Belinda L. Walzer Tribble Hall C5D (336) 758-3903 walzerbl@wfu.edu EDUCATION University of North Carolina at Greensboro: Ph.D. in English, August 2012 Dissertation: Rhetorical Approaches to Gender and Human Rights in Contemporary Transnational Literature and Cultural Studies Director: Dr. Alexandra Moore. Readers: Dr. Hephzibah Roskelly and Dr. Mark Rifkin. This dissertation extends the conversations surrounding human rights literature and its intersection with transnational gender studies and rhetorical theories in literary accounts of human rights abuses from Iran, South Africa, and Burma including Marjane Satrapi s Persepolis, Sindiwe Magona s Women at Work, and Wendy Law-Yone s The Road to Wanting. The project brings together these disparate global locations and scholarly fields by analyzing the pedagogical imperative that underwrites the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and subsequent instruments, the normative culture to which this pedagogy gives rise, and the ways human rights literature participates in and speaks back to that normativity. In this way, the dissertation examines how narratives as cultural productions both construct and potentially destabilize or remake the normative culture of human rights. Specifically, the dissertation brings transnational feminist discourses of selfhood as process rather than product and theories of identification and visual rhetorics directly to bear on human rights concerns by rethinking rhetorical theories of both the speaking subject and transnational reader responsibility. In so doing it brings together and extends Judith Butler s concepts of post-sovereign subjectivity, Pheng Cheah s articulation of human rights as embedded in discourses of global capital, and theories of witness and rhetorical listening. Through a rhetorical approach to human rights literature informed by gender studies, this dissertation ultimately considers how these narrative representations also construct a transnational feminist readership. This readership recognizes the ways in which the texts that emerge out of the human rights regime can draw attention to, complicate, and/or remake that discourse. Certificate in Women s and Gender Studies awarded May 2008. M.A. in English Rhetoric and Composition awarded May 2006. Ohio Wesleyan University: B.A. in English Literary Studies and Environmental Studies, Cum Laude awarded May 2003. RESEARCH AND TEACHING INTERESTS Rhetoric/composition; transnational rhetorics; human rights and rhetoric; rhetorical and literary theory; transnational gender studies; contemporary global literature; cultural studies, graphic narrative. PUBLICATIONS Theorizing Action: The Pedagogy of Human Rights in Speak Truth to Power. Teaching Literature and Human Rights. Eds. Elizabeth Swanson Goldberg and Alexandra Schultheis Moore. Article accepted; volume approved for development for the MLA's Option for Teaching Series. Forthcoming. Rev. of Inventing Human Rights, by Lynn Hunt. Human Rights and Literary Forms. Spec. issue of Comparative Literature Studies 46.1 (2009): 193-196. Print.
AWARDS College of Arts and Sciences Graduate Student Teaching Award, UNCG, 2011 Awarded to best graduate student teacher in the College of Arts and Sciences English Department Outstanding Graduate Student Teaching Award, UNCG, 2011 Awarded to most outstanding graduate student teaching portfolio in the English Department Sally and Alan Cone Graduate Student Travel Grant, UNCG, 2011 Competitive travel grant awarded by the Women s and Gender studies grant committee. American Comparative Literature Association Graduate Student Travel Award, 2008 Competitive travel grant for annual conference awarded to graduate students. English Department Travel Award, UNCG, 2008 Competitive award from UNCG English department for travel. SELECTED CONFERENCE AND WORKSHOP PRESENTATIONS Narrative Possibilities: Rhetorical Approaches To Gender And Human Rights In Contemporary Transnational Literature And Cultural Studies. Rhetorical Questions of Human Rights Discourse. Rhetoric Society of America, Philadelphia, PA, May 2012. Women's Rights As Human Rights: The Transnational Subject In The Road To Wanting. Women s Rights and / as Human Rights. Presenter and Panel Chair. The International Conference on Human Rights and the Humanities. American University of Beirut, Lebanon, May 2012. Reading Between The Lines: Narrative possibilities in Human Rights Discourse and the Transnational Feminist Graphic Narrative. Graphic Narrative and Feminist Methodology: Reading Human Rights Locally and Transnationally. Presenter and Panel Chair. Feminisms and Rhetorics, Mankato, MN, October 2011. Human Rights and Narrative Potentials. Dissertation Chapter. Biennial Summer Institute Workshop: The Possibility and Limits of Human Rights Discourse. Rhetoric Society of America, Boulder, CO, June 2011. Widening the Sphere: Transnational Feminism and Third Generation Human Rights. From Urgent Action to Time (Im)memorial: Art and Literature of Human Rights in Changing Political Contexts. American Comparative Literature Association, New Orleans, LA, April 2010. Transitional Justice Translated From Nation to City. (Re)signifying November 3 rd, 1979: Language Performance and Social Action in Greensboro, North Carolina. Rhetoric Society of America, Seattle, WA, May 2008. Engaging Justice: Service Learning and Truth and Reconciliation. Just Common Space. Conference on College Composition and Communication. New Orleans, LA, April 2008. (Re)Creating the Truth: The Public Intellectual s Role in the Truth and Reconciliation Process. Reception Theory: Media and Reception. Midwest Modern Language Association. Cleveland, OH, November 2007. In An Effort to Sleep: Considering Pedagogies of Audience. Pedagogy, Audience, and Consideration. Southwest Graduate English Symposium. Phoenix, AZ, February 2007.
