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.

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.

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.

“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

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 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.