Research
This page provides details about my book project and refereed publications.
Overview
In my scholarship, I employ qualitative research methods--such as autoethnography, mapping, story, and archival research, to investigate how various communities use writing to survive and thrive, including Black Mississippians, LGBTQ+ academics and their allies, and comics and zine creators, among others.
Book Project
Word and Smiles: An Autobiographic Intervention into Academic Professionalization (WaS) draws from my experiences as an activist, zine publisher, promoter, service worker, academic, and comics creator. To make the intervention indicated by the subtitle, the book tells stories about events from various stages of my life, filtering these experiences through theories from cultural rhetorics, critical and feminist pedagogy, activist studies, and community writing. Prompted by the ongoing struggle between my commitments and obligations, a struggle that took on new significance during the COVID-19 pandemic, this book aims to reconfigure how academics frame professionalization.
At its heart, WaS raises questions about what professionalization means and challenges what professionalization looks like in academia. The book’s goal is to support students, particularly graduate students considering careers in academia and early career faculty who grapple with the tensions among who they have been, who they want to be, and who they feel compelled to become based on disciplinary expectations and institutional practices. The book also provides a way for administrators or advanced faculty members to support conversations about this struggle in their institutions, departments, and programs.
To work toward this goal, I illustrate some of the ways that my nonacademic experiences shape who I am and have been, and I reflect on how these experiences shape who I am becoming as a teacher and scholar. Following the graphic memoir that comprises the bulk of the book, I present reading lists and writing and comics making activities to help others consider the relationships among who they are or have been in various non-academic contexts with who they are in their field, at their institution, and in the classroom.
At its heart, WaS raises questions about what professionalization means and challenges what professionalization looks like in academia. The book’s goal is to support students, particularly graduate students considering careers in academia and early career faculty who grapple with the tensions among who they have been, who they want to be, and who they feel compelled to become based on disciplinary expectations and institutional practices. The book also provides a way for administrators or advanced faculty members to support conversations about this struggle in their institutions, departments, and programs.
To work toward this goal, I illustrate some of the ways that my nonacademic experiences shape who I am and have been, and I reflect on how these experiences shape who I am becoming as a teacher and scholar. Following the graphic memoir that comprises the bulk of the book, I present reading lists and writing and comics making activities to help others consider the relationships among who they are or have been in various non-academic contexts with who they are in their field, at their institution, and in the classroom.
* * *
The proposal has been accepted by an academic press. Unedited drafts of the cover and first two sections are available below.
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Refereed Publications
"The Homophobic Imagination in the South Today." College English, 2024. (in press)
"Grassroots Activism and Tactical Communities: Examining the Poor People’s Corporation in Mississippi in the 1960s and 1970s." Tactical Approaches to Technical Communication, edited by Miles Kimball, Hilary Sarat-St. Peter, and Hayley McCullough, State University of New York Press. (in press)
"Antlered Does and Cactus Bucks." The Journal of Multimodal Rhetorics, 8(1), Spring 2024.
"Collectors, Storytellers, and Web Pros: Making Comics and Building Community During the Pandemic." The Comics Grid: Journal of Comics Scholarship, 13(1), Jan. 2024.
"Coalition Building Between Subjectivity and Instrumentality: Reflecting on My Experiences in a Militant, Trotskyist Women's Rights Group in the 1990s." Peitho: Journal of the Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric & Composition, 26(1), Fall 2023.
"Distributed Definition Building and the Coalition for Community Writing." Peitho: Journal of the Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric & Composition, 25(4), Summer 2023. Co-authored w/ Veronica House (lead), Sweta Baniya, Paul Feigenbaum, Megan Hartline, Lisa King, Seán McCarthy, Maria Novotny, Jessica Restaino, Sherita V. Roundtree, Daniel Singer, Lara Smith-Sitton, Karen Tellez-Trujillo, Bernardita M. Yunis Varas, Kate Vieira, Ada Vilageliu-Díaz, Stephanie Wade, and Christopher Wilke.
