Call for Chapter Proposals for Edited Collection
Deadline for Submissions: Monday, June 5, 2023

“Toxic rhetoric” in public discourse is not a new phenomenon. According to John Duffy in his 2020 book Provocations of Virtue, we have long seen public figures and politicians behave badly and call each other names. Even Adams and Jefferson name-called (35). Toxic rhetoric is defined by Duffy as dishonesty, unaccountability, demonization, violence, denial, and poverty of spirit, and, most disturbingly, not only persuasive to many people, but serving as an identity-shaping force. Duffy writes: “it invites us not only to affirm or deny a given rhetorical argument, but more, to define ourselves within the terms and tropes of the rhetoric” (41).

Toxic rhetoric in many ways characterizes the recent past and present political and cultural moment in the US, both in specific terms of the Trump years of campaigning, rallying, Tweeting, and holding office, as well as in more general terms: the extreme polarization of partisan politics, a distrust and disputation of words like “truth” and “facts,” a distrust of science resulting in a tragic COVID-19 deathcount, a far-right political shift toward fascism since 9/11, and increased accounts of words and acts of racism, Islamophobia, ableism, sexism, and homophobia in general going back 8+years and further in the US.

The stranglehold toxic rhetoric has on large swaths of the American culture has presented particularly difficult challenges to teachers and students in higher education. Further, for those teachers and scholars of writing, ethical argument, information literacy, and critical thinking, the “effectiveness” of toxic rhetoric during this time has fundamentally challenged many of the concepts and purposes that have inspired and directed not only our curricula and pedagogies as educators, but have presented difficulties to our careers and, for some, even their family lives.

This collection seeks to illuminate these challenges through the experiences, questions, reflections, responses, and actions of teachers in the broad field of English Studies about their challenges and approaches to teaching, working, and perhaps to living during the Trump era.

The book will be organized into three sections to express the nature of the challenges, experiences, questions, reflections, responses, and actions of teachers in English Studies during this time: Rupture, Resistance, and Resilience, all broadly conceived to generate ideas and not limit them:

Rupture refers to instances of difficulties presented in teaching in recent years including, for example, cognitive dissonance in teaching classical rhetorical concepts that are hard to see “working” in the world of public discourse; discomfort or difficulty in leading classroom discussion; confronting racism, ableism, and other oppressive stances with, among, and between students; facing challenges at the institutional level regarding restrictions or censorship of teaching materials, etc.

Resistance refers to the efforts of teachers and students to critique and countermand toxic rhetoric in their unique, creative, and situated ways. For example: moments and projects of activism, writing or other assignments or approaches that fostered productive and ethical argumentation, information literacy, and critical thinking withing/among/despite/because of difficult conditions; creative uses of social media or other public platforms or technology to raise oppressed voices and stances, etc.

Resilience refers to the methods, reasons, concepts, arguments, practices, habits, and actions that teachers and students have taken to mount hope and look to the future; this section is especially apt for situating the Trump era in a long arc of rhetorical and educational history that exceeds the Western canon, as well as conceptual frameworks and suggestions for revisions or additions to the curriculum, materials, and stances on literacy, education, language, and writing as paths to the future.

How to propose a chapter
Please send the following via email to jwhitefa@uwsuper.edu by noon on Monday, June 5, 2023:

1. A short author biography (50-100 words)
2. A one-page CV
3. A 500-word summary of your chapter concept that conveys its purpose, topic, argument, methodology, expected evidence, and which section of the book (ruptures, resistance, or resilience) you believe you’ll best fit into. By methodology we mean to be inclusive and specific:

-Personal narrative with anecdotal evidence

-Teaching reflection with evidence drawn from assignments, lesson plans, student work

-Teaching reflection with evidence drawn from students’ perspective or input

-Argument made with secondary sources, demographics, examples drawn from the culture, or other data sources

-Original research with evidence drawn from data collection of various types

Note that any student work such as a class assignment, a written reflection, or other first-person witnessing must be used with explicit written permission from the student/s that is shareable, and the student/s should be listed either as a co-author or appear in the acknowledgements of the final essay.

Publisher Peter Lang has expressed interest in this collection. We will also accept full chapter drafts if you are so inclined, as we are looking for a sample chapter for the book proposal to Peter Lang. We will notify you about your submission by August 1, 2023. Final chapter drafts will be due by November 1, 2023. Chapter drafts should be 5,000-7,000 words.

Please email jwhitefa@uwsuper.edu with any questions you might have. We look forward to hearing from you.