My Review of Urrea's The House of Broken Angels

American Book Review

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/745323

My review of Luis Alberto Urrea's The House of Broken Angels

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/745323

Feminisms and Rhetorics 2019

Great Roundtable and Sessions at FemRhet 2019

Last week, I presented at the 2019 Feminisms and Rhetorics conference in Harrisonburg, Virginia. My SCU colleague Prof Amy Lueck presented her paper "A Feminist Ethics for Indigenous Historiography” based on her research of indigenous spaces in the Santa Clara area. I presented on some of his findings based on research I conducted with my former research assistant Perla Luna (English and Sociology '19) on Latinx publishing.

 During my roundtable, my colleague Amy made some great points during the Q&A following the presenters.

A photo of myself while presenting where I am remarkably not motioning frantically with my hands, speaking about statistics related to the Latinx Caucus bibliography.

Walter Mignolo Talking De-Linking

Bookmarking for Later

I really want to watch this, so I'm posting it here to look at later.

De-linking across Indigeneity: Walter Mignolo and Linda Tuhiwai Smith from Te Tuhi on Vimeo.

Skyping into Texas State

"Texas Wants You Anyway"

(Me on the small screen)

There's a Lyle Lovett song "That's Right, You're Not From Texas" with the line that Texas wants you anyway, and I felt the love from Texas as I skyped into Octavio Pimentel's graduate course on multilingualism in teaching writing on 10/21. I had the opportunity to speak about my spring 2019 Composition Studies article "Decolonial Potential in a Multilingual FYC" and teaching a course with multilingual students in Silicon Valley.

(Sharing my screen with some stats on hiring here in Silicon Valley)

The students came in with an array of experiences and interests, which kept the discussion lively.  

 (A great slide with quote from Inoue that gets at how language policy substituted for other forms of discrimination)

 (Talking with my hands as per usual)

I also wanted to give a quick thanks and shoutout to Brad Jacobson, who invited me to skype with his graduate course at UTEP the week prior--I wasn't lying about Texas making me feel welcome. With Jacobson's graduate course, I had the opportuntity to discuss my chapter on digital testimonio that was included in the digital edited collection Racial Shorthand that I co-edited with Octavio Pimentel. 

Trailer for our collection:

So Many Great Rhet Comp Scholars

...In Explanation Points

In Explanation Points: Publishing in Rhetoric and Composition, the editors have collected advice on publishing scholarship in rhetoric and composition studies from a myriad of prolific scholars in the field. I consider myself extremely fortunate to have a chapter included alongside pieces by researchers such as Jody Shipka, whose work is included in many of the classes I teach. 

My piece includes references to the blog post I did when Terry Eagleton visited Santa Clara, and I had the opportunity to ask him about his writing habits.

Spring 2019 issue of Composition Studies

My Article "Decolonial Potential in a Multilingual FYC"

In the Spring 2019 issue of Composition Studies, I have an article that came about from a first year writing course here at Santa Clara University that was conducted in Spanish during the first quarter and then in English during the quarter that I taught. The student writing included in my article is wonderful and critically engages with the notions of translingualism and monolingual ideology.  I am extremely forturnate that my article was available through open access on the journal's website. Now it is available through my university's scholar commons: https://works.bepress.com/cruz-medina/18/

See below for the other great contributions to this issue, which includes my SCU colleague Amy Lueck and fellow Latinx Caucus member Alex Hidalgo, whose digital book I discussed in a previous post. 

2019 CCCC Pittsburgh

CCCC 2019 in Pittsburgh, PA
March 12-16 was the College Composition and Communication Conference, where I was most excited to present with my undergraduate research assistant Perla Luna, who presented with me on a panel related to my research on the NCTE/CCCC Latinx Caucus Bibliography.

(Me with Enrique Reynoso and Perla Luna SCU grad '19)

Asao Inoue CCCC 2019 Chair's Address

Below is the video of Asao Inoue's Chair's Address, which sparked some debate and discussion on the WPA listserv that prompted some discussion about the future of the listserv, its purpose, and how it is being used.



