Sessions
The conference brought feminist researchers and activists from all but four states in the US. Presentations at the conference included 30 how-to workshops, 28 roundtables, 8 interactive installations, 14 posters, 248 individual presentations and 50 panels.
As part of our class, each student was required to produce three "conference stories" and many chose to review individual sessions. Below we highlight just a fraction of the presentations - based on curators' attendance at the conference.
Check out the full conference program for more session titles and information on these and other sessions.
On Collegiality
Miriam Fernandez, Alexandra Cavallaro, Jasmine Lee, and Karen Rowan, all from California State University San Bernardino, hosted a roundtable entitled “On Collegiality: A Feminist Exploration of Mentorship, Collaboration, and Showing Up for One Another in Professional Spaces.” The four scholars presented a study to answer the following question: “What makes a feminist mentor/colleague?” From a collection of 15 interviews, they arrived on eight main takeaways - traditional mentoring is disconnected from the individual, feminist mentoring is about the whole person, feminist mentorship is about creating access, feminist mentoring attends to power, feminist mentors proactively reach out, feminist intentions do not equal feminist impact, feminist mentors attend to mentoring labor and existing structures do not support feminist mentoring. One question discussed at length was about whether or not being successful in academia, or any institution, is at odds with pushing for change within that institution. Another issue that came up in the session was that of feminist principles versus felt feminist action. The session privileged feminist action and advocated for the idea of accessibility as a tenent of feminist mentorship. To this end, their presentation was accompanied by physical copies of slides, as well as two American Sign Language interpreters.
An American Orphan: Amelia Simmons and Feminist Ethé
In her presentation, Elizabeth Flietz explored the rhetoric of the first known American cookbook and the ethos of its author, Amelia Simmons. The Library of Congress recognizes American Cookery as one of the 88 books that shaped America, yet little is known about Amelia Simmons. Under the assumption that Simmons did in fact go by the name in the byline, and assuming the identity that she cites on the title page as “An American Orphan,” why is this claim to her identity relevant? In citing herself as an orphan, Simmons identified herself via a marginalized status. The important point to highlight is that feminist rhetoric in this context does not operate under an Aristotalean model; rather, the emphasis of marginalization was crucial to the ethos of a feminist rhetor. By this assertion, there is, in fact, no women’s ethos, but rather multiple ethos, or ethé. Because Simmons is allegedly an orphan and a domestic servant, she connects to readers by using an identity marker, specifically to gain pity, and by extension, attention from her audience. Throughout her cookbook, Simmons utilizes morality statements that are in accordance with common beliefs of the time. For example, her preface cites that the book aims to inform women about improving upon skills that will make them productive members of society and good wives (appealing to the cult of domesticity). In doing so, Simmons demonstrates the belief that cooking is crucial to being a “good woman” and that such skills should come inherently to women especially when cooking for standardized means rather than for experimentation. Simmons links her identity and her morality together with the assertion that, because she is an orphan and has no one to turn to, that makes her morality all the more important and lends itself to her credibility within this context.
Reclaiming the Village Witch: Feminist Rhetorics of Anger, Unlikability, and Public Service
The room was full as four presenters talked about witches, wronged women of mythology, the problematic tendency of differently abled characters only existing in movies/on TV when they benefit other characters, and using women’s amateur wrestling (featuring subversive costumes) as activism. The commonality between these presenters was an interest in “the rhetorical construction of mythos.”
There were four presenters at this unique session that took on different topics surrounding the misrepresentation of powerful women, mythological women, disabled characters, and of course, witches. The first speaker, Michelle LaFrance from George Mason University, spoke more about witches specifically as well as the “Social Justice Warrior.” The second speaker, Melissa Nicolas from Washington
State University, touched upon mythological witches and female monsters. She spoke about how powerful women are often depicted as “monsters” or “witches.” She stated, “Nothing threatens male power like powerful women.” The third speaker, Adam Hubrig from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, discussed how differntly abled persons are often misrepresented in the mainstream media and often play side characters. He stated that in modern media “a disabled person is less a character and more of a prop.” He discussed how those who have been "othered" and ignored are beginning to determine their roles on their own terms. The last speaker, Melissa K. Forbes from Gettysburg College, presented via video and she talked about how she participated in Champaign Ladies Amateur Wrestling (CLAW) and how their different, intriguing costumes were used as a form of activism. Each of these speakers gave marvelous in-depth analyses of misrepresentation in different ways. Not to mention, they really get you thinking about witches.
