Rhetoric Society of America (RSA) Conference: May 2024
“This Really Happened: Storying Rhetoric in Carceral, Digital, and Research Spaces”
Presentation Abstract: This panel explores the intersections of social justice and storytelling in three distinct spaces—carceral, digital, and research—where stories have traditionally been undervalued. Through storytelling, all three spaces can do just rhetoric and become beacons of meaning making and resilience. As Nancy Small (2017) states, “story can allow us to analyze organizational identity, organizational discourse, and the persuasive role of shared narratives in forming and influencing the broader community” (p. 235). When utilized as vehicles for change, stories can shape culture, communication, and relationships. These researchers call on rhetoricians to consider the positionality, privilege, and power (Jones, Moore, & Walton, 2016) inherent within storytelling. How can we leverage stories as a way to ensure equity and inclusivity? How can storytelling improve accessibility? What role can stories play in knowledge-making? This panel proposes to engage these questions and to provide insight on the intersections of justice, rhetoric, and storytelling.
ACM Special Interest Group on Design of Communication (SIGDOC) Conference: October 2023
“Programmatic Keywords: Using corpus-assisted discourse analysis practices to inform academic program development”
Presentation Abstract: As part of ongoing efforts to apply user experience design practices to academic program development, our writing program is seeking ways to communicate our values and goals more clearly to our students. To that end, we are planning two user research studies with students: a survey to evaluate the degree’s current and potential future names and interviews to explore how students conceptualize keywords and connect the writing degree to their personal and professional goals. We plan to use corpus-assisted discourse analysis (CADA) methods in these studies to identify student-focused language for our program communications. This experience report focuses on a pilot study where we tested a CADA analysis tool on a related dataset. First, we collected names and website descriptions for 26 writing and rhetoric degrees. Then, we used free online CADA software to analyze trends in those names and descriptions. The findings from our pilot study include observations on the common topics and patterns in program names and descriptions. The pilot study also identified potential limitations in using CADA software for this kind of analysis.
re/charging: developing positive energies for change to wicked problems
Presentation Abstract: Change is a responsibility to community and ethics, one that requires labor, attention, persistence—“sweat equity” in the language of activism and volunteering. Rhetoricians are constantly on the margins of (r)evolution. For example, Ellen Cushman (1996) calls on modern rhetoric and composition scholars to be “agents of social change” outside the university to empower and create solidarity with community members. Klumpp and Hollihan (1989) charge the rhetorical critic with being an interpreter, teacher, and social actor, with a responsibility to be a moral participant in society. As teachers, we’re reminded that rhetorical pedagogy aimed at cultural critique is important, but should be mirrored with direct civic engagement outside of the classroom (Schiappa, 1995). These researchers call on scholars of rhetoric to acknowledge and embrace their role in challenging and changing systems of oppression and inequality. But what does it take to empower the enactors of change? How can we sustain our energy for the long-term fight? Important questions, but what do we do when our labor is largely ineffective? How do we continue to be agents for change when we are confronted, time and again, by barriers to that change? These are wicked problems, and there are no easy responses. This panel proposes to engage these questions, to discuss how agents for change can recharge to develop new energies, new intensities so that we can all continue to be responsible, moral participants in society even when our efforts appear less than fruitful.
Juntos pero no revueltos: Using Positionality to Address Gaps in Cuban-American Mental Health Care
Presentation Abstract: Positionality is defined as using “perspective as a place from which values are interpreted and constructed rather than as a locus of an already determined set of values” (Alcoff, 1988, p. 434). Cuban-Americans seeking treatment and information for mental health disorders are vulnerable to barriers of communication and institutional inequalities that neglect this community’s positionality and unique needs (Aguilar-Gaxiola & Gullotta, 2008). Vulnerability occurs when any person is exposed to the effects of interactions with others and the Cuban-American population is susceptible to varying levels of wounding and caring within the mental health care field (Cavarero, 2011). Culturally competent mental health care becomes difficult to provide if the mental health care system includes assumptions on Cuban-Americans that completely bypass distinct cultural needs and fail to moderate increased risks for this specific population (Delgado et. al., 2006). A better understanding of the communicative practices that are being implemented for Cuban-Americans in need of mental health care is key to providing them with “the quality of mental health care that they deserve as human beings” (Aguilar-Gaxiola & Gullotta, 2008, p. 10). This individual paper seeks to explain that by acknowledging and incorporating positionality into patient communication(s) and care, the mental health care field can better promote mental health awareness for Cuban-Americans facing different mental health issues.
Considering Positionality as a Commonplace in Personal, Academic, Transnational, and Community Research
Presentation Abstract: In research, we often ignore the researcher’s positionality, something that undergrids how research is done, analyzed, and represented. It is rarely discussed in publications, let alone our graduate programs. In this roundtable, professors, graduate students, and community organizers expose the complexities of positionality in a roundtable discussion.
Layering Visual Communication into the Literacies: Revisiting “Layered Literacies” After 16 Years
Presentation Abstract: Sixteen years after Kelli Cargile Cook’s “Layered Literacies” was published, this panel revisits the question of whether visual literacy should stand aline in the layered literacies and, if so, what its pedagogical goals should be. The panel will discuss the importance and magnitude of visual literacy research in the field, as well as practical application for visual literacy in the classroom.