The 2023 Feminisms and Rhetorics Deconference Local Committee

The exciting and absorbing work of organizing the 2023 Feminisms and Rhetorics deconference reflects the deep, sustained commitment of a numerous of local committee members from Spelman College. We wish to acknowledge the contributions of our local committee members! If you see our committee members at the Deconference, be sure to thank them for their investment in the Deconference!

Dr. Michelle Bachelor Robinson directs the Comprehensive Writing Program and is Professor of writing and rhetoric. Her research and teaching focus on community engagement, historiography, African American rhetoric and literacy, composition pedagogy and theory, and student and program assessment. She is the senior contributing author to Writing Guide with Handbook for OpenStax, co-editor of The Routledge Reader of African American Rhetoric, and has authored articles in The Alabama Humanities Review, Peitho: Journal of the Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric & Composition, the Journal of Social Work Education, and Writing Program Administration.

Dr. Robert Edwards is lecturer of English at Spelman College, where he teaches courses in the First Year Writing Program. For FemRhet2023, he volunteered to serve on the Local Accessibility Committee. 

Dr. Pushpa Parekh, Professor of English and Director of African Diaspora and the World, at Spelman College, has taught and published in the areas of British, Postcolonial (including African diaspora studies and  Indian diaspora literatures), and US  Immigrant literatures She has received Presidential awards in Scholarship, Service and Teaching at Spelman and  is an award winning poet. Dr. Parekh is the recipient of the 2019 Gerard Manley Hopkins award, an annual recognition by the International Hopkins Society, Ireland. Her poem, “Peace,” received the West Coast Tagore Festival prize at the International contest held by Vancouver Tagore Society, in summer 2016. Her poetry collection, Memory Braids and Sari Texts: Weaving Migration Journeys was recently published by Archway Publishing (Simon & Schustee) in 2023.

 Dr. Parekh has published scholarly journal special issues, academic scholarly books and is editing the special issue, “Diaspora Connections” of the Journal of Global Postcolonial Studies (JGPS), scheduled for spring 2024. The last edited collection was “Frontiers and Frameworks in African Diaspora Teaching and Scholarship,” Journal of Global Postcolonial Studies, Spring 2020 special issue. In addition, Dr. Parekh serves in various college and academic organizations, including Accessibility committee of the 2023 Feminisms and Rhetorics conference.

Dr. Sarah RudeWalker, an Assistant Professor of English at Spelman College, is a scholar of the rhetoric and poetics of African American social movements. Her first book, Revolutionary Poetics: The Rhetoric of the Black Arts Movement (University of Georgia Press, 2023) is an account of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s that considers the strategic and passionate engagement of poets of the movement with rhetorical strategies and poetic forms particular to Black vernacular culture. Her work has been published in Composition Studies, Callaloo, the Langston Hughes Review, and Pluck! The Journal of Affrilacian Arts and Culture. At Spelman, Dr. RudeWalker teaches courses in the art of writing, the politics of Black poetry, composition, argumentation, Black language and literacies, African American literature, and creative production across the arts. As a member of the local committee for FemRhets 2023, she participated in early conversations with conference director Michelle Bachelor Robinson to conceptualize the deconference, reviewed conference proposals, and assisted with accessibility and logistical needs. She is excited to see you at Spelman for the conference!

Dr. Cynthia Duggan Mwenja, Associate Professor of English at the University of Montevallo, focuses on applying principles of restorative practices in teaching composition and rhetoric classes at the university level. As a member of the local arrangements committee for Feminisms and Rhetorics 2023, she has helped to assemble the panels and program. She is both proud and humbled to serve as the liaison with Honeycomb Justice as HJ facilitators prepare to lead restorative circles for BIPOC conference attendees.