Gender Studies Director to Publish New Edited Collection, '#MeToo: A Rhetorical Zeitgeist'

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In June, Routledge is publishing a new book by award-winning author Lisa M. Corrigan, director of the Gender Studies Program and professor in the Department of Communications in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. Corrigan has edited a new book titled, #MeToo: A Rhetorical Zeitgeist, that offers the first comprehensive study of the rhetorical politics of #MeToo activism.

This collection of essays challenges the overwhelming whiteness and straightness of #MeToo discourse and coverage. Using intersectional and decolonial frameworks and historical, archival, organizational, and legal methods, its essays offer a rich exploration of #MeToo to understand how activism around sexualized violence reproduces and harms a wide variety of people.

The essays tackle the complexities of sexual harassment, sexual violence, and rape beyond white celebrity discourse to understand: how both violence and #MeToo activism affect transgender people; how #MeToo fails Black male victims of assault and rape; how Indian-American masculinity and comedy skirt sexual accountability; how the legal and affective precedent in the Supreme Court during the Kavanaugh hearings amplified concerns about sexual assault and rape; decolonial approaches to resisting sexualized violence from indigenous peoples; and narratives about assault from within the higher ed community.

"I'm so proud to have worked with such incredible authors to put together this collection of essays discussing the importance of political activism to victims of sexual violence," Corrigan said. "The activism surrounding #MeToo has been an important catalyst to understand how prevalent and damaging sexual violence is, particularly as it affects communities of color."

Corrigan is also an affiliate faculty member in the U of A's African and African American Studies Program and the Latin American and Latino Studies Program.

Her first book, Prison Power: How Prison Influenced the Movement for Black Liberation received the National Communication Association's 2017 Diamond Anniversary Book Award and 2017 African American Communication and Culture Division's Outstanding Book Award, making Corrigan the first U of A professor to win these awards.

Her second book, Black Feelings: Race and Affect in the Long Sixties was just published in 2020.