[TW: discussion of self-harm] “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” —Audre Lorde The past couple weeks have been emotional in so many ways. May 8th was both the sixth year anniversary of my mom’s death and my doctoral hooding ceremony. May 10th was both…… Continue reading Radical Self-Love & Tattoos
The one-year “anniversary” of the Elk River Chemical Spill was on January 9th. This time last year, I was prepping for a professional writing course and saw friends on Facebook talking about a chemical spill in the river in my hometown. I texted my dad who was boiling water for spaghetti at the time. When…… Continue reading #WVwatercrisis teaching resources
This is a “duh” statement, but there’s been a lot of talk recently about sexual assault, domestic abuse, violence against women. With so many high-profile cases, they’re nearly impossible topics to avoid. This is a conversation that we need to have—a conversation that lots of individuals, lots of organizations, lots of institutions need to discuss,…… Continue reading Support Systems
In the preface to his book, Gold offers some context for his site selection and the arguments he plans to develop. The purpose of his book is to examine rhetorical education at three historically neglected institutions: Wiley College (a private HBCU), Texas Woman’s University (a public all-women’s college), and East Texas Normal school (an independent…… Continue reading Rhetoric at the Margins: Revising the History of Writing Instruction in American Colleges, 1873-1947
We took a practice exam two weeks ago, which resulted in the silence here as I revisited notes on ancient rhetorical texts and attempted to parse out an argument about rhetorical invention, art, and natural ability. Although it was painful, the practice exam was really good in the sense that it forced me to try…… Continue reading Modern Dogma and the Rhetoric of Assent
My apprenticeship has been long and enlightening. I have learned to engage in a painstaking process of recovery and reconstruction; to use multidisciplinary sources; to count experience variously, especially when the people whose experience it was are no longer alive and when they did not always leave clear records of themselves. I have learned to…… Continue reading Traces of a Stream: Literacy and Social Change Among African American Women
Some figures emerge from social movements as leaders of the people, whether they choose or accept these labels or not: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Desmond Tutu. Some movements are leader-less, their power decentralized and dispersed: the animal liberation movement, radical environmentalism, Occupy. Though I have read his essay…… Continue reading Role of the Leader in Social Movements
[This is a two-part posting about my CCCC experience.] Last week, I attended my first Conference on College Composition and Communication, and it was awesome. It was an overwhelming experience (so many people! so many sessions!) in a really positive way (lots of engaging panels and people). The first part of my CCCC experience was…… Continue reading #4c12 Part I: IWCA Collaborative at CCCC
One of my classes this semester is the Social History of Rhetoric. For our final project, we are writing a social history. Obviously, it will be abbreviated by time and length constraints, but nonetheless, I’m excited. I’ve decided to do a project involving the SU archives; specifically, a project that looks at disability advocacy on…… Continue reading Digging in the Archives: Student Disability Organizations
This morning, our class discussion of literacy moved to an argument about power—a discussion about how literacy is controlled and distributed. Then, a claim: “If we want to use literacy development for social (or community) change, we cannot do it within traditional educational institutions.” And then a question: “If that’s true, then what are we…… Continue reading Literacy, Power, and Social Change
