JOB TALK: Prof. Wendy Hesford

In this presentation, Wendy S. Hesford demonstrates how geopolitical discourses on the war on terror, neoliberal development, and human rights map vulnerability onto certain children’s bodies--but not others. Hesford examines the transnational mediation of the story of Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, the 15-year-old shot by the Taliban for her advocacy for Pakistani girls’ right to education. In contrast to translations of her story into stock narratives of gendered victimization, Malala’s navigation of diverse geopolitical agendas and media compels us to recognize youth activists’ transnational literacy practices and politicized subjectivities, and the value of a transnational approach to teaching rhetoric and writing in the digital age.

Wendy Hesford is Professor of Writing/Rhetoric/Literacy Studies in the Department of English at The Ohio State University. During her directorship, the First-Year Writing Program received the NCTE/CCCC Excellence Award for its innovative curriculum and strength in preparing instructors to teach writing. She is the author of Framing Identities: Autobiography and the Politics of Pedagogy, which won the W. Ross Winterowd Book Award, and Spectacular Rhetorics: Human Rights Visions, Recognitions, Feminisms, winner of the Rhetoric Society of America Book Award. With Brenda Brueggemann, she co-authored the textbook Rhetorical Visions, Reading and Writing about Visual Culture. Hesford has held Visiting Scholar appointments at Emory Law School’s Feminist Legal Project, and Columbia University’s Center for the Study of Human Rights.