Drs Elizabeth Flynn, Patricia Sotirin, and Ann Brady from the Humanities Department at Michigan Technological University, will give an invited presentation at 4:30 pm on Thursday, December 6, in the East Reading Room of the Van Pelt and Opie Library on the Michigan Tech campus.
Feminist Rhetorical Resilience: 17 Authors, 3 Editors, 1 Book
“Resilience” is a powerful term that appears with regularity in times of crisis. Too often, though, it is associated with individual heroism or an innate ability to bounce back. Feminist Rhetorical Resilience, in contrast, associates it with relationality, community, and connectedness. The talk will describe the very different contexts within which the 7 authors of the collection’s essays developed their conception of resilience–biodiversity in India; the Portuguese musical form of the Fado; hymen reconstructions in Turkey; spousal/partner hiring policies at U.S. universities; survival strategies of a poor but proud elderly Detroit woman; the collusion of nineteenth-century feminists with reactionary eugenic rhetoric; and ways of importing queer studies into the writing classroom. The talk will also describe the 7 responses to these essays by scholars in feminist rhetoric. The authors of the original essays, in turn, reflect on the responses. This unusual structure is itself relational, communal, and connected. The process that produced the book also demonstrates resilience. Contributors to Feminist Rhetorical Resilience, for instance, made it to Houghton for a conference coordinated by Flynn, Sotirin, and Brady shortly after Hurricane Katrina despite a closed airport and torrential rain.
The event is part of the library’s events series “Nexus: the Scholar and the Library,” which illuminate ways scholars and scientists productively use libraries and archives. It is open to the public and is sponsored by the Van Pelt and Opie Library. Join us for free refreshments.
For more information: (906) 487-2500, library@mtu.edu, or www.mtu.edu/library.