Dear Coalition Members,
Please join me in congratulating the feminist scholars, listed below, whose work has been selected for the Presidents Dissertation Award, the Winifred Bryan Horner Outstanding Book Award, and the Nancy A. Myers Feminist Research Grant. I also offer my deepest gratitude to the members of the selection committees for their dedicated service to the Coalition. I’ll make this announcement tomorrow night (Wed. 3-4) at our Coalition gathering, but if you cannot be there please join in this virtual celebration of this fabulous feminist scholarship!
Presidents Dissertation Award
In recognition of the close relationship between scholarly excellence and professional leadership, the CFSHRC Presidents Dissertation Award is given to the author(s) of a recently completed doctoral dissertation that makes an outstanding contribution to our understanding of feminist histories, theories, and pedagogies of rhetoric and composition. This award is adjudicated every year and carries a $200.00 honorarium.
Committee: Paige Nabaji (chair), Hannah Taylor, Amanda Presswood, Abby Dubisar, Carolyn Skinner.
Winner: Haley Swartz, “Rhetorics of Vigilance: Refracting Discourses in Technologies of Self-Managed Health & Wellness”
Dr. Swartz’s dissertation takes up apps, devices, and online health information to analyze how digital health tools shape the way women manage their own health. The judges noted how adeptly Dr. Swartz situates contemporary wellness discourses within the frame of feminist rhetorical scholarship, and, in doing so, brings attention to both these salient and harmful discourses, as well as the need for interdisciplinary rhetorical approaches to health and medicine.
Honorable Mention: Efe Franca Plange, “‘Don’t Bring Your Feminism Here!’: The African Hair Braiding Salon as a Rhetorically Charged Space for Feminist Activism”
Dr. Plange’s dissertation looks toward extending African feminist activism into offline spaces to challenge the common perception that feminism is “un-African.” The committee especially noted how Plange artfully navigates her role as writer, participant, and researcher throughout the dissertation, demonstrating how the personal is political and worthy of serious rhetorical study.
Honorable Mention: Emily Kimbell, “‘The Fruit of My Own Pen’:Rhetorical Agency and the Enduring Legacy of College Temple”
Dr. Kimbell’s dissertation showcases how rhetorical action can serve both liberatory and restrictive ends. Her analysis of College Temple, an all-women’s college in Newnan, Georgia, during the late nineteenth century, serves as a case study of these complexities. Kimbell’s work is not only ambitious and compelling, it is quintessential feminist rhetorical scholarship. “In unearthing the complex, multi-faceted rhetorical landscape at College Temple, Kimbell’s work reminds us that the archival scholarship can equip feminist scholars to resist and explore the tensions of agency and empowerment.”
The Winifred Bryan Horner Outstanding Book Award
The Winifred Bryan Horner Outstanding Book Award is presented biennially in even years for work in the field of composition and rhetoric to recognize outstanding scholarship and research in the areas of feminist pedagogy, practice, history, and theory. The award carries a $200.00 honorarium and is presented at the Wednesday evening meeting of the Coalition at the Conference on College Composition and Communication.
Committee: Ruby Nancy (chair), Noël Ingram, Belinda Walzer, Ann Dean, and Rich Enos.
Winner: Alexis McGee, From Blues to Beyoncé: A Century of Black Women’s Generational Sonic Rhetorics
Alexis McGee’s compelling From Blues to Beyoncé: A Century of Black Women’s Generational Sonic Rhetorics is groundbreaking feminist recovery work. It is a serious engagement with Black rhetoric, culture, and discourse that centers Black women’s rhetorical moves–and it will change how feminist scholars approach sonic rhetorics and understand the “everyday” rhetoric that is our history.
Honorable Mention: Liane Malinowski, City Housekeeping: Women’s Labor Rhetorics and Spaces for Solidarity, 1886-1911
Liane Malinowski’s City Housekeeping goes beyond conventional labor movement studies by revealing and analyzing women’s rhetorics in general–with a particular focus on the value of networking feminist studies of labor relations in order to attain new perspectives.
Nancy A. Myers Feminist Research Grant
The Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition offers a biennial research grant of up to $700 for researchers to pursue or continue feminist projects that require funding to conduct such activities. These include but should not be limited to archival research, translation, interview transcription, and digital archivization and/or digital project development. The award is announced at the annual Coalition event at the Conference of College Composition and Communication in even years.
Committee: Lisa Mastrangelo, Beth Topping, Amy Gerald, Karrieann Soto Vega
Winner: Valanci Villa, “Rhetorics of Survival: An Analysis of Domestic Violence Litigants Electing Pro Se in California Family Courts”
This project examines how domestic violence (DV) survivors who self-represent (pro se) in Santa Barbara County family courts negotiate and perform rhetorical agency within a judicial system that is structured by linguistic and procedural constraints.