| Curriculum |
Alisse Portnoy |
ACADEMIC POSITIONS |
| Associate Professor, Department of English Language and Literature, University of Michigan, 2005-present. |
| Faculty Associate, Program in American Culture, University of Michigan, 2000-present. |
| Assistant Professor, Department of English Language and Literature, University of Michigan, 1999-2005. |
| Program and Projects Coordinator, Center for Teaching Excellence and the Office of Undergraduate Studies, University of Maryland, 1997-1999. |
| English 101 Bridge Program Instructor, Center for Minorities in Science and Engineering, University of Maryland, Summer 1997. |
| Teaching Assistant, Department of English, University of Maryland, 1991-1997. |
| Senior Coordinator, Freshman Writing Program, University of Maryland, 1995-1996. |
| Coordinator, Freshman Writing Program, University of Maryland, 1994-1995. |
| Instructor of English, Intensive Educational Development Program, University of Maryland, 1993. |
| EDUCATION |
Doctor of Philosophy, English Language and Literature, University of Maryland, May 1999. |
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| Master of Arts, English Language and Literature with a Minor in Rhetoric and Composition, University of Maryland, May 1993. |
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| Bachelor of Arts, Cornell University, January 1990. |
| PUBLICATIONS |
| Book |
Their Right to Speak: Women's Activism in the Indian and Slave Debates. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005. |
| Essays |
"'Female Petitioners Can Lawfully Be Heard': Negotiating Female Decorum, U.S. Politics, and Political Agency, 1829-31." Journal of the Early Republic 23.4 (Winter 2003): 573-610. |
"Defining, Using, and Challenging the Rhetorical Tradition." Guest Editor's introduction for a special issue on the rhetorical tradition. Philosophy and Rhetoric 36.2 (2003): 103-08. |
"'A Right to Speak on the Subject': The U.S. Women's Antiremoval Petition Campaign, 1829-31." Rhetoric and Public Affairs 5.4 (2002): 601-24. |
| Book Reviews |
Review of Water Drops from Women Writiers: A Temperance Reader, edited and with an introduction by Carol Mattingly. Argumentation and Advocacy, 39.2 (Fall 2002): 148-50. |
Review of Sex and Citizenship in Antebellum America by Nancy Isenberg. Quarterly Journal of Speech 85.4 (November 1999): 437-38. |
Review of The Great Silent Army of Abolitionism: Ordinary Women in the Antislavery Movement by Julie Roy Jeffrey. Maryland Historical Magazine 94.2 (Summer 1999): 236-37. |
| FELLOWSHIPS, GRANTS, AND AWARDS |
| Research Grant, Reicker Undergraduate Research Fund, Center for the Education of Women, University of Michigan, 2005. |
| Karl R. Wallace Memorial Award, National Communication Association, 2005. |
| Multimedia Teaching Grant, Center for Research on Learning and Teaching and the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, University of Michigan, 2005. |
| First-Year Seminar Arts and Cultural Funding Grant, University of Michigan, Winter 2005 (grant to foster first-year seminar faculty-student interaction, awarded to fund a class trip to a theater performance) |
| First-Year Seminar Arts and Cultural Funding Grant, University of Michigan, Fall 2003 (grant to foster first-year seminar faculty-student interaction, awarded to fund a class trip to a student theater performance on campus). |
| Summer Stipend, National Endowment for the Humanities, Washington, D.C., 2003. |
| Department Nominee, Outstanding Teaching Award, University of Michigan, 2003. |
| Faculty Support for Research on Women and Gender, Institute for Research on Women and Gender, University of Michigan, 2003. |
| Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies Research Grant, University of Michigan, 2003. |
| Center for the Education of Women Faculty Research Grant, University of Michigan, 2002-2003. |
| Honorary Member, Golden Key International Honour Society, University of Michigan Chapter, Fall 2002 (elected for excellence in undergraduate teaching and mentoring). |
| Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies Summer Research Fellowship, University of Michigan, Spring/Summer 2001. |
| Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies Research Grant, University of Michigan, 2001. |
| First-Year Seminar Arts and Cultural Funding Grant, University of Michigan, Fall 2000 (grant to foster first-year seminar faculty-student interaction, awarded to fund a class trip to the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit, Michigan). |
| Fellow, Rackham Summer Interdisciplinary Institute, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies, University of Michigan, 2000. |