On Friday evening, I had the pleasure of co-chairing the NCTE/CCCC Latinx Caucus business meeting (photo below.) We had a wonderful turnout for the business meeting, where members of the caucus new and experienced came, met, and ideally found other folks interested in similar research, teaching practices, or community issues.

My co-chair Christina Cedillo did an excellent job addressing some of the relevant issues that arose at this year's Cs and we worked together to spread the awareness of calls for papers (CFPs) and forthcoming publications by members of the caucus (see the covers below of books I picked up while there). 

(SCU faculty Amy Lueck, Denise Krane, Julia Voss, Heather Turner, and Matt  Gomes at CCCC 2019)

Picked up some new books while I was there (click covers for Amazon link):

Rhetorics Elsewhere is a collection that includes contributions by scholars identifying rhetorical practices outside of those traditionally included in classical rhetorical study.

Raul Sanchez's new book continues his work as what Jaime Mejia describes as being "a monster theorist," looking at new ways of considering texts. 

On the Wednesday of the conference, the Latinx caucus workshop hosted Latino Community organizations.

Latino Community Center speakers at W.10 #4C19 Organizers asked community goals/dreams for center; assessment & strategic plan pic.twitter.com/TFrtCtwL6K

— Cruz Medina (@AcademiadeCruz) March 13, 2019

Casa San Jose:Service coordination for work, youth program (therapy for undocumented), language opportunities, #4C19 #LatinxCaucus pic.twitter.com/8Xu7o8hkau

— Cruz Medina (@AcademiadeCruz) March 13, 2019

This CCCC was also an opportunity to honor, Felipe de Ortego y Gasca, one of the founders of the Latinx Caucus who recently passed.

Latinx Caucus altar for Felipe de Ortego Y Gasca, recently deceased founding member of Latinx Caucus #4C19 pic.twitter.com/H3YtdmaLQg

— Cruz Medina (@AcademiadeCruz) March 13, 2019

Taye Diggs at SCU

Frank Sinatra Artist in Residence Taye Diggs at SCU

(Taye Diggs and Shane W Evans with my English 106 class)

On Friday April 12, I was fortunate to have both Taye Diggs and his collaborator on children's books, visual illustrator Shane W Evans, come to my Rhetoric of Storytelling (English 106) here at SCU. In class, I framed the discussion around the course reading "Ancient Tradition and Contemporary Storytelling" by Gayle Duskin from the collection The Subject Is Story. The class identified contemporary songs that highlighted elements, motifs, and themes raised in the reading. Diggs and Evans were extremely generous in their thoughtful contributions to the discussion, questions for students, and responses to questions from students on topics related to storytelling, telling the stories of others, and the purposes for storytelling. Diggs and Evans offered their perspectives as creators and collaborators in the stories of others.

Children's Book Reading

On Tuesday, April 9 Diggs and Evans performed a reading from their books Chocolate Me! and Mixed Me!. SCU has a video of the entire event that I'm including below, which includes musical moments that are at times collaborative with the audience, demonstrating the performative nature of the text as well as the rhythmic prose of both books.

                                             (Screenshot and video from event)

Link to Video of Talk with Shane Evans on Children's Books

https://santaclarauniversity.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=343a2938-cacf-4a5e-b2d2-aa2300fb22b5&fbclid=IwAR1NY6EQ-T1hLOcl6CTSIbTHLnk0tobB9FugH7uRq9xQ_MuuzLR5n9KjK9o

(Photo of Shane W. Evans with my son Jackson at reading)

Books by Taye Diggs and Shane W Evans:

(Click on Cover for Amazon link)

(Click Cover for Amazon link)

Behind the Curtain: Workshop Performance with Students

On Friday April 13, Diggs performed with SCU students in the choir, jazz band, orchestra, and dancers, taking the audience through some of his experiences as an actor and performer. Together, they performed songs from Rent, Chicago, and others.

