Joan Faber McAlister

Joan Faber McAlister
Born Cedar Rapids, Iowa, United States
Education Ph.D. in rhetorical studies
Alma mater University of Iowa
Occupation Educator, researcher, writer

Joan Faber McAlister is an American rhetorician and associate professor, and contributes research to women's studies in communication. Her research primarily focuses on how images and space communicate messages in public culture through perceptions of beauty and critical theory. McAlister received a Ph.D. from the University of Iowa, and an M.A. in communication and B.A. in anthropology from Boise State University. She is currently an associate professor of communication at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa.[1] McAlister was also the editor of Women's Studies in Communication, an international academic journal founded by the Organization for Research on Women and Communication (ORWAC).[2]

Early life and education

Joan Faber Mcalister was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

She attended Boise State University, from which she received a B.A. in anthropology[3] in 1994 with an emphasis in cultural studies and ethnography. In 1996 she completed her M.A. in communication at the same institution.[3]

Faber received her Ph.D. in rhetorical studies from the University of Iowa[2] in 2005 with a special certificate in the project on the rhetoric of inquiry.

Scholarly work

McAlister's research focuses primarily on how images and space communicate messages in public culture through perceptions of beauty and critical theory.[1] Her research using critical theory confronts ideological, societal, and structural binds found in culture and literature. McAlister focuses on analyzing topics including Congressional hearings, popular films, national news coverage, magazine advertisements, reality television, urban planning, and architecture.[4] She approaches these documents with a focus on the relationship between social location and rhetoric, i.e.: how different individuals are placed in power and how the factors of class, gender, race, and sexuality impact these individuals.[1] Her research is concerned with the different factors that are impacting cultural performance and create a sense of belonging that could have detrimental outcomes. She focuses on a concept of "home" being more than just a physical location.[3] McAlister has stated that home is "about relationships between you and your environment [...] between your desires and your limitations [...and] associations between regional identities and cultures."[1]

Collecting the Gaze

McAlister's essay Collecting the Gaze: Memory, Agency, and Kinship in the Women's Jail Museum, Johannesburg discusses the views of Walter Benjamin in the Women's Jail museum in Johannesburg, South Africa. Benjamin was a German-Jewish philosopher who died in 1940 at the Women's Jail while avoiding deportation to either a French concentration camp or to Nazi Germany.[5] The Women's jail is now a site that rests on the grounds of a former racially segregated prison that was in use from 1020 to 1983, during which apartheid laws sought to assure the dominance of white people. Those who resisted often faced repercussions, drawing a parallel between the Women's Jail and a Nazi regime. The Women's Jail holds visible memories of former inmates, directing the tourists' gaze through haunting collections of personal items such as newspaper clippings. Benjamin's collection often included very personal items such as wedding photographs, shoes, and quotes that were placed where women had once lived and worked, to present more depth into their personal experiences.[5]

McAlister then discusses how feminist critics of visual and public memories have concerns about the use of the gaze and the ability it has to change subjects into objects that then create a uniform story. The male gaze, in feminist theory, is associated with objectifying, defining, and exploiting females into objects for sexual pleasure to be viewed. The "tourist gaze" is a way of viewing culture as a commodity and can shift tragic sites of trauma into a site that offers pleasure at the expense of others' pain, often with a consumerist goal.[5] McAlister discusses how the gaze of visual and memorial culture causes concern about re-establishing hierarchical systems of race, class, gender, and sexuality that construct identities either through places of public memory or through the objectification of females. She also discusses how the Women's Jail displays the daily life of the prisoners such as the humiliating conditions that menstruating inmates were forced to live through. This includes exhibits detailing how inmates were not allowed to wear undergarments and were forced to push their thighs together or utilize shoe laces to hold pads in place while working.[5] This shows the notable different between the experiences of female and male prisoners which provides visitors with a different gaze into the particular details of daily life while being incarcerated. McAlister's article discusses how the Women's Jail asks visitors to share the responsibility to collect and preserve the past in order to change views of both the past and the future.

