04/19/18
Members of the Department of English at Fort Hays State University recently attended the annual Conference on College Composition and Communication in Kansas City.

Dr. James Austin and Dr. Amanda Fields, assistant professors, presented their research and served as discussion facilitators at various workshops. Graduate students Moisés de Lima, Gilberto Pereira, Judy Sansom and Jessica Shields also attended.

“One of the wonderful things about this national conference was that it was close enough this year for the English Department to support graduate teaching assistants and their attendance with the help of Dr. Cheryl Duffy and Dr. Eric Leuschner,” said Fields. “Graduate students were able to network with rhetoric and composition scholars and attend panels that spoke to their varying interests.”

Austin presented his research, "Engaging Case Study Accounts to Enable Writing Development in 'Literacy Outsiders,’” in a workshop titled "Engaging the Global.”

He was also a discussion facilitator during the all-convention session "Literacy, Language, and Labor for Social Justice: Outward and Inward Reflection."

Fields presented a paper titled "'We're being Snuffed Out': Metronormativity and Queer Composing in Rural Spaces" in a panel called "Geographic Considerations of Literacy, the Body, and Identity Construction."

Fields also served as a discussion facilitator for a half-day workshop called "Planning for Social Justice Work in Home Institutions."