proposal Submission closed
As a critical cartographer, Katherine McKittrick reminds us in Demonic Grounds: Black Women and the Cartographies of Struggle (2006) that Black women live across multiple geographies where their different ways of knowing and writing contest space and time in dominant culture and empire. Taking inspiration from this insight, this virtual symposium traces the Black feminist scholarship of Jacqueline Jones Royster as a central site of new geography-making in the fields of African American/Black Feminist/Critical Race literacies, rhetorics, and pedagogies. |
Throughout her career, the multi-award-winning Royster has consistently produced scholarship that has expanded the parameters of the possible for generations of scholar-teacher-activists in literacies, rhetorics, education and several interdisciplinary fields. Author of six books and two textbooks, Royster's work has contributed to, prepared the world-making for, and worked to grow the tradition of Black feminist research, teaching, and "community-accountable" (Alexis Pauline Gumbs, 2012) activist scholarship.
Indeed, through the work of Royster and other critical race and decolonial feminist literacies and rhetorical studies scholars, we have witnessed the labor of knowledge-making to advance social justice and action against institutional marginalization. On the occasion of Royster's retirement from the professorate, and in anticipation of her continued intellectual-activist work, including a forthcoming book about African American women's uses of rhetoric in context from the founding of the nation through the rise of the Black Clubwomen's Movement, it is our hope to take time at this symposium to provide a scholarly retrospective of the ways Royster's work has contributed greatly to the conditions under which change has occurred to make literacies, rhetorics, pedagogies, and Gender Studies a more transformative field via the growth of Black feminist approaches.
This symposium, both a celebration of Royster's work and a state of the field discussion, will bring leading and early career scholars and graduate students in Black feminist literacies, rhetorics, and education together to explore key works, highlighting unexplored terms and insights in Royster's oeuvre, to (re)consider challenging and necessary questions about what it means (or could mean) to study, teach, and activate the Black feminist literacies and rhetorical tradition in 2022 and beyond.
Presenters invited to speak on these virtual plenaries can expect to be compensated. The symposium will also feature poetry reading/performances and a film screening and discussion.
The symposium is free and open to the public. Please direct any questions regarding the program to brownlit@uark.edu. The symposium is co-sponsored by the endowed Brown Chair in English Literacy at the University of Arkansas and the endowed Lillian Radford Chair in Rhetoric and Composition at Texas Christian University.
Indeed, through the work of Royster and other critical race and decolonial feminist literacies and rhetorical studies scholars, we have witnessed the labor of knowledge-making to advance social justice and action against institutional marginalization. On the occasion of Royster's retirement from the professorate, and in anticipation of her continued intellectual-activist work, including a forthcoming book about African American women's uses of rhetoric in context from the founding of the nation through the rise of the Black Clubwomen's Movement, it is our hope to take time at this symposium to provide a scholarly retrospective of the ways Royster's work has contributed greatly to the conditions under which change has occurred to make literacies, rhetorics, pedagogies, and Gender Studies a more transformative field via the growth of Black feminist approaches.
This symposium, both a celebration of Royster's work and a state of the field discussion, will bring leading and early career scholars and graduate students in Black feminist literacies, rhetorics, and education together to explore key works, highlighting unexplored terms and insights in Royster's oeuvre, to (re)consider challenging and necessary questions about what it means (or could mean) to study, teach, and activate the Black feminist literacies and rhetorical tradition in 2022 and beyond.
Presenters invited to speak on these virtual plenaries can expect to be compensated. The symposium will also feature poetry reading/performances and a film screening and discussion.
The symposium is free and open to the public. Please direct any questions regarding the program to brownlit@uark.edu. The symposium is co-sponsored by the endowed Brown Chair in English Literacy at the University of Arkansas and the endowed Lillian Radford Chair in Rhetoric and Composition at Texas Christian University.