All writing is an embodied practice (Banks). Embodiment is most often discussed in terms of personal writing (memoir, essay, other first year writing genres), but this speaker argues that it has a critical place in the context of professional writing. This speaker will discuss their experiences creating and implementing a professional writing minor at a women’s college with a focus on embodiment and social justice.
Using story as a methodological approach to theory building (Powell, King), this speaker will offer a series of vignettes that illustrate and highlight the multifaceted tensions of embodiment in professional writing contexts. Specifically, they will offer an account of a conversation with professional writing student, a young Latinx student who wanted to get a full sleeve tattoo and was concerned about how their body would be “read” in professional contexts, conversations with administration about collaborative activist writing as plagiarism in regards to a campus petition about North Carolina’s HB2, and the embodied responses to the instructor’s decision to dramatically alter their appearance to look less “professional.” The presentation will end with suggestions for making visible and making safe spaces for all bodies in the context of professional writing work.
Using story as a methodological approach to theory building (Powell, King), this speaker will offer a series of vignettes that illustrate and highlight the multifaceted tensions of embodiment in professional writing contexts. Specifically, they will offer an account of a conversation with professional writing student, a young Latinx student who wanted to get a full sleeve tattoo and was concerned about how their body would be “read” in professional contexts, conversations with administration about collaborative activist writing as plagiarism in regards to a campus petition about North Carolina’s HB2, and the embodied responses to the instructor’s decision to dramatically alter their appearance to look less “professional.” The presentation will end with suggestions for making visible and making safe spaces for all bodies in the context of professional writing work.
| _manthey4c17_final.pdf |
