CALL FOR PAPERS FOR RHETORICA IN MOTION II:  FEMINIST RHETORICAL METHODS AND METHODOLOGIES

We invite proposals of 500 words for Rhetorica in Motion II: Feminist Rhetorical Methods and Methodologies. The original volume, Rhetorica in Motion (2010), explored diverse feminist rhetorical methods and methodologies that inform the work of feminist scholars in rhetorical studies. Following Sandra Harding’s lead (1987), we defined methods as “techniques for. . . gathering evidence” and methodology as a “theory and analysis of how research does or should proceed” (2-3). Rhetorica in Motion II will continue the conversation begun in the 2010 volume by extending, complicating, rethinking, and emphasizing new directions and sites for feminist rhetorical methods and methodologies.

 The first volume was guided by the central question: “What feminist methods and methodologies undergird work in feminist rhetorical analysis and historiography?” Contributing authors modeled and shared from their own research, providing readers insight into ways of conducting feminist rhetorical research. The essays in the first volume take time to name intersections of feminist rhetorical studies with that of disability rhetorics, transnational feminisms, transgender studies, and digital rhetorics, providing readers with a starting point for understanding how feminist rhetorical research is interdisciplinary with room for continued intervention and invention of feminist methods and methodologies.

 The second volume addresses gaps in feminist rhetorical studies and invites interdisciplinary areas of feminist inquiry that challenge and expand the field. Specifically, this second volume will address feminist rhetorical methods and methodologies in relation to past, present, and ongoing social justice movements and within our contemporary contexts, inflected as they are by political polarization, racial, sexist, ableist, and class-based injustices, the weaponization of (dis)information, attacks on reproductive and transgender rights, and unequal access to resources. In this volume, our intention is to co-explore this question: How can feminist rhetorical methods and methodologies foster productive engagement with our social and material worlds?

Submissions should foreground and make transparent the how and why of their feminist rhetorical methods and methodologies. We welcome volume contributors to apply feminist composing practices—such as collaborative writing, narrative, and essayistic scholarship—in their manuscripts, and we ask that you share your composing approach in your submission proposal. Taking up our guiding question bolded above, we encourage contributors to explore generative applications of feminist rhetorical methods and methodologies in areas such as (but not limited to) the following:

• Abolitionist feminisms
• Anti-racist praxis 
• Archival research and historiography
• Collaborative feminist research practices 
• Community literacies and activist rhetorics
• Critical race theory
• Decolonial theory
• Digital and multimodal rhetorics
• Disability rhetorics
• Embodiment rhetorics
• Environmental rhetorics
• Ethical questions and dilemmas in feminisms
• Feminist pedagogies
• Queer and transgender rhetorics
• Rhetorics of politics and policy
• Transnational feminist theories 
• Women of color feminisms
• And other areas not specified in this list

 Timeline

 July 18, 2022 — 500 words abstracts due

November 15, 2022 — Completed drafts due

Proposals may be submitted to the Rhetorica In Motion II Proposal Dropbox.

At the top of your proposal document, please provide contact information (name and email address) for yourself and any co-authors.  We will rely on the contact information you provide to notify you of your submission status. 

Please contact Dr. Eileen E. Schell at eeschell@syr.edu or Gabriella Wilson at gawilson@syr.edu if you have any questions.

 Thank you, 

Editorial collective: 

Eileen Schell and K.J. Rawson

Curtis Jewell

Abigail Long

Sidney Turner

Gabriella Wilson