Performing Feminisms, Performing Design, Designing Feminist Composition
Rhetoric and composition scholars, teachers, and theorists have a long history of engagement to social issues, explored in the context of the classroom, the campus, the community, and beyond. More specifically, in rhetoric studies, visual rhetoricians have attended to issues of image ethics and representation (Berger, Gries, Handa, Rose). Likewise, scholars in design studies have a history of articulating social commitments, and how they can best carry out their commitments in the design work they do (Berman, Heller, Lupton, Shea). Recent work in experience architecture attempts to intersect these two areas by examining issues of feminist design and social justice practices on digital platforms (Moore, Sano-Franchini, Sullivan, Walls).
We rarely, however, talk to one another. Rarely, further, do rhetoric studies, composition scholarship, experience architecture, and design theory intersect in ways that suggest theory, methodology, and methods for composing just designs.
In this presentation, we will deliberately, performatively intersect these areas--through audience-engaged interactions, examples, and performances--to point toward what feminist-framed design might look like, be like, and feel like, and to suggest recommendations and implications for teaching and for research.
Speaker 3 will perform a feminist/citizen/activist embodied model that sits at the intersection of cultural rhetorical theory and dress studies. Speaker 3 will share their experiences designing professional writing curriculum that engages directly with the visible self through the topic of “professional dress.” Working from the premise that popular notions of “professionalism” are rooted in colonial notions of power, this talk connects multimodal rhetorics, feminist embodiment, and professional writing in order to reveal how the body is written on and through systems of power.
Rhetoric and composition scholars, teachers, and theorists have a long history of engagement to social issues, explored in the context of the classroom, the campus, the community, and beyond. More specifically, in rhetoric studies, visual rhetoricians have attended to issues of image ethics and representation (Berger, Gries, Handa, Rose). Likewise, scholars in design studies have a history of articulating social commitments, and how they can best carry out their commitments in the design work they do (Berman, Heller, Lupton, Shea). Recent work in experience architecture attempts to intersect these two areas by examining issues of feminist design and social justice practices on digital platforms (Moore, Sano-Franchini, Sullivan, Walls).
We rarely, however, talk to one another. Rarely, further, do rhetoric studies, composition scholarship, experience architecture, and design theory intersect in ways that suggest theory, methodology, and methods for composing just designs.
In this presentation, we will deliberately, performatively intersect these areas--through audience-engaged interactions, examples, and performances--to point toward what feminist-framed design might look like, be like, and feel like, and to suggest recommendations and implications for teaching and for research.
Speaker 3 will perform a feminist/citizen/activist embodied model that sits at the intersection of cultural rhetorical theory and dress studies. Speaker 3 will share their experiences designing professional writing curriculum that engages directly with the visible self through the topic of “professional dress.” Working from the premise that popular notions of “professionalism” are rooted in colonial notions of power, this talk connects multimodal rhetorics, feminist embodiment, and professional writing in order to reveal how the body is written on and through systems of power.
**I was accepted to 4c19, but wasn't able to be present; I wrote and circulated this on social media instead. My panel members read the piece in my absence during my presentation time.
