Table Of ContentRE/ORIENTING WRITING STUDIES
RE/ORIENTING WRITING
STUDIES
Queer Methods, Queer Projects
EDITED BY
WILLIAM P. BANKS
MATTHEW B. COX
CAROLINE DADAS
UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Logan
© 2019 by University Press of Colorado
Published by Utah State University Press
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∞ This paper meets the requirements of the ANSI/NISO Z39.48–1 992 (Permanence of
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ISBN: 978- 1- 60732- 817- 9 (pbk.)
ISBN: 978- 1- 60732- 818- 6 (ebook)
DOI: https:// doi .org/ 10 .7330/ 9781607328186
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Banks, William P., editor. | Cox, Matthew B., editor. | Dadas, Caroline, editor.
Title: Re/orienting writing studies : queer methods, queer projects / [edited by] William
P. Banks, Matthew B. Cox, Caroline Dadas.
Description: Logan : Utah State University Press, [2018] | Includes bibliographical refer-
ences and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018036071| ISBN 9781607328179 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781607328186
(ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: English language—Rhetoric—Study and teaching (Higher)—Social
aspects. | English language—Rhetoric—Study and teaching (Higher)—Research—
Methodology. | Academic writing—Study and teaching (Higher)—Social aspects. |
Academic writing—Study and teaching (Higher)—Research—Methodology. | Queer
theory. | Homosexuality and education.
Classification: LCC PE1404 .R394 2018 | DDC 808/.04207—dc23
LC record available at https:// lccn .loc .gov/ 2018036071
Cover photograph by Michael Gaida/Pixabay.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments vii
Foreword
Pamela Takayoshi xi
1 Re/Orienting Writing Studies: Thoughts on In(queer)y
William P. Banks, Matthew B. Cox, and Caroline Dadas 3
2 Making It Queer, Not Clear: Embracing Ambivalence and Failure as
Queer Methodologies
Hillery Glasby 24
3 How (and Why) to Write Queer: A Failing, Impossible,
Contradictory Instruction Manual for Scholars of Writing Studies
Stacey Waite 42
4 Queering and Transing Quantitative Research
G Patterson 54
5 REDRES[ing] Rhetorica: A Methodological Proposal for Queering
Cross- Cultural Rhetorical Studies
Chanon Adsanatham 75
6 “Love in a Hall of Mirrors”: Queer Historiography and the
Unsettling In- Between
Jean Bessette 95
7 In/Fertility: Assembling a Queer Counterstory Methodology for
Bodies of Health and Sexuality
Maria Novotny 112
8 Queering Networked Writing: A Sensory Authoethnography of
Desire and Sensation on Grindr
Michael J. Faris 127
vi CONTENTS
9 Queer/ing Composition, the Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives,
and Ways of Knowing
Deborah Kuzawa 150
10 Assessment Killjoys: Queering the Return for a Writing Studies
Worldmaking Methodology
Nicole I. Caswell and Stephanie West- Puckett 169
11 On Queering Professional Writing
Caroline Dadas and Matthew B. Cox 186
About the Authors 209
Index 213
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The work of any edited collection is one filled with the contributions
of so many wonderful people, and ours is no different. First, we wish to
thank the contributors who trusted us with their projects; we know that
giving their work to others to read, critique, and edit requires a great
deal of trust, and we are so grateful that these brilliant scholars trusted
us with their words and ideas. We hope we have done them justice.
When the idea for this collection first emerged, it came about because
of what felt to us as a watershed moment in writing studies. When Will was
writing his dissertation nearly twenty years ago, he could count on one
hand the number of scholars in our field who were regularly researching
and publishing LGBTQ work. A decade later, when Caroline and Matt
were writing their dissertations, that number seemed to be expanding
significantly, and their projects were a big part of that next generation
of LGBTQ scholarship. What had not changed by then, however, was
the paucity of methodological scholarship available in writing studies
for supporting LGBTQ researchers and their projects. We conceived of
this collection as a space for addressing that elision, and we thought the
best people to do it were those scholars who had had to work so hard to
conceive of and implement queer methodological frameworks and data
collection practices in order to do the sort of research they needed to
do. When we began this project, everyone involved in writing chapters
was either finishing their dissertations or working on tenure and promo-
tion, so they seemed to us the right people to ask about what changes
we needed to see to our methods and methodologies in writing studies.
Their contributions do not disappoint, and we’re so thankful to them
for all their hard work as we collectively built this project over the last
several years.
