This is a text-based version of my RSA presentation “Rhetorics of Overcoming.” My talk is part of a larger panel titled “Changing Rhetorics of Access(ibility)” with co-panelists Sushil Oswal, Adam Newman, and Dale Ireland. I couldn’t be physically present at RSA this year, so if you’d like to listen to, watch, or read (it’s captioned!) a…… Continue reading #rsa16
At the end of each semester, the students at my university are prompted (on their evaluation forms) to evaluate their instructors based on how the course was organized, whether or not the instructor gave prompt feedback, and whether or not they speak clear, standard English. Pause. “What does this mean? What do you all think…… Continue reading Supporting Students’ Humanity
Yesterday, I sat in a room with six of the best mentors I could ever hope to have and listened as they thoughtfully and critically engaged my dissertation (please expect an upcoming post solely dedicated to my deep gratitude for the wonderful network of people who have supported and pushed me as I developed this project). It…… Continue reading Diss Defense
About this time last year, I wrote a blog post about passing my oral exam defense, how it feels to want to share good news with someone who has been dead for five years, how it feels to be a Ph.D. student with depression so bad you can’t leave your bed. And in some ways, this…… Continue reading Adventures in Depression
This post (maybe like all my posts) is a mix of things: personal history, reading summary, analytical musings of cancer and a society that perpetuates assumptions about women’s bodies. Yesterday, I picked up Audre Lorde’s The Cancer Journals for the first time, and I couldn’t put it down until I was finished. I was surprised…… Continue reading The Cancer Journals
It’s that time of year when end-of-the-semester panic is in full swing. This year, I’m not really feeling the panic. There are a lot of refreshing things about being out of coursework—not feeling that panicky “what am I forgetting?” feeling is one of those things. But also, as someone who is so high-anxiety that I haven’t…… Continue reading Self-Care
I had to follow up Deaf Subjects with “Articulating Betweenity” because it has been so crucial to my thinking since I read it in my last semester of coursework for a literacy class. If you want to check out the webtext, this is the link. *** Though only briefly mentioned in this article, I’m drawn to Brueggemann’s…… Continue reading Articulating Betweenity
I was able to take a trip down to WV this summer, and I love driving through the mountains on winding interstate roads, watching the fog roll slowly through the valleys—pale gray against the dark green trees. Fog is admittedly not the best of driving conditions, but it’s beautiful and haunting. When your brain feels…… Continue reading Rhetorics of Overcoming
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about graduate school and mental health—the relationship between high-pressure academic situations, burnout, and depression. Particularly after reading Margaret Price’s Mad at School: Rhetorics of Mental Disability and Academic Life and seeing a GradHacker post circulating on my Facebook Newsfeed last week called “Mental Health Issues Among Graduate Students,” it…… Continue reading Mental Illness Awareness Week #miaw
For all the questionable (and downright awful) representations of disability in movies and TV series, I was hesitant by the recommendation to watch The Michael J. Fox Show, which premiered last night. But since the recommendation came from my ex who knows very well how picky I am about such things, I figured it couldn’t…… Continue reading The Michael J. Fox Show
Accessing Rhetoric 