Sharing Stories and Pushing Boundaries

Abstract

When I explain how I came to my research, I usually say, “This story begins at the end” and proceed to explain how my stepmother’s tragic death from lung cancer lead me down a path that allowed me to bring seemingly disparate interests together into a meaningful research trajectory. Reading about death, grief, and memorializing helped me work through my own experiences with her death. Therefore, my research stems from personal experience and interests, and knowing my story is part of understanding my nontraditional research. The scholarship I focus on here cultivated influential principles that determined my impetus early in my career: the value of pushing boundaries and putting forth our stories.When I first encountered Bernadette Calafell’s chapter “Rhetorics of Possibility: Challenging the Textual Bias of Rhetoric through the Theory of the Flesh” I was intrigued by the title alone. Because I was familiar with “theory of the flesh” from reading Chicana feminists Gloria Anzaldúa, Cherríe Moraga, and Chela Sandoval, I was interested in how Calafell challenges the logocentrism I had encountered in our field, which never really made sense to me nor reflected my own values. Calafell’s chapter thoughtfully and honestly walks the reader through her personal academic journey, drawing from scholars who speak to my own heritage and ways of knowing and being.She writes with confidence about who she is and what she values in her scholarship, which was inspiring and reaffirming for me as a young scholar. She chronicles the long-standing arguments against personal experience (which we’ve seen resurface recently) and “identity politics” and makes a strong, clear case for valuing experience, asserting her ways of knowing and being. I’ve learned from her modeling how to gracefully challenge axioms because there will always be those who do not see the value in my work. Calafell’s chapter reinforced that pushing boundaries of what counts and who counts in academic work is important.Perhaps most importantly, she offers her story to empower others (106). This commitment to scholarship that contributes to knowledge for people in her community and makes sense of their experiences intrigued me and stuck with me (112). The biggest compliments I’ve gotten are not citations of my work but emails and conversations at conferences saying that my work made someone feel seen or impacted them in some way. This is the type of scholar I want to be, working for others. Calafell cites Kent Ono’s work as allowing her to consider how to study the kinds of texts she wanted and consider the methodologies that best allowed that. She did that for me: provided the pathway and model to create my own methodological homeplace, as she has in order to do the work that moves her.Lastly, it’s important to mention that Calafell’s chapter is a phenomenal example of accessible scholarship with smart yet simple language use and overall rhetorical awareness for scholars like me to emulate. Bernadette Calafell’s scholarship has influenced not only my thinking but also my writing, and for that I’m forever grateful.