We are also grateful to the brilliant staff at Utah State University
Press for their encouragement and support. This book is one of the
last projects that was initiated by Michael Spooner, whose work at the
viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
press has been one of constant support for writing studies scholars and
scholarship, and we are thankful to him for meeting with us early on in
the process and for encouraging us and this collection. Rachael Levay
picked up this project when she joined USUP and has been a con-
stant advocate for this collection; her kind attention seems proof that
USUP will continue to support writing studies scholarship, and we are
extremely pleased that our collection will be part of the USUP catalog.
We are also thankful to Laura Furney and Dan Miller for their excellent
work editing and typesetting the manuscript, and to Kami Day, whose
careful manuscript edits are a model for how that sort of work should
happen: they all seemed to understand the challenges this manuscript
represented to traditional research and writing practices, and they asked
us questions about choices that we and the contributors made rather
than assume we had made errors; they did so much to help our writing
be more clear and to communicate more effectively for readers. This
collection is far stronger and more cohesive because of their support.
Will
In addition to those mentioned above, I would like to thank Matt and
Caroline for their eager investment in this project and for being such
phenomenal collaborators. Likewise, I will always be grateful to Cynthia
Selfe, who was one of the first writing studies scholars to show me in
word and action how much we need allies in our professional lives, and
while her model of mentorship is not one I can always live up to, it is
the one that I continue to look to for guidance. I’m grateful for the
support of my department chair, Marianne Montgomery; for wonder-
ful colleagues in the University Writing Program—Wendy Sharer, Kerri
Flinchbaugh, and Rae Meads—who support and challenge me in equal
measure; and for a dear friend and colleague, Rick Taylor, who never
lets me get too down about any of the politics that are always part of
working in the academy. I’ve also been fortunate in my life to be able to
build the queer-friend-family I need, a lovely collection we have taken
to calling, simply, The Council: Michelle, Shane, Erin, Andy, Matt, Josh,
and Nikki offer endless encouragement, and they always seem to know
the right time for a cocktail! I remain grateful and humbled by the love
and support of my family: Jackson, Rachel, and Susan. And I’m espe-
cially thankful that so many hours of writing at home are accompanied
by—and sometimes appropriately interrupted by—the calming and sup-
portive snoozles of great dogs.
Acknowledgments ix
Matt
I would like to thank both Will and Caroline for the fantastic journey
that has been this project. They’ve been so generous with their mentor-
ship and so tireless in their efforts. I also want to thank the individual
authors of this collection. Every time I reread these chapters, I’m blown
away yet again by their discipline-changing queer scholarship. I also
want to thank Utah State University Press for their steadfast support.
We could not have asked for a more professional or encouraging press.
I want to thank my department chair, Dr. Marianne Montgomery, for
her steadfast support of this project and my group of ECU/Greenville
close friends and colleagues, Dr. Michelle Eble, Dr. Nikki Caswell, Dr.
Erin Frost, Shane Ernst, and Andy Frost. They kept me in laughs and in
chocolate as I journeyed through this and other projects over the last
few years. I want to thank Dr. Trixie Smith, my first and most profound
queer mentor in the field. She has taught me how to be both a queer
scholar and a sane and happy human as I move through this strange
heteropatriarchal space called the academy. I want to thank two other
scholars as well, Dr. Malea Powell and Dr. J. Blake Scott, who mentor and
support me queerly year in and year out. I want to thank my family: my
parents Joe and Brenda Cox, my sister Stephanie Demorest, my brother-
in-law Matthew Demorest, my nephew Zeb Demorest, my niece Kristen
Cox-Miller, my parents-in-law Kelly Crayton Lambert, Butch Lambert,
Rick Gardner, and Jonathan Evans. As well as my grandparents-in-law
Hilda Hatley Crayton and Johnny and Millie Gardner. I firmly believe
family (both the ones you get and the ones you make) are what get me
through life and their love sustains me. And lastly, I want to thank my
husband, Joshua Gardner, who supports me and loves me day and night
and who has taught me so much about what being a queer scholar and
queer human in the early twenty-first century can be and who constantly
teaches me about tearing down the boundaries and walls. There’s just
not much a late night dance and laugh with my husband in our kitchen
can’t fix. All of you teach me and care for me so much more than I feel I
could ever give back. But you inspire me to always give back to my queer
communities and to our unjust world.
Caroline
The process of editing this book was a joyful one, surrounded by queer
family. Special thanks to Will and Matt and to all of our contributors
for their imagination, intellect, and humanity. These chapters are ones