| Media Union Resource Grant, Media Union, University of Michigan, 1999-2000 (grant to digitize two hundred color photocopies of archival documents submitted to the United States federal government by women in the nineteenth century). |
| Carl Bode Prize for the Outstanding Dissertation in American Literature, University of Maryland, 2000. |
| Honorable Mention, American Society for the History of Rhetoric Dissertation Award, 1999. |
| Outstanding Teacher Award Nominee, Panhellenic Association and Interfraternity Council, University of Maryland, 1997. |
| Curriculum Infusion Grant, Caring Coalition, University of Maryland, 1994-1995. |
| Cornell Tradition Fellow, Cornell University, 1989-1990. |
| PRESENTATIONS |
| Invited Talks |
| "United States Women and the Indian and Slave Debates." Division of United States Studies, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C., 2006. |
| "Their Right to Speak: What the National Archives Tells Us about Women's Entry into National Politics." The National Archives Experience: Our America, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C., April 2006. |
| "Their Right to Speak: A Rhetorical Study of U.S. Women's Early Political Activism." Undergraduate English Association, University of Michigan, December 2005. |
| "Imagining the Enemy as Rhetorical Strategy in the U.S. Black Freedom Movement." Center for Writing Studies, University of Illinois, October 2005. |
| "Rhetorics of Opposition: U.S. Women's Right to Vote and the Female Antisuffragists Who Contributed to the Cause." Communication, History, and Women's Studies Brown Bag Seminar, Georgia State University, November 2004. |
| "'What was the Difference Between Cruelty to the Slave, and Cruelty to the Poor Indian?': Imagining Native and African Americans as Objects of Advocacy." Prospects of Public Address Studies/Criticism in the New Century, Northwestern University, April 2004. |
| "Meetings and Constitutions: A Report on the Founding of the Alliance for Rhetoric Societies." Alliance of Rhetoric Societies Inaugural Conference, Evanston, September 2003. |
| "'Female Petitioners Can Lawfully Be Heard': Negotiating Female Decorum, U.S. Politics, and Political Agency, 1829-31." English Department, Pennsylvania State University, March 2003. |
| "Is Political Agency a Fiction? Negotiating Female Decorum, U.S. Politics, and Political Agency, 1829-31." Brownbag Seminar Series, Yaffee Center for Persuasive Communication, University of Michigan, March 2003. |
| "Finding Political Voice, Constituting Political Power: Women's Earliest National Political Activism in the United States." "Women at the Center" Annual Conference, Center for the Education of Women, University of Michigan, 2002. |
| "Gendering Politics, Gendered Appeals: Women's Petitions to Congress in the 1830s." Gender, Politics, and Changing Notions about Citizenship Series at University of Michigan-Dearborn, February 2001. |
| "Gendering Politics, Gendered Appeals: The Politics of Women's and Men's Petitions to Congress in the 1830s." Second Annual Sweetland Writing Fellows Dinner, University of Michigan, October 1999. |
| Conference Presentations |
| "Imagining the Enemy as Rhetorical Strategy in the U.S. Black Freedom Movement," Modern Language Association, Washington, D.C., December 2005. |
| "'What the Women's Movement Really Means': Controlling the Rhetorics of the U.S. Women's Liberation Movement." Modern Language Association, Philadelphia, December 2004. |
| "'It Would be an Endorsement of Nagging as a National Policy': Lessons from the Women's Campaign Against Woman Suffrage, 1870-1920." American Studies Association, Philadelphia, November 2004. |
| "Rhetorics of Opposition: Using United States Women's Antisuffrage Arguments to Generate Large-Scale Social Change." Rhetoric Society of America, Austin, May 2004. |
| "Challenging the Rhetoric of English-Only Debates." Modern Language Association, San Diego, December 2003. Co-authored with Joshua L. Miller. |
| "Gendered Politics and the Performance of Citizenship: Women's Federal Activism during the Indian Removal Debates, 1830-31." 2002 Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Storrs, Connecticut, June 2002. |
| "Rhetorical Agency and the Demise of the Sovereign Subject." Rhetoric Society of America, Las Vegas, May 2002. |
| "'We Do Conjure You to Abolish Slavery': U.S. Women's Antislavery Petitions as Performative Rhetorics, 1834-1840." 12th NCA/AFA Summer on Argumentation, Alta, August 2001. |
| "'Female Petitioners Can Lawfully Be Heard': Transforming a National Rhetorical Tradition." Conference on College Composition and Communication, Denver, March 2001. |
| "'It May Be That Female Petitioners Can Lawfully Be Heard': Constituting Women Reformers During the U.S. Indian Removal Debates, 1830-31." Modern Language Association, Washington, D.C., December 2000. |
