If you’re reading this, you are probably wondering why I’m not at the 2019 Conference on College Composition and Communication--maybe you are sitting in the panel I’m scheduled to be on: “Performing Feminisms, Performing Design, Designing Feminist Composition” (hey Danielle, Liza, and Melissa!)
I asked my fellow panelists to point you all here so I could share with you why I’m not present (both physically and intellectually). I know that I don’t have to do this, but for me it’s part of how I practice what I described in my abstract:
Working from the premise that popular notions of “professionalism” are rooted in colonial notions of power, this talk connects multimodal rhetorics, feminist embodiment, and professional writing in order to reveal how the body is written on and through systems of power.
My goal with this post is to be the author of what is happening on/with/through my body in relation to systems of power. By doing so, I hope to model a feminist approach to labor, embodiment, and professionalism. This post also functions as an example of how I talk with my professional writing students about professionalism, mental health, and performativity.
Last year I was diagnosed as bipolar 2, after years of being overmedicated for anxiety. This last December, my psychiatrist and I worked together to decrease my Zoloft and as my brain tried to adapt my life has become...difficult.
Hypomania is glorious, but depression and panic spirals are not.
Just last week I was put on a second mood stabilizer. Things are better--hopefully for the long term. In the meantime, I’m exhausted--and being exhausted exacerbates my mental health. Of course, mental health is just one factor of my life, but it is one that I make an effort to be open about, especially with my students--many of whom are just starting to recognize their own neuroatypical brains.
I wanted to share this with all of you so that you understand why I’m not performing professionalism in the expected way at this (very major) conference: I need to take care of myself--I need to practice a feminist approach to embodiment in relation to systems of power.
I hope you can see how my strategic transparency here is an example of how I do/theorize/teach professionalism/professional writing by practicing a feminist orientation to embodiment through the use of a multimodal text (this post).
I’ve talked/written quite a bit about what professionalism looks like at my institution (a small women’s college in Winston Salem, North Carolina). If you want to know more about how I take a feminist/cultural rhetorics approach to professional writing at Salem College, you can check out some previous presentations I’ve given:
"Dear White Student Who Doesn't Want to Discuss Politics in the Writing Classroom:" A Love Letter
Embodying Professional Writing: “So, I’m Thinking About Getting a Tattoo...”
“We Do Things Differently Here”: Troubling Notions of “Professionalism” in Professional Writing” [link forthcoming]
Cultural Rhetorics and Professional Writing Roundtable [at the 2018 Cultural Rhetorics Conference] [link forthcoming]
This summer, a group of scholars who work at the intersections of professional writing and cultural rhetorics are (hopefully!) planning to work on developing materials/theories/practices for doing the kinds of work mentioned in my abstract for this panel.
If you are interested in joining us, or if you have questions or comments about any thing you’ve read here, please feel free to reach out [@katiemanthey].
Thanks for reading this, and take care of your selves <3
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