Academia de Cruz Medina
This online writing environment digitally archives the embodied rhetoric, issues and projects that relate to me as an Assistant Professor at Santa Clara University. E-mail me at: cnmedina AT SCU DOT edu.
Sunday, November 15, 2020
Tuesday, September 8, 2020
New Article in Rhetoric Review
Co-Authored Piece with Former Student (and Academia de Cruz) Contributor Perla Luna
Wednesday, June 17, 2020
Pedagogue Podcast Interview
A couple weeks back, I did an interview with Shane Woods for the Pedagogue podcast. This past week, Shane received a digital scholarship award from the Computers and Composition conference--is it just a coincidence? All jokes aside, I was glad I had the chance to speak with Shane because he has had a really comprehensive and inclusive selection of podcast guests.
Link here: https://www.pedagoguepodcast.com/blog/episode-24-cruz-medina
From the Pedagogue website:
Pedagogue is a podcast hosted by Shane A. Wood and sustained by the voices of others. Pedagogue is a podcast about teachers talking writing, dedicated to building a supportive community, committed to facilitating conversations that move across institutions and positions, and designed to help celebrate the labor teachers do inside and outside the classroom.The purpose of Pedagogue is to promote diverse voices at various institutions and help foster community and collaboration among teachers of writing. Each episode is a conversation with a teacher (or multiple teachers) about their experiences teaching writing, their work, inspirations, assignments, assessments, successes, and challenges. Episodes include voices from secondary and post-secondary teachers, graduate students, emeriti, distinguished teacher-scholars, and emerging teacher-scholars from high schools, community colleges, four-year universities, private universities, research universities, Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs), Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), and Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs).
Friday, February 7, 2020
2020 Roots & Routes Music Festival
This past evening at SCU, I had the pleasure of sharing the stage with members of the Music department, English and Ethnic Studies to discuss the themes of genre-bending, political music as a part of the Roots and Routes Music Festival.The Festival is headlined by SCU's Frank Sinatra chair, Rhiannnon Giddens, who performs Saturday Feb.8. See her NPR Tiny Desk Concert below:
Rhiannon Giddens on Amazon:
Friday, January 3, 2020
Wednesday, November 20, 2019
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.
Wednesday, October 30, 2019
Walter Mignolo Talking De-Linking
Bookmarking for Later
I really want to watch this, so I'm posting it here to look at later.
Thursday, October 24, 2019
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:
Thursday, October 17, 2019
So Many Great Rhet Comp Scholars
...In Explanation Points
In Explanation Points: Publishing in Rhetoric and Composition
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.
Thursday, April 25, 2019
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.

Thursday, April 18, 2019
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.
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):

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
Saturday, April 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
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.
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.
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