Women's Professional Lives in Rhetoric and Composition: Choice, Chance, and Serendipity

by Elizabeth A. Flynn, Tiffany Bourelle

Overview

This collection, edited by Elizabeth A. Flynn and Tiffany Bourelle, contributes to the valuable work of chronicling the professional and personal lives of women in academia. Through its line-up of contributors from diverse backgrounds, locations, and career paths, Women’s Professional Lives in Rhetoric and Composition showcases the voices of multiple scholars occupying a multitude of different roles in the profession: from prestigious professors emeritae and endowed chairs to assistant professors starting their careers to an independent scholar to part-time faculty.
 
 
The collection sets itself apart from other volumes not just in its diversity of perspectives but also by speaking against linear stories of success in the profession—sharing moments of shame and failure, showing how the personal and professional often intertwine and influence one another, and ultimately revealing how choice, chance, serendipity, and kairos have all played a role in the lives of its contributors. In focusing on this convergence, Women’s Professional Lives in Rhetoric and Composition offers a more nuanced picture of the professional and intellectual trajectories of women in rhetoric and composition.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814276006
Publisher:	Ohio State University Press
Publication date:	01/06/2018
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	286
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Elizabeth A. Flynn is Professor Emerita of Reading and Composition at Michigan Technological University, coeditor of Feminist Rhetorical Resilience and Gender and Reading, and author of Feminism Beyond Modernism. Tiffany Bourelle is Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Writing at the University of New Mexico.
 
 

