rhetoric and composition

CALL FOR PAPERS
___________________

RESEARCH &

CREATIVE

ACTIVITY

SYMPOSIUM

The 6th Annual Research and Creative Activity Symposium will be held April 16-17, 2019 on the campus of Alabama State University in Montgomery, Alabama.

The RCAS encourages papers, posters, and panel proposals from students, faculty, and independent scholars centered around the symposium’s theme: The Importance of Liberal Arts at HBCUs.

When comedy dominates popular culture so thoroughly that it’s difficult to distinguish spoofs from truths, when identities and relationships form and fumble on a foundation of comic memes, and when the powerful and the powerless wield comedy alternately as weapon or shield, it’s time for the academy to take comedy seriously. Teaching Comic Texts, edited by Bev Hogue, will examine how comic texts of many types can be deployed in classrooms, either as a topic of literary or cultural study or as a window into understanding other fields. In addition to exploring historical and theoretical contexts, essays in the volume will provide practical insights for teaching comic texts in a variety of disciplines.

Recent reports reveal that the U.S. has the highest rate of maternal deaths in the developed world, particularly among low-income, rural, and African American women (NPR, 2017). Changes to the Supreme Court endanger the viability of Roe v. Wade. In Iowa, a judge threatens to ban nearly all abortions once a fetal heartbeat can be detected (NPR, 2018). In Wisconsin, the state legislature rejects the repeal of the “cocaine mom law,” which opponents argue forces undue medical care on pregnant women (Reuters, 2017). These reproductive threats are not limited to only women’s rights.

The 7th Biennial Conference on Critical Thinking and Writing (June 17–19) will bring together teacher-scholars working in Writing Across the Curriculum/Writing in the Disciplines (WAC/WID) and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL).

2020 MLA CFP:

“The Valuation of the 73%:

Contingent Faculty Work and Access to Academic Freedom”

Conference: Modern Language Association Convention

Location: Seattle, Washington

Dates: 09–12 January 2020

Full name of sponsoring MLA committees: the Committee on Academic Freedom and Professional Rights & Responsibilities (CAFPRR) and the Committee on Contingent Labor in the Profession (CCLiP)