Papers & Publications

The field in which I am based—“Rhetoric and Composition”—is understood as a convergence of ancient traditions with contemporary issues, philosophies, and methodologies related to the learning and teaching of writing in various modalities, contexts, and spheres of public and private activity. In my scholarship I am motivated by a dual desire: I want my historical work to help build theory in rhetoric and composition, and I want my theoretical work to help expand historical methods in and approaches for the discipline. Most of my projects occur within three interrelated strands of intellectual activity.

I. Rhetoric, Feminism, History, and Language
My research in this strand is interested in how knowledge about writing and written expression gets made within and across borders, how various disciplines and publics access that knowledge, and how those ways of access become historicized or overlooked among underrepresented subjects. As a result, my work often challenges overriding assumptions about feminist ways of knowing that historically go unnoticed, due to any number of factors; considers theoretical extensions of comparative rhetorical methodologies; and considers historical challenges of globalizing such study through increasingly technologized means. Notable projects include:

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II. Rhetoric, Historiography, Digital Humanities, and Archives
Studying physical and digital archives as factors in the re/construction of underrepresented textual histories has led me to a second strand of intellectual activity, where I consider how feminist historiography in rhetoric and composition can contribute to archival studies writ large. My research in this strand focuses on method, attending to how digital historical practices in rhetoric and composition are not so much new as they reflect newly reimagined habits or desires—to witness institutions as they are in the process of being formed, to critically display historians’ narratives alongside those of their subjects, and to circulate tools that reflect the nature of our blurred relationships with text, memory, and archive. My work in this strand has been partly collaborative, including ongoing investigations of digital historiography with Patricia Sullivan, and of networked archives with Shirley K Rose. Ultimately, I consider how rhetoric and composition historians materialize what Susan Miller has called their “textual trust” in the archive (Trust in Texts, 2007, p. 107). Notable projects include:

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III. Feminism, Composition Pedagogy, and Institutional Discourse
Following from my interest in disciplinary histories, my scholarship in this strand focuses on reflective practice, considering how to apply feminist theory and historical methodologies to larger questions about institutional ethics and pedagogical innovation, especially surrounding the establishment of undergraduate curriculum, the maintenance of writing programs, the mentoring of multilingual learners, and the invention of disciplinary discourses. My work in this strand includes frequent collaborations with Kathleen J. Ryan, Colin and Jonikka Charlton, and Amy Ferdinandt Stolley. Notable projects include:

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