Lives of the Mind/Body

McAlister's article Lives of the Mind/Body: Alarming Notes on the Tenure and Biological Clocks seeks to draw attention to the biological clocks that women are encouraged to constantly worry about throughout their careers.[6] It discusses the idea that women are torn between achieving academically, in McAlister's situation, and keeping reproductive "expiration dates" to themselves. If women pay too much attention to their biological clocks in order to begin a family they will seemingly struggle to stay at the same pace as their male colleagues. McAlister discusses her fear that bringing children into her life would cause her to be viewed as feminine and motherly which would contradict her outward professional persona as a scholar.[6] She noted that having children was often viewed as being uncommitted to academic work by her male colleagues who were published or more revered. It was only after discussing this dilemma with her advisor, a well-established scholar, that McAlister decided to have children.

After gaining this approval, the article discusses how McAlister conceived her first child who was stillborn on April 3, 2000. She later had a daughter and twins (one male and one female) who altered both her physical and academic life.[6] While she continued to pursue a tenured position, McAlister found that she needed to keep her bodily connections with her babies private. For example, she discusses hiding in a corner of a conference room to prepare for her "job talk" when in fact she needed time to breast pump. She discusses how asking for time for this specific task would have made her seem potentially less fit for the position she was ultimately offered.[6] The article also discusses the biological clock point-of-view in McAlister's missing many "firsts" from first steps to first words while working on her dissertation and pursuing her scholarly goals. The article concludes by underlining the need to draw attention to how scholarly discourse is gendered and requires more discussion on what defines productivity.

Other contributions

  • 2016–present – Membership Officer for the Rhetoric Society of America
  • 2013–present – Director, Drake University Speaking Center
  • 2013 – Chair of the Jane Jacobs Urban Communication Book Award Committee
  • 2012–2016 – Editor of Women's Studies in Communication for the Organization for Research on Women and Communication (ORWAC)
  • 2012 – Editorial board member for the Quarterly Journal of Speech
  • 2011–present – Associate Professor, Department for the Study of Culture and Society, Drake University
  • 2010–present – Coordinator of Public Speaking Instruction, Drake University
  • 2005–2011 – Assistant Professor – Department for the Study of Culture and Society, Drake University
  • 2010 – Chair of the American Studies and the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer Communication Studies Divisions of the National Communication Association (NCA)
  • 2003–2005 – Speaking Center Director, Rhetoric Department, University of Iowa
  • 2002–2005 – Lecturer, Rhetoric Department, University of Iowa
  • 1999–2002 – Writing Center tutor, Rhetoric Department, University of Iowa
  • 1998–2002 – Graduate instructor, Rhetoric Department, University of Iowa
  • 1999 – Administrative assistant, University of Iowa Writing Center
  • 1996–1998 – Teaching assistant, Department of Communication Studies, University of Iowa
  • 1998 – Research assistant, Department of Communication Studies, University of Iowa
  • 1995–1996 – Research assistant, Boise State University

Awards and honors

  • 2016 – Francine Merritt Award for outstanding contributions to women's lives in communication – Women's Caucus, NCA[1]
  • 2016 – Distinguished Engagement Award – College of Arts & Sciences, Drake University
  • 2013 – Article of the Year Award – "Collecting the Gaze: Memory, Agency, and Kinship in the Women's Jail Museum, Johannesburg." Women's Studies in Communication. 2013 (36:1) 1–27. NCA Visual Communication Division
  • 2011 – Monograph of the Year Award – "Figural Materialism: Renovating Marriage through the American Family Home." Southern Journal of Communication. 2011 (76:4) 279–304. NCA, GLBTQ Division and Caucus
  • 2008 – Gary Gumpert Research Incentive Award ($1000) – "Rhetorics of Home in Post-Apartheid South African Housing Policy", Urban Communication Foundation (November)
  • 2001 – Honorable Mention – "Constructing the Suburban City: The Megamall as Cultural Space", James F. Jakobsen Graduate Forum, University of Iowa (March)
  • 2000 – Honorarium as Invited Participant – Workshop on Visual Rhetorics, University of Iowa (August)
  • 2000 – Top Oral Presentation – "Community and Fantasy in New Suburbia", University of Iowa Graduate Forum (April)
  • 1996 – Top Instructor Award – University of Iowa Panhellenic Association
  • 1996 – Top Two Paper – "Government Interference, Taxpayer Expense and Constitutionality: The De-Gaying of Idaho's Anti-Gay Initiative". Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Studies Division – International Communication Association Conference

