Daemen College : Academics & Research : Division of Arts & Sciences : English : Faculty : Abby Dubisar

Abby Dubisar

My academic work considers how individuals use writing and reading in their lives to take action. Whether my research focuses on writing in the disciplines, digital literacies, feminist rhetoric, activism, or student writing, my enquiries are motivated by understanding rhetoric in action, how citizens and communities make space for themselves to communicate their arguments.

Most recently I completed my dissertation, Women for Peace: Gendered Rhetorics in Contexts of War and Violence, arguing that women are interpolated into subject positions in contexts of war and violence, yet they utilize and subvert these positions to argue for peace and justice. I analyze women’s peace rhetorics from 1914 to the present, contributing to the history of rhetoric by studying the connections between gender and peace activism, the importance of classical rhetorical tropes to contemporary women’s invention of arguments for peace, and the roles of place and location within rhetorical situations created and addressed by women peace activists. In organizing my study into positions occupied by peace activist women, I show how the roles of mother, other, victim, and body facilitate women’s peace activism. A few of the women and groups featured in my dissertation project include Jane Addams, Virginia Woolf, Cindy Sheehan, the Granny Peace Brigade, Codepink, and Mothers for Peace. A forthcoming essay from my dissertation, “Motherhood and Activism in the Dis/Enabling Context of War: The Case of Cindy Sheehan” will be published in the book Disability and Mothering: Liminalities of Cultural Embodiment.

Beyond studies of gender and rhetoric, my work in rhetoric and composition includes the areas of writing in the disciplines, writing across the curriculum, digital pedagogy/computers and composition, and writing centers. I recently presented at the 2010 European Writing Centers Association conference in Paris, France. My panel, “Planted in Business: A Writing Center Grafted to a Discipline,” considered the complexities of location and context when a combination writing center and writing across the curriculum program is placed within a disciplinary space. My presentation, “Rooted in Rhetoric: Co(te)aching Faculty,” specifically addressed faculty collaboration and curricular change. Earlier in 2010 I presented at the Conference on College Composition and Communication in Louisville, Kentucky, about person-based research of students’ political remix videos. My presentation, “Re-seeing Ancient Rhetoric: Video Remix and/as Rhetorical Analysis” drew upon student interviews to show how students employ classical rhetorical concepts when composing digital texts. My most recent publication, with co-author Jason Palmeri, “Palin / Pathos / Peter Griffin: Political Video Remix and Composition Pedagogy,” draws upon this same body of person-based research with Jason’s students and is published in the journal Computers and Composition, Volume 27 (2010).

I enjoy working with students and faculty on their writing goals and appreciate the range of activities my academic work includes. Whether meeting with my own writing students to discuss their assignments or the writing they do beyond the context of classroom spaces or consulting with faculty to design writing assignments and discuss pedagogical strategies, I approach with enthusiasm all encounters with writing and rhetoric.

When not in the classroom, my office, or the library, I can be found knitting, cooking, exploring Buffalo by biking and walking, and taking in the local live music scene.