Dear Colleagues,
I’m writing on behalf of the CCCC Untenured and Alternative-Academic WPA Standing Group Executive Committee. We’re a group that provides space at the 4Cs conference (a sponsored panel and annual business meeting) for those who have liminal status within and outside of institutions of higher education and who do writing program administrative work (in spite of? in light of?) that very liminality.
In this year’s call for proposals program chair Kofi J. Adisa asks “where does music and writing intersect?” Might we draw on the music world “with its syncopation, blending, and sampling of sounds,” and apply these concepts to our “thinking about writing with its incorporation of visuals, graphics, and other designs?” Adisa beckons us to consider “re-mixing” our writing so that it syncs with the soundtracks that undergird our work, and argues that we can (and should?) “remix and play” with writing to “create a sociocultural practice within the genre” (Church; Jordan and Miller; Tinsley). But what does such “sociocultural practice” look like for us as non-tenured/alternative academic WPAs?
This year we invite panelists who are brave enough to venture into this nebulous space!
One way to think about re-mix is to consider collaboration. Many great songs are “collabs” with artists from disparate musical genres (Barbara Streisand and Babyface; Run DMC and Aerosmith, Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett; Taylor Swift and Bon Iver; Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus). So, what collabs have you forged with seemingly disparate entities or campus units and how successful were/are they? Top 10 on the charts or one-hit wonders?
Collaboration is important to our work because WPA work outside the tenure track requires us to build relationships, learn from others, build bridges, and build teams within our programs and across our institutions. Thus, we seek panelists who can demonstrate the role that collaboration has played (or plays) in your unique context. We are also interested in presentations that take up the call to “remix” not just as a topic or theme, but also as action on the panel itself. We would love to see multi-modal presentations that can make this a creative “b-side” experience. Could you incorporate music, technology or artistic images to magnify your message?
If you’re wondering where to begin, here are a few questions that might inspire you:
Re-mix?
- In what ways do we re-mix our messaging when describing our work to different audiences/stakeholders?
- How is our work as untenured and alt-ac WPAs remixed and repurposed by others? What do these remixes reveal, what stories do they tell, where do we encounter them in other spaces across our campuses? For what purposes is our work repurposed? What are the ramifications of these repurposing and is it always bad?
- How might WPA-ing outside of the tenure track be a way to flip the script, to live on the b-side, to engage the creative side of writing program work?
- How do we remix and repurpose our own work, to what ends, and what are the implications?
Collaboration?
- What are the risks and rewards of collaboration?
- What kinds of unexpected, interesting or b-side outcomes have come out of collaborations we’ve had with others?
- What do we learn from those we collaborate with and how do projects change when we collaborate?
- How does collaboration itself change the initial intentions for the projects we set out to do? What have been the results of those changes?
Other details you should know:
- This is a 75 minute sponsored panel. We hope to put together a combination of presentations and discussion that will involve as many voices as possible. Your speaking time might be shorter than a traditional panel. Please anticipate about 7-10 minutes of time for your contribution.
- Deadline to submit Monday, May 6. You will be notified that your submission is chosen by May 17.
- Participants are able to serve in other speaking roles at the conference, so participating in this roundtable will not conflict with any other conference plans that you might currently have.
- Because the panel/roundtable is sponsored, it is subject to approval by the conference chair, but does not undergo the same competitive review process as proposals submitted independently.
Interested individuals should email proposals to Kem Roper, kem.roper (subject line: 4C25 NT/AltAc Proposal) by 11:30pm (ET) on Monday, May 6, 2024. (We will gladly accept submissions after this deadline too!) Please include the following information in your submission:
- Your name, title at your institution, and a brief bio.
- Include a 100-150 word description of how you’re re-mixing WPA work in your unique context, particularly as people without tenure who work within or adjacent to institutions that by and large still structurally privilege that rank and status.
We look forward to receiving your proposals!
Kem Roper (Chair)
Ashley Lyons (Vice Chair)
LewEllyn Hallett (Secretary)
Kaia Simon (Immediate Past Chair)