K.J. Rawson
Associate Professor of English and Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies
K.J. Rawson works at the intersections of the Digital Humanities and Rhetoric, LGBTQ+, and Feminist Studies. Focusing on archives as key sites of cultural power, he studies the rhetorical work of queer and transgender archival collections in both brick-and-mortar and digital spaces. He has co-edited special issues of Peitho and TSQ and co-edited Rhetorica in Motion: Feminist Rhetorical Methods and Methodologies (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010). Rawson’s scholarship has appeared in Archivaria, Enculturation, Peitho, Present Tense, QED, RSQ, TSQ, and several edited collections.
K.J. Rawson is founder and director of the Digital Transgender Archive, an award-winning online repository of trans-related historical materials, and he is the co-chair of the editorial board of the Homosaurus, an international LGBTQ linked data vocabulary.
- Kneupper Award for Best Essay Published in RSQ in 2018
- American Council of Learned Societies Digital Extension Grant, “Developing the Digital Transgender Archive” (2017–2018)
- American Council of Learned Societies Digital Innovation Fellowship, “Building the Digital Transgender Archive” (2015–2016)
Since 2012:
- “Witness, Bystander, or Aggressor? Encountering Cassils.” QED: A Journal of Queer Worldmaking 6.1 (2019): 87–93.
- “The Rhetorical Power of Archival Description: Classifying Images of Gender Transgression.” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 48.4 (Winter 2018): 327–351.
- “An Inevitably Political Craft.” Transgender Studies Quarterly 2.4 (Nov. 2015): 544–552.
- “Coalition of Who? Regendering Scholarly Community in the History of Rhetoric.” Co-created with Patricia Bizzell. Peitho 18.1 (Fall/Winter 2015).
- “Archival Justice: An Interview with Ben Power Alwin.” Radical History Review 122 (Spring 2015): 177–187.
- “Transgender*: The Rhetorical Landscape of a Term.” Co-authored with Cristan Williams. Present Tense 3.2 (April 2014). Corresponding timeline:
- “Transgender Worldmaking in Cyberspace: Historical Activism on the Internet.” QED: A Journal of Queer Worldmaking 1.2 (June 2014): 38–60.
- “Rhetorical History 2.0: Toward a Digital Transgender Archive.” Enculturation 16 (June 2013).
- “Queer Archives/Archival Queers.” Co-authored with Charles E. Morris III. In Theorizing Histories of Rhetoric. Ed. Michelle Ballif. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2013. 74–89.
- “Archive This! Queer(ing) Archival Practices.” In Practicing Research in Writing Studies: Reflections on Ethically Responsible Research. Eds. Katy Powell and Pam Takayoshi. New York: Hampton Press, 2012. 237–250.
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Education
PhD in Composition and Cultural Rhetoric, 2010, Syracuse University
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Contact
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Address
TBD - mail can be sent to the following address:
405 Lake Hall
360 Huntington Avenue
Boston, MA 02115 -
Office Hours
Mondays 3-4, Thursday 1:35–2:40, and by appointment.
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Associations
Queer Theory
WMNS/SOCL 7100
Introduces the core texts and key debates that have shaped queer theory and examines the intersections between queer theory and feminism and critical race theory. Seeks to provide an understanding of expansive and radical contemporary queer politics by analyzing foundational queer and feminist texts, pushing beyond narrow constructions of identity politics, anti-discrimination policy, and rights-based reforms. Engages queer theory by means of a rich philosophical and political interrogation of the meaning and content of “queer.”
