Graduate Studies

 

First Advisor

Stacey Waite

Second Advisor

Rachael Shah

Department

English (Composition and Rhetoric)

Date of this Version

Spring 2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Comments

Copyright 2024, Keshia Mcclantoc. Used by permission

Abstract

This dissertation analyzes and digitally archives queer literacy narratives from participants across the rural South through the frameworks of literacy, world-making, and access. Through this analysis and archival work, the author expands present definitions of queer literacy by asking the following: What does queer literacy, queer world-making, and queer access look like for queer people in the rural South? How do their perspectives expand on Composition and Rhetoric’s understanding of queer literacy and the scholarly and pedagogical potentials it entails? Finally, how might we use these expansive understandings of queer becoming to posit more resourceful and imaginative futures for all queer peoples no matter where they call home? Through chapters that explore rural religiosity, digital communities, and contradictory lives, this author argues for a form of queer becoming unique to the rural South that is centered in perseverance, deliberation, and contradiction. The author further argues that there is deep value in these characteristics and that more expansive understandings of queerness beyond geographical stereotypes can lead to powerful possibilities across research and pedagogy in Composition and Rhetoric. These possibilities are posited as inquiries and interventions across the pages of this dissertation and in its accompanying digital archive, addressing a myriad of specific as well as broad-ranging circumstances across teaching and research, ultimately arguing for an ongoing inquiry into the subject of queerness in the rural South.

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