INVITED LECTURES AND TALKS Narrative Possibilities: Transnational Feminism, Human Rights, Rhetoric and Subjectivity. Center for Behavioral Research (CBR), American University of Beirut, April 2012. Simone De Beauvoir s Legacy Civilization Series, American University of Beirut, December 2010. Locating Subjectivity: Post-Sovereign Subjectivity and Human Rights Discourse in Marjane Satrapi s Graphic Narratives. Making and Remaking Subjects: Gender and Sexuality Studies MERGE Interdisciplinary Workshop, UNCG, September 2010. Negotiating Identity in a Globalized World. Political Awareness Club, UNCG, September 2009. Consumerism and Commodity Fetish: Globalization and Economies in Jessica Hagedorn s Dogeaters. English 315: Postcolonial Literatures, UNCG, April 2009. Panel Moderator following director s screening of Greensboro: Closer to the Truth, Human Rights Research Network. UNCG, November 2008. SELECTED TEACHING EXPERIENCE Wake Forest University, 2012-Present Writing Seminar, ENG 111: What is Language?: Rhetoric and Representation This writing course considers the representative capabilities of language from a rhetorical perspective, encouraging students to question the relationship of language to reality, truth seeking, and knowledge production. It culminates in a final portfolio. Writing Seminar, ENG 111: Righting Wrongs : The Rhetoric of Rights This writing course asks students to interrogate the rhetoric of contemporary human rights by examining the pedagogical impulse that underwrites the language of human rights and the normative culture that education constructs. It requires a research component and heavy revision. University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2006-2011 Freshman Composition I for non-native English Speakers, ENG 101N: Rhetoric and Inquiry This introductory writing course introduces students to the foundations of rhetoric, introductory rhetorical theory, research and academic discourse; it culminates in a final portfolio. Freshman Composition II for non-native English Speakers, ENG 102N: Can the Subaltern Speak?: The Problem of Representation This speaking intensive course challenges students to consider issues of representation in a global context using rhetorical and postcolonial theory. Topics in Non Western Literature, ENG 209: Human Rights Literature: Witness, Representation, Mourning This course explores the role of literature in human rights discourse from violation to postviolation responses by examining literary modes of witnessing, representation, and mourning. Students consider how literature offers alternatives to the problems of human rights discourse as a central project in the course.
World Literature, ENG 110: Global Subjectivity This course examines issues of subjectivity and representation in world literature and film from a postcolonial and human rights perspective by introducing students to problems of imagining the other, representations of pain, and the implicated reader. Gendered Worlds, WGS 333: Narrative In(ex)clusions: Human Rights Discourse, Gender, Subjectivity This upper level elective course in the Women s and Gender Studies program interrogates hegemonic western feminism with a focus on narrative, subjectivity and the future of feminism in a globalized world by engaging directly with women s rights as human rights from a transnational feminist perspective. Feminist Theory, WGS 350: Theories of the Self A required course for majors, this course focuses on postmodern feminist theories enabling students to acquire sufficient vocabulary and familiarity with key texts to understand and critique theories of postmodern subjectivity. Introduction to Gender Studies, WGS 250: Transnational Feminism As an introduction to Women s and Gender Studies and a gateway requirement for WGS, this course asks students to engage with major issues in current gender studies conversations including reproductive rights, globalization, and consumerism. It takes a historical perspective by interrogating the origins of current discourses surrounding bodies, subjectivities and genders. RELEVANT EXPERIENCE Research Associate, Civilization Series Program, American University of Beirut, Lebanon, 2011-2012 Visiting research associate. Assisted in organizing conference on Human Rights in the Humanities and presented my research at talks for an interdisciplinary audience of faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students. Research Assistant, Human Rights Research Network, Center for Critical Inquiry in the Liberal Arts, UNCG, 2009 Assisted in developing and facilitating Human Rights Film Series: The Spectacle of Race and Rights. Provided administrative support for the film series and organized and led panel discussion on film Greensboro Closer to the Truth. Provided research assistance and annotations for Dr. Alexandra Moore s edited collection on theoretical approaches to Human Rights and/in Literature. Ras Al Khaimah Language Institute, United Arab Emirates, 2008 Certificate in intensive one month Arabic Study Service Learning Reflection Facilitator, Communications, UNCG, 2007 Worked with Greensboro Police Department to advise a project on identity theft and helped host a conference titled Concerned Students for Truth and Reconciliation Conference. SERVICE University of North Carolina at Greensboro English Graduate Student Association Board Member, 2007-2008 Panel Moderator, UNCG Graduate Student Conference, Writing into the Profession, Fall 2008. Conference co-organizer, UNCG Graduate Student Conference, Writing into the Profession, Fall 2007. English Graduate Student Association Public Relations committee, 2006. Graduate Student Handbook committee, 2004-2005.
MEMBERSHIPS Modern Language Association Rhetoric Society of America National Council of Teachers of English Conference on College Composition and Communication Coalition of Women Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition National Women s Studies Association American Comparative Literature Association Midwest Modern Language Association