Table of Contents

Women’s Professional Lives in Rhetoric and Composition: Choice, Chance, and Serendipity Half Title Page Title Page Copyright Page CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS FOREWORD: M. ANN BRADY INTRODUCTION: ELIZABETH A. FLYNN AND TIFFANY BOURELLE CHOICE, CHANCE, SERENDIPITY, KAIROS, AND RESILIENCE CHALLENGING CIRCUMSTANCES IN RHETORIC AND COMPOSITION CHALLENGING CIRCUMSTANCES IN OTHER FIELDS CHOICE, CHANCE, AND SERENDIPITY: AN OVERVIEW OF COLLECTION ESSAYS SOME CLOSING THOUGHTS WORKS CITED CHAPTER 1: How to Get a Nonacademic Position: An Essay on Serendipity—Personal, Professional, and Intellectual: LISA EDE NOTES WORKS CITED CHAPTER 2: Becoming a Feminist Teacher, Researcher, and Administrator: ELIZABETH A. FLYNN MOVING AWAY LEARNING TO BECOME AN ACADEMIC PURSUING FEMINISM SHIFTING DIRECTIONS BECOMING A FEMINIST PROFESSIONAL BECOMING A MOTHER AND THEN A WIDOW CONTINUING AS A FEMINIST SCHOLAR AND PROFESSIONAL FINAL REFLECTIONS NOTES WORKS CITED CHAPTER 3: My Kairotic Career: ANNE RUGGLES GERE WORKS CITED THE PLAN SERENDIPITY, A DEFINITION HAPPY AND EXPANSIVE RESEARCH AREAS AND SERENDIPITOUS BOOKS WRITING DOCTOR SPOCK, BIOGRAPHY OF A CONSERVATIVE RADICAL, RESEARCH SERENDIPITY FORBIDDEN DIARY, EDITING THE MOTHER LODE THE SERENDIPITY OF A FIRST JOB THE SERENDIPITY OF QUITTING—AND OF A NEW BEGINNING NOTES WORKS CITED CHAPTER 5: Composing a Poetic Life: LIBBY FALK JONES BECOMING A POET, TAKE ONE: A CONTINUOUS STORY BECOMING A POET, TAKE TWO: A DISCONTINUOUS STORY BECOMING A POET, TAKE THREE: A RADICALLY DISCONTINUOUS STORY OF WAY CLOSING WAY OPENING: THE ROLE OF FEMINIST RHETORICAL RESILIENCE Changing My Thinking Enacting a New Identity Building Networks of Mutual Support CONCLUSION: UNDERLYING CONTINUITIES AND COMMUNITIES WORKS CITED CHAPTER 6: Choreography: Running Away, Moving Toward, Living In: SUELLYNN DUFFEY MY FAMILY’S INFLUENCE RUNNING AWAY MOVING TOWARD LIVING IN NOTES WORKS CITED CHAPTER 7: Embracing Scrappiness: Troublesome Knowledge and Serendipity: LINDA ADLER-KASSNER NOTES WORKS CITED CHAPTER 8: Word by Word, Bead by Bead: Making a Scholarly Life: MALEA POWELL NOTES WORKS CITED CHAPTER 9: When Depression and Resilience Collide: Might as Well Get Up: JACQUELINE RHODES WORKS CITED CHAPTER 10: The Camino: A Pilgrim’s Journey of Choice: BETH L. HEWETT A FORMIDABLE QUEST A WALKABOUT INTO WRITING INSTRUCTION TREKKING INTO THE UNKNOWN TOURING SCHOOL—AGAIN A JAUNT INTO NINETEENTH-CENTURY RHETORIC AN EXCURSION INTO COLLABORATION SEEKING A ROAD TO COMMUNITY THIS WAY TO ONLINE WRITING INSTRUCTION A FORK IN THE ROAD FINDING A HIGHWAY THROUGH GRIEF WALKING THE CAMINO WORKS CITED CHAPTER 11: Southern Girl Seeks Wide-Open Spaces: My Journey through Academia: TIFFANY BOURELLE MY BLOOD RUNNETH ORANGE GETTING MY KICKS ON ROUTE 66 THE BIGGEST LITTLE DECISION BIG SKY COUNTRY = BIG SHOCK TO THE SYSTEM FROM EXTREME COLD TO EXTREME HEAT MAKING A LEFT TURN AT ALBUQUERQUE ROADS? WHERE WE’RE GOING, WE DON’T NEED ROADS WORKS CITED WHY ALLA TURCA? BUILDING ON KISMET WHEN SERENDIPITY AND RESILIENCE INTERSECT TOWARD ETHNOGRAPHY AND FEMINIST RHETORICAL SCHOLARSHIP THE VIEW FROM THE DOLMUȘ WORKS CITED CHAPTER 13: My Life in Composition Studies: Serendipity, Shame, Status Anxiety, and Trusting My Instincts: IRENE PAPOULIS HOW I GOT INTO COMPOSITION STUDIES EXTERNAL REALITY #1: BEING A LECTURER EXTERNAL REALITY #3: EXPRESSIVISM A LONG LULL IN MY CAREER TRINITY AND STATUS ANXIETY: HARTFORD, CT, 1996–THE PRESENT WORKS CITED CHAPTER 14: Empowerment through Change and Resilience: A Technical Communicator’s Tale: NATASHA N. JONES TRANSFORMATION 1: THE WONDER YEARS TRANSFORMATION 2: BABY MAKES TWO TRANSFORMATION 3: IF YOU CAN’T BE ONE, RESEARCH ONE TRANSFORMATION 4: COMMITMENT TO EMPOWERMENT TRANSFORMATION 5: TEXTS, INTERFACES, AND SOCIAL JUSTICE CONCLUSION: MY STORY IN BLACK AND WHITE WORKS CITED CHAPTER 15: What I Learned about Teaching, Administration, and Scholarship from Singing with the Scottsdale Chorus: SHIRLEY ROSE WORKS CITED CONTRIBUTORS INDEX

Editorial Reviews

This volume makes a strong contribution to and intervention in efforts to understand the multiple roles women are called on to play in their careers in rhetoric and writing studies.” —Andrea Lunsford
 

 


“This collection adds flesh and breath to the academic genres and modes of professional life that require us to tell linear stories of success. In so doing, it celebrates the multiple shapes our lives take and insists on the importance of stories of professional women in composition and rhetoric. Most importantly, it follows the feminist tradition of including what has been cast out: moments of failure, of shame, of struggle.” —Shari Stenberg, author of Repurposing Composition: Feminist Interventions for a Neoliberal Age

From the Publisher