Participation Type
Paper
Presentation #1 Title
“Are Y’all Homos?”: Mêtis as Method for and in Queer Appalachia
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
Stories are foundational to Appalachian and Southern queer culture. The retelling of them is a powerful narrative tool that references and re-stitches the identities of the people being talked about and the region in which they live. In this presentation, we, both as queer scholars and partners, plan on telling and analyzing our story about a traumatic experience we shared while doing academic research in Appalachia. Our presentation is a dialogic exploration of methodology and the many complexities that comes along with person-based research. In the spirit of cultural rhetorics scholars and for the sake of queering the genre conventions and methods of scholarly writing, our story will come first. In the later half of the presentation, we will theorize about the event using the rhetorical concept of mêtis as a frame to understand how precarity and disidentification can become a method of performance for scholars and queer research in Appalachia. By engaging with these methodological frames we aim to approach such questions as: How does identity, safety, and person-based research overlap and in many ways can contradict with methodological frames in the field? What happens when our research poses a threat to the social spheres that we identify with? How can queer theory help further intersectionality with not only Appalachian studies in the field as well as offer new ways of doing research? This presentation should disclose that we may not come to answer these questions, but that this experience and the methods we address are well worth discussing in furthering how queer scholars navigate place in Appalachia.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Caleb is a PhD Candidate at Miami University, in Oxford, Ohio, where he has been Assistant Director of Composition for two years. Recently published in the inaugural protest issue of Killjoy, his research interests overlap with queerness, rurality, and place in literacy studies. His dissertation examines affect, trauma, spirituality, and embodiment of queer literacy in rural Appalachia.
Presentation #2 Title
“Are Y’all Homos?”: Mêtis as Method for and in Queer Appalachia
Presentation #2 Abstract or Summary
Stories are foundational to Appalachian and Southern queer culture. The retelling of them is a powerful narrative tool that references and re-stitches the identities of the people being talked about and the region in which they live. In this presentation, we, both as queer scholars and partners, plan on telling and analyzing our story about a traumatic experience we shared while doing academic research in Appalachia. Our presentation is a dialogic exploration of methodology and the many complexities that comes along with person-based research. In the spirit of cultural rhetorics scholars and for the sake of queering the genre conventions and methods of scholarly writing, our story will come first. In the later half of the presentation, we will theorize about the event using the rhetorical concept of mêtis as a frame to understand how precarity and disidentification can become a method of performance for scholars and queer research in Appalachia. By engaging with these methodological frames we aim to approach such questions as: How does identity, safety, and person-based research overlap and in many ways can contradict with methodological frames in the field? What happens when our research poses a threat to the social spheres that we identify with? How can queer theory help further intersectionality with not only Appalachian studies in the field as well as offer new ways of doing research? This presentation should disclose that we may not come to answer these questions, but that this experience and the methods we address are well worth discussing in furthering how queer scholars navigate place in Appalachia.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #2
Travis A. Rountree is the Director of the Composition Program and Assistant Professor at Indiana University East. In spring 2017, he took his PhD from the University of Louisville. His dissertation titled “‘Hard to See Through The Smoke’: Remembering the 1912 Hillsville, Virginia Courthouse Shootout” focuses on rhetorical depictions of the shootout specifically by the media, ballads, recent plays, public spaces, and portrayals of gender. While at Louisville he received the Barker Endowment for Southern Letters and the Barbara Plattus Teaching Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching and Tutoring. He has a master’s in English and an Appalachian Studies graduate certificate from Appalachian State University. He has been published in The North Carolina Folklore Journal and The Appalachian Journal.
Conference Subthemes
Diversity and Inclusion, Education
“Are Y’all Homos?”: Mêtis as Method for and in Queer Appalachia
Stories are foundational to Appalachian and Southern queer culture. The retelling of them is a powerful narrative tool that references and re-stitches the identities of the people being talked about and the region in which they live. In this presentation, we, both as queer scholars and partners, plan on telling and analyzing our story about a traumatic experience we shared while doing academic research in Appalachia. Our presentation is a dialogic exploration of methodology and the many complexities that comes along with person-based research. In the spirit of cultural rhetorics scholars and for the sake of queering the genre conventions and methods of scholarly writing, our story will come first. In the later half of the presentation, we will theorize about the event using the rhetorical concept of mêtis as a frame to understand how precarity and disidentification can become a method of performance for scholars and queer research in Appalachia. By engaging with these methodological frames we aim to approach such questions as: How does identity, safety, and person-based research overlap and in many ways can contradict with methodological frames in the field? What happens when our research poses a threat to the social spheres that we identify with? How can queer theory help further intersectionality with not only Appalachian studies in the field as well as offer new ways of doing research? This presentation should disclose that we may not come to answer these questions, but that this experience and the methods we address are well worth discussing in furthering how queer scholars navigate place in Appalachia.