"Words and Smiles: Making Comics During the Pandemic." The Journal of Multimodal Rhetorics, 6(2), Summer 2022.
"Free Pride Hugs." Community Literacy Journal, 16(2), Spring 2022, pp. 181–186.
"Volume 1: Coda." Spark: A Journal of Activism in Writing, Rhetoric & Literacy Studies, 1(2), Sept. 2019. Co-edited and -authored w/ Liz Lane.
"Volume 1: Introduction." Spark: A Journal of Activism in Writing, Rhetoric & Literacy Studies, vol. 1(1), Mar. 2019. Co-edited and -authored w/ Liz Lane.
"Considering Global Communication and Usability as Networked Engagement: Lessons from 4C4Equality." Thinking Globally, Composing Locally: Rethinking Online Writing in the Age of the Global Internet, edited by Kirk St.Amant and Rich Rice, Utah State University Press, 2018, pp. 93–114. Co-authored w/ Liz Lane.
"Writing Networks for Social Justice." Constellations: A Cultural Rhetorics Publishing Space, 1, Spring 2018. Co-edited and -authored w/ Liz Lane.
"Locating Queer Rhetorics: Mapping as Inventional Method." Computers and Composition, 38A, Dec. 2015, pp. 96–112. Co-authored w/ Fernando Sanchez.
"Grassroots Activism and Tactical Communities: Examining the Poor People’s Corporation in Mississippi in the 1960s and 1970s." Tactical Approaches to Technical Communication, edited by Miles Kimball, Hilary Sarat-St. Peter, and Hayley McCullough, State University of New York Press. (in press)
"Antlered Does and Cactus Bucks." The Journal of Multimodal Rhetorics, 8(1), Spring 2024.
"Collectors, Storytellers, and Web Pros: Making Comics and Building Community During the Pandemic." The Comics Grid: Journal of Comics Scholarship, 13(1), Jan. 2024.
"Coalition Building Between Subjectivity and Instrumentality: Reflecting on My Experiences in a Militant, Trotskyist Women's Rights Group in the 1990s." Peitho: Journal of the Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric & Composition, 26(1), Fall 2023.
"Distributed Definition Building and the Coalition for Community Writing." Peitho: Journal of the Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric & Composition, 25(4), Summer 2023. Co-authored w/ Veronica House (lead), Sweta Baniya, Paul Feigenbaum, Megan Hartline, Lisa King, Seán McCarthy, Maria Novotny, Jessica Restaino, Sherita V. Roundtree, Daniel Singer, Lara Smith-Sitton, Karen Tellez-Trujillo, Bernardita M. Yunis Varas, Kate Vieira, Ada Vilageliu-Díaz, Stephanie Wade, and Christopher Wilke.
"Words and Smiles: Making Comics During the Pandemic." The Journal of Multimodal Rhetorics, 6(2), Summer 2022.
"Free Pride Hugs." Community Literacy Journal, 16(2), Spring 2022, pp. 181–186.
"Volume 1: Coda." Spark: A Journal of Activism in Writing, Rhetoric & Literacy Studies, 1(2), Sept. 2019. Co-edited and -authored w/ Liz Lane.
"Volume 1: Introduction." Spark: A Journal of Activism in Writing, Rhetoric & Literacy Studies, vol. 1(1), Mar. 2019. Co-edited and -authored w/ Liz Lane.
"Considering Global Communication and Usability as Networked Engagement: Lessons from 4C4Equality." Thinking Globally, Composing Locally: Rethinking Online Writing in the Age of the Global Internet, edited by Kirk St.Amant and Rich Rice, Utah State University Press, 2018, pp. 93–114. Co-authored w/ Liz Lane.
"Writing Networks for Social Justice." Constellations: A Cultural Rhetorics Publishing Space, 1, Spring 2018. Co-edited and -authored w/ Liz Lane.
"Locating Queer Rhetorics: Mapping as Inventional Method." Computers and Composition, 38A, Dec. 2015, pp. 96–112. Co-authored w/ Fernando Sanchez.