participants in hands-on, active learning (i.e., demonstrations, writing on site).

Q: What are some examples of micro-workshops on feminist action?
A: A micro-workshop might teach past feminist actions by staging tableaux of iconic protests or writing new verses of well-known anthems. Micro-workshops might demonstrate actions taken by particular individuals or groups, or they might engage participants in making things: a graffiti wall with messages to a specific audience, Lego or clay models of inclusive spaces, classroom activities that creatively and critically address particular issues, etc. Sky’s the limit—well, almost.

Q: What are the limits?
A: Workshops should take no more than 5-10 minutes from start to finish and involve activities that can be performed either at a round banquet table seating no more than 8-10 people or a 3×3 space. Workshop leaders will need to provide their own materials and equipment.

Q: The CWSHRC is hosting this event: how are H, R, and C involved?
A: Whether micro-workshops focus on past, present, or future feminist actions, workshop leaders should make clear how their workshops draw on one or more traditions of rhetoric and composition.

Q: Who can propose a micro-workshop?
A: Individuals, pairs, and groups of 3 interested in attending 4C16 can propose micro-workshops.

Q: How will proposals be selected?
A: NCTE/CCCC caucuses and groups have been invited to sponsor up to 6 workshops; a committee of Coalition Advisory Board members will select additional workshops (for a total of 12) from proposals received through this open call.

Q: Do I need to be a CWSHRC member to submit a proposal?
A: Individuals and at least one member of pairs and groups responding to this open call must be CWSHRC members; colleagues involved in workshops sponsored by NCTE/CCCC caucuses and groups are encouraged but not required to be members of the Coalition.

Q: Can I participate in the Action Hour and have a speaking role in a regular session?
A: Yes! The CWSHRC session is classified as a SIG, which means participants can also hold speaking roles in regular, Thursday-Saturday sessions.

Keyword: action hour