| "Is it Interdiscplinary or Is it Home? Rhetoric in a Literature Department." Modern Language Association, Washington, D.C., December 2000. |
| "Gagging the Citizenry: Reading Oppression and the Protection of American Ideals in the Congressional Gag Rule." National Communication Association, Seattle, November 2000. |
| "Is 1848 Eighteen Years Too Late? Recovering the Origins of American Woman's Rights Rhetoric." Rhetoric Society of America, Washington, D.C., May 2000. |
| "Before Abolition: Indian Removal, National Politics, and the 1830s Women Who 'Think [We Have] a Right to Speak on the Subject.'" National Communication Association Convention, New York, November 1998. |
| "Rhetorical Consistency and Category Shift in the Early Woman's Rights Movement." Speech Communication Association Convention, San Antonio, November 1995. |
| "Basic Writers and Academic Literacy: Shaughnessy's Errors, Ong's Expectations." Rhetoric in the Disciplines, Rhetoric in the Classroom: Temple University's 16th Annual Conference on Discourse Analysis, Temple University, April 1995. |
| "Negotiating Personhood, Womanhood, Motherhood, and Citizenship: Strategic Reshaping of Categories in the Nineteenth Century." Conference on College Composition and Communication, Washington, D.C., March 1995. |
| "Change Woman, Change the World: Disputing Category Systems in the Early Woman's Rights Movement." The Penn State Conference on Rhetoric and Composition, Pennsylvania State University, July 1994. |
| "Valuing Evaluation: Encouraging Students to Assume an Evaluative Role During the Revision Process." Conference on College Composition and Communication, Nashville, March 1994. |
| "Computers in the Basic Writing Curriculum." The Ninth Annual Colloquium on Assisting Underprepared Students, Goldey-Beacom College, Delaware, October 1993. |
| "Rhetorical Philosophy, Moral Technique." The Penn State Conference on Rhetoric and Composition, Pennsylvania State University, July 1993. |
| "Computers in the Basic Writing Classroom." National Basic Writing Conference: Critical Issues in Basic Writing, University of Maryland, October 1992. |
| Scholarly Workshops |
| "Reinventing the Rhetoric of Social Movements," Rhetoric Society of America's Biennial Institute, Kent State, May 2005. Co-leader with David Henry and Stephen H. Browne. |
| Pedagogy Workshops |
| "Teaching Portfolios: What, Why, How?" Department of English Language and Literature, University of Michigan, March 2003 and February 2002. |
| "What's Feminist about Feminist Pedagogy?" Women's Studies Program, University of Michigan, November 2003. |
| Workshop for New Teaching Assistants. Department of Economics, University of Maryland, August 1998. |
| Workshop on Syllabus Construction. College of Education, University of Maryland, July 1998. |
| Teaching Portfolio Development Series. Department of Human Development, University of Maryland, Spring 1998. |
| Seminar Series on Teaching and Learning. Department of Human Development, Univesrity of Maryland, Spring 1998. |
| Group Work: Making It Work. Center for Teaching Excellence, University of Maryland, March 1998. |
| Campus-Wide Orientation for New Teaching Assistants, Center for Teaching Excellence and the Graduate School, University of Maryland, January 1998. |
| TEACHING EXPERIENCE |
| At the University of Michigan |
| Undergraduate Courses (linked at http://www.umich.edu/~alisse/courses.html) |
| Rhetorical Activism and U.S. Civil Rights Movements (First-Year Seminar) |
| Language's Power to Write Our Worlds (First-Year Seminar) |
| What is Literature? |
What is American Literature? |
| Rhetorical Activism and U.S. Civil Rights Movements |
| Advanced Essay Writing: Persuasive Writing |
| Rhetoric and the Achievement of Woman's Rights |
| Undergraduate Independent Study Courses |
| Rhetorical Theory: Introduction to History and Criticism |
| Rhetorical Theory: Constitutive Rhetorics |
| Rhetorical History of the Contemporary U.S. Gay Rights Movement |
| Rhetoric and Law |
| Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program, Mentor |
| Rowing the Way to Gender Equity, Michele Dunsky |
| Undergraduate Individual Concentration Programs, Advisor |
| Social Reform and the Arts, Anna Zogas |
| Rhetoric and Social Activism, Suraj Patel |
| Graduate Courses (linked at http://www.umich.edu/~alisse/courses.html) |
| Introduction to Composition Studies |
| Pedagogy |
| Rhetorical Theory and Discourses of Social Change |
| Seminar in Rhetoric: Language's Performative and Constitutive Dimensions |
| Ph.D. Dissertation Committees |
| Sara Babcox First (History) |
| Jennifer Lutman (English and Education) |