Further reading

  • McAlister, Joan Faber (2008-07-01). "Lives of the Mind/Body: Alarming Notes on the Tenure and Biological Clocks". Women's Studies in Communication. 31 (2): 218–225. doi:10.1080/07491409.2008.10162536. ISSN 0749-1409.
  • McAlister, Joan Faber (2008). "Unsafe houses: The narrative inversion of suburban morality in popular film". Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies. 4 (1).
  • McAlister, Joan Faber (2009). "Trash in the White House: Michelle Obama, post-racism, and the pre-class politics of domestic style". Communication & Critical/Cultural Studies. 6 (3): 311–315. doi:10.1080/14791420903063844.
  • McAlister, Joan Faber (2010). "Good neighbors: Covenantal rhetoric, moral aesthetics, and the resurfacing of identity politics". Howard Journal of Communications. 21 (3): 273–293. doi:10.1080/10646175.2010.496674.
  • McAlister, Joan Faber (2010). "Domesticating citizenship: The kairotopics of America's post-9/11 home makeover". Critical Studies in Media Communication. 27 (1): 77–97. doi:10.1080/15295030903554391.
  • McAlister, Joan Faber (2011). "Figural materialism: Renovating marriage through the American family home". Southern Communication Journal. 76 (4): 279–304. doi:10.1080/10417941003797314.
  • McAlister, J. F.; Cordóva, N. (2012). "Transcending the scientific rationality/religious morality divide: The post-secular deliberative sphere in President Obama's stem cell statement". Reasoned Argument and Social Change: Selected papers from the 17th Biennial Conference on Argumentation.
  • McAlister, Joan Faber (2013-02-01). "Collecting the Gaze: Memory, Agency, and Kinship in the Women's Jail Museum, Johannesburg". Women's Studies in Communication. Informa UK Limited. 36 (1): 1–27. doi:10.1080/07491409.2012.754389. ISSN 0749-1409.
  • McAlister, Joan Faber (2014). "The past and future of feminist communication scholarship in WSIC". Women's Studies in Communication. 37 (3): 243–245. doi:10.1080/07491409.2014.955424. ISSN 0749-1409.
  • McAlister, Joan Faber (2015). "Policing sexual and reproductive agency in U.S. public culture". Women's Studies in Communication. 38 (2): 125–128. doi:10.1080/07491409.2015.1034629. ISSN 0749-1409.
  • McAlister, Joan Faber (2015). "The visual politics of un/veiling the female body in political protest". Women's Studies in Communication. 38 (4): 357–360. doi:10.1080/07491409.2015.1103105.
  • McAlister, Joan Faber (2016). "Making feminist, queer, latinx, and #BlackVotesMatter". Women's Studies in Communication. 39 (4): 353–256. doi:10.1080/07491409.2016.1230988.
  • McAlister, Joan Faber (2016). "Ten propositions for communication scholars studying space and place". Women's Studies in Communication. 39 (2): 113–121. doi:10.1080/07491409.2016.1176785.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Q&A with Joan Faber McAlister, recipient of the 2016 Francine Merritt Award". Newsroom | Drake University. Des Moines, Iowa: Drake University. 2016-11-21. Retrieved 2017-04-25.
  2. 1 2 "Joan Faber McAlister named editor of Women's Studies in Communication". Newsroom | Drake University. Des Moines, Iowa: Drake University. 2014-04-28. Retrieved 2018-03-09.
  3. 1 2 3 "Joan Faber McAlister – Drake University". www.drake.edu. Des Moines, Iowa: Drake University. 2016. Retrieved 2017-04-25.
  4. ↑ "NOW Retreat : Webinars". www.nowretreat.com. 2016-07-10. Archived from the original on 2018-03-09. Retrieved 2017-04-25.
  5. 1 2 3 4 McAlister, Joan Faber (2013-02-01). "Collecting the Gaze: Memory, Agency, and Kinship in the Women's Jail Museum, Johannesburg". Women's Studies in Communication. Informa UK Limited. 36 (1): 1–27. doi:10.1080/07491409.2012.754389. ISSN 0749-1409.
  6. 1 2 3 4 McAlister, Joan Faber (2008-07-01). "Lives of the Mind/Body: Alarming Notes on the Tenure and Biological Clocks". Women's Studies in Communication. 31 (2): 218–225. doi:10.1080/07491409.2008.10162536. ISSN 0749-1409.
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