As we enter into this very unusual year, we're excited to welcome our new cohort of career-track lecturers and also to share other news about our teaching community. Read below for more details about who's coming, who's staying, and who's leaving us this year.
Who's Coming
We're pleased to welcome this new cohort of career-track lecturers to our community. You'll be seeing these familiar as well as new faces in our Zoom encounters this year!
Nissa Ren Cannon. Nissa earned her PhD in English from UC Santa Barbara in 2018 and was a Postdoc in the Honors College at Boston University before arriving at Stanford. Her research focuses on transatlantic modernist literature, citizenship, and print culture. Her fall PWR course is "The Passport, The Profile, The Portrait: Rhetorics of Identification."
Mark Gardiner. Mark completed his PhD in anthropology at Stanford in 2016 and then joined PWR, first as a fellow and then as a lecturer. This fall he'll be teaching his PWR 2 theme, "Silicon Valley and the future of work."
Brittany S. Hull. Brittany comes to Stanford from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where she completed her doctorate on the linguistic identity of African American Language speaking Black women English teacher-scholars. Her fall PWR course is "A Seat at the Table - Rhetorics of Belonging."
Harriett Jernigan. Harriett Jernigan, who began as a lecturer with PWR in 2019, will be starting as a career-track lecturer this year. She'll be teaching her popular PWR 1 course, "'What are you, anyway?' The Rhetorics of Ethnic and Racial Identity" and is developing a new PWR 2 course for the winter.
Sangeeta Mediratta. Sangeeta originally taught with PWR from 2005-2010. From 2010-2019, she served as Associate Director in Stanford Global Studies where she taught classes on literature and film in addition to her administrative responsibilities; she also served as capstone advisor to students completing the Global Studies minor. Years of PWR training meant that research, writing, and revision were strong features of all her teaching across the years. Last year she returned to our PWR community, teaching both her PWR 1 class ("Beyond the Boundary: The Rhetoric of Maps, Borders, and Networks") in fall and winter and her PWR 2 class ("Dirty Pretty Things: The Rhetoric of Objects and Objectification") in spring. She returns this year as a Career Track lecturer and is most happy to be back home!
Eldon Pei. Eldon, who joined PWR as a fellow in 2018, is \ (^ g ^) / to now be teaching with us as a career-track lecturer. This fall, he'll be reprising his PWR 2 course, "Copying, Memeing, Modding, Pirating; the Rhetoric of (Un)Originality".
Katherine Rothschild. Kath joins us from St. Mary's College, where she was a full-time adjunct associate professor while earning her PhD at Indiana University of Pennsylvania in the summer cohort. Her dissertation studied STEM students who walk into an FYC saying: "I'm not a writer" --and how to change their minds through identity work. Her first novel, Wider Than the Sky, debuts from Soho/PRH in January. This fall, she'll be teaching PWR 1, "The Rhetoric of Innovation: Transformations and Missed Opportunities."
Roberta Wolfson. Roberta is joining us from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, where she taught courses on multiethnic U.S. literature as an Assistant Professor of English. She earned her B.A. in English with a Chinese minor from University of California, Los Angeles, where she served as a peer writing tutor, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in English from University of California, Santa Barbara, where she taught in both the English department and the Writing Program. Her fall PWR course is “Writing for Liberation: The Rhetoric of Antiracism."
Who's Returning
Lindsey Felt and Irena Yamboliev are both back in the fall from their leaves in the last two quarters; we're hoping for cameos from their new little ones during our meetings this fall.
In addition, our colleague Selby Schwartz, will be returning from her year-long leave. She has already resumed her amazing work in supporting her student-artists and student-activists by applying for and receiving a Haas Center grant for Advancing Racial Justice in Teaching and Research, which, among other things, designates her PWR 1 course (Radical Acts of Art in Public: Rhetoric and Artivism) as a Cardinal Course. We're excited to have her back!
Who's Taking on a New Role
Jennifer Johnson is taking on the role of PWR 2 Course Coordinator now that Cassie Wright has ended her three-year term as coordinator (thank you so much for all your work as PWR 2 CC, Cassie!). JJ was supposed to start her PWR 2 CC responsibilities on September 1 but has already been actively working to support PWR 2 throughout the summer.
We're also pleased to announce our new (and returning) committee chairs for the 2020-2021 academic year: Kim Savelson (CPIC); Mark Gardiner and Irena Yamboliev (Curriculum Committee); Emily Polk and Kevin Moore (Newsletter and Communications Committee); Valerie Kinsey and Tesla Schaeffer (Teaching and Tutoring Practices). Jennifer Johnson will be staying on as a co-chair of LAC, but we'll be electing a new second co-chair for that committee in the next couple weeks as Chris Kamrath completes his two-year term.
Who's Leaving
As always, we're sad to part ways with our friends and colleagues. Here a list of some who have moved on to other adventures: Russ Carpenter, Samah Elberazi, Amanda Frye, Andy Hammann, and Yanshuo Zhang. PWR has contact information for each of these wonderful colleagues, so if you want to reach out to them, just write to Christine or Michelle for their latest email addresses. We wish them them much health and happiness in their new positions!