| Will Mackintosh (History) |
| Heather Thompson (English and Education) |
| Lindsay Ellis (English and Education, completed December 2005) |
| Timothy Murnen (English and Education, completed May 2002) |
| Graduate Examination Committees |
| Donna Scheidt, English and Education First-Year Exam Committee (Fall 2005) |
| Linsday Ellis, English and Education Second-Year Exam Committee (Winter 2003) |
| Matthew Nelson, English and Education First-Year Exam Committee (Summer 2002) |
| At the University of Maryland |
| Undergraduate Courses (all courses were taught autonomously) |
| The Student in the University (one-credit seminar) |
| Freshman Writing |
| Freshman Writing for Basic Writers |
| Freshman Writing for Speakers of Other Languages |
| Intermediate Writing |
| Advanced Writing: Persuasive Writing |
| Introduction to Rhetorical Theory |
| American Literature, 1865 to the Present |
| Introduction to the Novel |
| PROFESSIONAL SERVICE |
| Proposal Reviewer, Public Address Division, 2006 National Communication Association Annual Convention in San Antonio, 2006. |
| Application Reviewer, Summer Stipends Program, National Endowment for the Humanities, 2005-2006. |
| Proposal Reviewer, 2006 Rhetoric Society of America Biennial Conference in Memphis, 2005. |
| Manuscript Reviewer, Philosophy and Rhetoric, 2005. |
Elected Member, Board of Directors, Rhetoric Society of America, 2002-2005. |
| Manuscript Reviewer, Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature, 2004. |
| Manuscript Reviewer, Sage Publications, 2004. |
| Elected Member, Board of Directors, Rhetoric Society of America, 2002-2005. |
| Proposal Reviewer, 2004 Rhetoric Society of American Biennial Conference in Austin, 2003. |
| Appointed Member, Task Force on the Coalition and Advancement of Rhetorical Studies, Rhetoric Society of America, 2000-2002. |
| Proposal Reviewer, 2002 Rhetoric Society of America Conference in Las Vegas, 2001. |
| Stage 1 Reviewer, 2002 Conference on College Composition and Communication in Chicago, 2001. |
| Manuscript Reviewer, University of Michigan Press, 2000. |
| UNIVERSITY SERVICE |
| At the University of Michigan |
| Campus |
| Member, Mary Malcomson Raphael Fellowshop Selection Committee, Center for the Education of Women, 2006. |
| Advisory Board Member, Junior Women Faculty Network, Center for the Education of Women, 2000-2005. |
| Faculty Marshall, University-Wide Graduation Ceremony, December 2002. |
| Department of English Language and Literature |
| Chair, Latino/a Studies Search Committee (joint search with the American Culture Program), 2005-2006. |
| Faculty Advisor, Language and Rhetorical Studies Interdisciplinary Workshop, 2005-present. |
| Guest Speaker, "Introduction to Rhetorical Studies," English 520: Introduction to Graduate Studies, 2005. |
| First and Second Year Studies Hiring Committee, 2005. |
| Awards Committee, 2004-2005. |
| Honors Advisor, 2002-2003. |
| Co-Founder and Co-Chair, Junior Faculty Forum, January 2002-May 2003. |
| Reader, Undergraduate Honors Theses, Winter 2000, 2002, 2003. |
| Member, First- and Second-Year Studies Committee, 1999-2000 and 2001-2002. |
| Member, English and Education Committee, 2001-2002. |
| Member, 20th-Century American Literature Search Committee, 2001-2002. |
| Member, Rhetoric and Composition Search Committee, 1999-2002. |
| Co-Author, Five-Year Planning Document, Language and Rhetorical Studies Interest Group, 2002. |
| Member, MLA Interview Committee, Asian Pacific American Studies Search, Winter 2001. |
| Member, Second-Year Review Committee for Sweetland Writing Center Lecturer III, Winter 2000. |
| Member, Undergraduate Studies Curriculum Committee, Fall 2000. |
| Facilitator, Teaching Circle for Graduate Student Instructors, Fall 1999. |
| Program in American Culture |
| Chair, Latino/a Studies Search Committee (joint search with the Department of English Language and Literature), 2005-2006. |
| Chair, American Culture Reading Group, January 2005-present. |
| At the University of Maryland |
| Campus |
| Managing Editor, Teaching and Learning News, Center for Teaching Excellence, 1992-1999. |
| First-Year Book Selection and Planning Committee, Office of Undergraduate Studies, 1995-1998. |
| Mentor, Upward Bound Program, 1998. |
| Co-Chair, Second Annual University of Maryland/Pennsylvania State University Communication Studies Graduate Student Conference, 1995-1996 (conference in April 1996). |
| Department of English |
| Co-Founder and Faculty Group Representative, Student Rhetoric Group, 1992-1996. |
| Graduate English Organization Representative, Faculty Assembly, 1992-1996. |
| Graduate English Organization Representative, Graduate Committee, 1992-1993. |
Most recent update: April 27, 2006. |