Thank you to Taye Diggs, Shane W Evans, and everyone at SCU who helped bring these awesome events together, including but not limited to Marie Brancati, Danielle Morgan, Christina Zanfagna, Tony Hazard, and the whole Culture Power and Difference crew.

Social Media Panel

It slipped my mind, but I wanted to note a great panel that I was able to take part in with Profs Shannon Vallor of the Communications Department and Danielle Morgan of the English Department on social media activism online. My own research has looked at linguistic diversity online, and I learned a great amount from my co-panelists from both their research and experiences taking part and observing social activism online. Danielle Morgan's writing for Aljazeera.com on confederate monuments brought unwanted attention online, while Shannon Vallor has written and researched widely on the intersection of technology and ethics.

(Swig Resident Advisor, Shannon Vallor, Danielle Morgan, and myself)

Flyer for the event
The event was all the way back in November 2018, which can feel like a lifetime ago, so I consider myself lucky to have remembered to note this great event, although anyone reading these posts will see some anachronism. 

Last Lecture from Last Year

My SCU Associated Student Government Last Lecture from Last Year

Last year, I was honored to be invited to deliver a talk as a part of the Associated Student Government's "Last Lecture" series here at Santa Clara University. I made sure to start off my talk by saying that I was neither leaving nor dying, but excited to be speaking with that great audience of students nonetheless. Here is a long-lost video that I found from my talk that was skillfully edited down to a highlight from the 45 minute talk I gave. 

Here is the flyer from the event:

Overdue Post for Social Justice in Tech Comm Collection

Key Theoretical Frameworks: Teaching Technical Communication in the Twenty-First Century 

(Book Cover: Amazon)

I am really honored to have a chapter that came out recently, edited by the amazing editorial team of Angela Haas and Michelle Eble. Contributing a chapter with Kenneth Walker on the subject of contract grading for social justice, drawing on folks like Asao Innoue, Jerry Farber, and folks in Tech Comm, I love that my work is featured along side dynamic contributors. This collection is compelling and necessary scholarship, especially given the moment when social justice and the humanities are needed.

(From the Colorado UP website)

From the website:

Drawing on social justice methodologies and cultural studies scholarship, Key Theoretical Frameworks offers new curricular and pedagogical approaches to teaching technical communication. Including original essays by emerging and established scholars, the volume educates students, teachers, and practitioners on identifying and assessing issues of social justice and globalization.
 
The collection provides a valuable resource for teachers new to translating social justice theories to the classroom by presenting concrete examples related to technical communication. Each contribution adopts a particular theoretical approach, explains the theory, situates it within disciplinary scholarship, contextualizes the approach from the author’s experience, and offers additional teaching applications.
 
The first volume of its kind, Key Theoretical Frameworks links the theoretical with the pedagogical in order to articulate, use, and assess social justice frameworks for designing and teaching courses in technical communication.

Contributors: Godwin Y. Agboka, Matthew Cox, Marcos Del Hierro, Jessica Edwards, Erin A. Frost, Elise Verzosa Hurley, Natasha N. Jones, Cruz Medina, Marie E. Moeller, Kristen R. Moore, Donnie Johnson Sackey, Gerald Savage, J. Blake Scott, Barbi Smyser-Fauble, Kenneth Walker, Rebecca Walton

2019 LEAD Scholars Symposium

LEAD Scholars Symposium 

Photos courtesy of @SCULEADScholars
On Wednesday, Feb 20 the LEAD Scholars program hosted Symposium, an event where students from the first year writing classes (CTW2) present on preliminary research that stems from books they read over the winter break. 

I was honored to speak on behalf of the LEAD CTW instructors, sharing our gratefulness for the event and the opportunity to share in the community that the program cultivates with their many curricular and extracurricular activities, sessions, and events. 

 (One of my students, Andre, presenting on education and Silicon Valley Tech firms)

(Q&A following the first round of presenters in the panel I attended)

(LEAD Program Coordinator Erin Kimura-Walsh introducing President Michael Engh, S.J.)