Feminist Approaches to Writing Center Work
The first presenters - Janine Morris and Kelly Concannon - came from Nova Southeastern University and discussed how mindfulness and self-care enhance the work of writing center consultants and faculty in their talk "Mindful Mentorship, Self-Care, & Fostering Graduate Student Well- Being in the Writing Center." This topic of conversation has come up several times in our writing center here at JMU as well, since our UWC coordinator is also a certified Koru Mindfulness Meditation teacher. The second presenter , Lyndsey Key, was a Master’s student from Oklahoma State University who proposed a new definition of sexual harassment, and advocated for the study of microaggressions in writing centers. Her talk, "Discomfort: A Discussion of Sexual Microaggressions and the Affective Labor of Peer Tutors,” included her own experience being anonymously stalked and harassed by someone at her school via email, and she also talked about how being a graduate student—or anyone who holds a student employee position—creates an “inherently precarious” situation when it comes to protection from things like harassment. This session was really informative and provided much to think about regarding the way universities protect their student employees both physically and mentally.
Women’s Work: Structures and Spaces for Women Workers
“To live a feminist life is to make everything into something that is questionable.” Conference attendees gathered on Friday morning to attend the “Women’s Work” session presented by speakers Meg McGuire of the University of Delaware, Sara Kelm of Texas Christian University and Dara Rossman Regaignon or New York University.
Regaignon focused on “Feminism, Leadership, and Writing Program Administration" and discussed reshaping our institutions from teaching and mentoring work to diversity work. She quoted Audre Lorde's warning that, “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. Do not become the master’s tools.” Regaignon then posed the question: “How can a WPA and an academic middle manager avoid becoming the master’s tools?” The answers aren't easy, but she proposed we think about what neoliberalism looks like on our own campuses, how it values some faculty and modes of being faculty and not others, and how we might develop the tools of our discipline to disrupt normalized uptakes. She also hopes we can seek ways to dismantle the structures of power and generate new frameworks for understanding an agency.
Personal Stories of Resistance: The Pen as Sword: Letters as Everyday Rhetorics of Resistance
Speaker Vanessa Kraemer Sohan, from Florida International University, was part of a four-personal panel discussion different aspects of resistance. Her talk focused on letter writing as resistance and began the session with three questions that she said have plagued her since the 2016 election:
1-How can we as writers and composers find creative and productive ways to speak back to power and gain a hearing?
2-Do the thousands of calls, letters and emails flooding Congress make a difference?
3-Do desperate times call for desperate measures?
Kraemer’s research involves analyzing sent letters along with the responses she may have received. Specifically, she discussed Pearl Burkhalter and Eliza P. Gurney and their letters. Pearl Burkhalter wrote letters fighting for elderly rights and the Townson Convention, and people described her letters as being filled with “angry rhetoric.” Eliza P. Gurney regularly corresponded with Abraham Lincoln, covering religion, politics and Quaker rights.
For Kraemer, writing letters is an act of activism, resistance and a means of disruption. Kraemer explained, “persistence is resistance.” So although most letters sent to Congress - or to other individuals in power - may go unread or are not responded to, persistence in taking up important topics is still meaningful in the world of activism.
Suggested Readings
Foss, Karen A., Sonja K. Foss, and Cindy L. Griffin. Feminist rhetorical theories. Vol. 1. Sage, 1999.
Glenn, Cheryl. Rhetorical feminism and this thing called hope. Southern Illinois University Press, 2018.
Ritchie, Joy, and Kate Ronald, eds. Available means: An anthology of women's rhetoric (s). University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001.