Figuring Social Justice: A Working Session on Rhetorical Theory and Women's Rights Apr. 4

Date: Apr. 4, 2008
Time: 1:30 p.m.
Location: Weinstein Hall, Brown-Alley Room

A panel of scholars will share their work in progress on a book-length project figuring social justice through rhetorical theorizing on April 4 at 1:30 p.m. in Weinstein Hall's Brown-Alley Room. The panel includes: 

Jane Sutton
Associate Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences
Penn State University

Lindsey Fox
RHCS Honors Alumna (2004)
Rhetoric M.A. Student
University of Arkansas

Mari Lee Mifsud
Associate Professor of Rhetoric
Chair, Department of Rhetoric and Communication Studies
University of Richmond

Mumbi Mwangi
Assistant Professor of Women’s Studies
St. Cloud University, Minnesota

Mary Jo Wiatrak-Uhlenkott, J.D.
Rhetoric Ph.D. Student
Department of Writing Studies
University of Minnesota

Sutton, Mifsud and Fox will present their on-going work theorizing rhetoric through the trope of “alloiosis” or “otherness.” Mwangi and Wiatrak-Uhlenkott will present two case studies related to women’s rights. Mwangi will speak on the impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic on women in rural Africa, then using the trope of “alloiosis” will show how the global rhetoric on HIV/AIDS obscures and fails to account for the lived experiences of African women. Wiatrak-Uhlenkott will speak on the problem of defining domestic abuse, and then using the trope of “alloiosis” will show how the rhetoric of domestic violence obscures and fails to account for the lived realities of battered women.

This will be a working session, dialogic and interactive in nature, where the panelists will be engaged with each other and the audience to shape the argument of this book-length project.

Posted March 25, 2008