Kaleidoscope: A Graduate Journal of Qualitative Communication Research

02/17/2020

Were you planning on submitting to Kaleidoscope but missed our deadline last Saturday? Are you currently working on a conference or class paper that would be a great fit for our journal? Great news--we've extended our submission deadline until March 15!

You can find current calls for manuscripts for general submissions and those for our special call "Feminist Interventions, Innovations, and Imaginaries" here:

https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/kaleidoscope/callforpapers.html

01/29/2020

Our final article feature for vol. 18 is "Kellyanne Conway and Postfeminism: The Desert of the Real" by Shelley Rawlins. Shelley is a doctoral candidate from our very own Communication Studies at SIU and has even served as Kaleidoscope Editor in the past for our vol. 16. She will be graduating this spring with her PhD. Congratulations, Shelley!

"Postfeminism is a slippery, contested, ambivalent, and inherently contradictory term – deployed alternately as an “empowering” identity label and critical theoretical lens. Troubling notions about the past, present, and future of feminism, postfeminism challenges feminist theory. This essay scrutinizes cultural and theoretical themes informing postfeminist discourses. I identify four prevailing themes in extant literature: postfeminist oblivion, self-empowerment, criticality, and feminine pride. I then examine the public discourse and self-asserted postfeminist stance of Kellyanne Conway, former campaign manager and current counselor to President Trump. Conway advocates for an individualistic, depoliticized femininity. I argue that her complacent misogyny bolsters the bizarre imaginary view that feminism has been and remains harmful to women. To demonstrate this postfeminist harm, I employ Baudrillard’s theoretical apparatus of the simulacrum. Baudrillard’s notion highlights the strategies of abstraction, simulation, and accompanying models of control that circumnavigate and ignore “the real” (feminism) in favor of “the hyperreal” (postfeminism) (1981, 1-2)."

You can download Shelley's full article here:

Postfeminism is a slippery, contested, ambivalent, and inherently contradictory term – deployed alternately as an “empowering” identity label and critical theoretical lens. Troubling notions about the past, present, and future of feminism, postfeminism challenges feminist theory. This essay sc...

01/23/2020

Our next featured article from vol. 18 is "Getting 'Woke' on Intersectionality: Illuminating the Rhetorical Significance of
Disability Discourse in Feminist Activist Spaces" by Danielle Biss, who is currently a master's candidate at San Diego State University School of Communication.

"In the 28 years since the establishment of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), individuals with disabilities still live on the margins in social, public, and mediated discourse. Women of color with disabilities, in particular, still struggle to challenge their positionality on the margins due to multifaceted layers of oppression, ranging from sexism, racism, classism, and ableism as further complexities of identity. Yet, in a society with such disregard for and contestation involving disability issues, there is hope with disability activist Vilissa Thompson. In this rhetorical analysis, I examine Thompson as a marginal rhetor whose disability activism serves as a form of public pedagogy to inform the public how to engage in disability discourse in feminist activist spaces. Examined is Thompson’s hashtag and her development of the website Ramp Your Voice as a discursive mediated platform of empowerment for people of color with disabilities. Applications for applying intersectional theory in praxis are discussed."

Check out Danielle's essay--especially if you're looking for an intersectional analysis to inspire your submission for our vol. 19 special call, "Feminist Interventions, Innovations, and Imaginaries"! You can download the full article on our website:

In the 28 years since the establishment of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), individuals with disabilities still live on the margins in social, public, and mediated discourse. Women of color with disabilities, in particular, still struggle to challenge their positionality on the margins due...

01/19/2020

Today we're featuring the second article of our latest issue, "Ideographic Identity: A Critical and Rhetorical Analysis of the YMCA's Organizational Rhetoric" by Dr. Katherine Miller, who completed her doctoral studies at Purdue University last August. Congratulations, Dr. Miller!

"This paper presents an ideographic, rhetorical analysis of the identity rhetoric presented by the nation’s largest nonprofit organization, the YMCA—an area rather understudied in organizational communication and qualitative research. This analysis explores the rhetorical approaches taken by nonprofit organizations, and the YMCA specifically, in attempting to build and communicate identity to communities in which they belong. Specifically, I analyze the organization’s identity-building rhetoric through the use of both textual and visual ideographs in a variety of artifacts to determine whether or not these strategies are effective."

Check out the full article on our website:

This paper presents an ideographic, rhetorical analysis of the identity rhetoric presented by the nation’s largest nonprofit organization, the YMCA—an area rather understudied in organizational communication and qualitative research. This analysis explores the rhetorical approaches taken by nonp...

01/16/2020

Have you checked out the latest issue of Kaleidoscope? As we get closer to our submission deadline for vol. 19, we'll be sharing all of the manuscripts from our recently published vol. 18, edited by Alex Davenport!

Today we're featuring "A Suite in Six Attitudes: Subverting (and Succumbing to) the Textual Bias" by Leanna Smithberger, a PhD candidate in the USF Department of Communication:

"This essay challenges textual dominance in academia by using music composition and performance as a method and representation of inquiry. I argue that this is a form of tactical resistance since it plays within the system, meeting requirements but challenging expectations. The resulting text from the project satisfies academic requirements for a written text, but subverts expectations as to the form that text should take. I provide the musical score and a discussion of the creation and performance of the composition to show how even when attempting to abandon textualism, we are still constrained by it. Despite this, I present music as a useful approach to performance studies because it can introduce the local particulars of embodied performance and listening to the academy."

Don't forget to listen to the accompanying music track, "I Am Enough: A Suite in Six Altitudes" to get the full effect of Leanna's creative talents!

You can read (and listen to) Leanna's article here:

This essay challenges textual dominance in academia by using music composition and performance as a method and representation of inquiry. I argue that this is a form of tactical resistance since it plays within the system, meeting requirements but challenging expectations. The resulting text from th...

01/02/2020

We're accepting submissions for vol. 19 until March 15, 2020! See our call for papers below, including info for this year's special call: "Feminist Interventions, Innovations, and Imaginaries." You can also find the call at the link below. We look forward to reading your work!

https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/kaleidoscope/callforpapers.html

01/02/2020

Happy New Year! We're ringing in the new year by celebrating our 18th volume, which is now available online. A big thank you to our volume 18 editor, Alex Davenport; advising editor, Colin Whitworth; associate editors Mick Brewer, Shelby Swafford, Darren Valenta, and Anna Wilcoxen; faculty advisors Craig Gingrich-Philbrook and Satoshi T. Toyosaki; and our incredible authors, editorial board, and reviewers for all of their hard work putting this issue together!

We also want to thank the Office of the Vice Chancellor of Research, the College of Liberal Arts, the SIU Graduate and Professional Student Council, and Communication Studies at SIU for their continued support of Kaleidoscope.

Excited to share this issue with you all, and for your submissions for this year's call!

Check it out here:

Kaleidoscope is a refereed, annually published print and electronic graduate student journal devoted to communication research at the intersections of philosophy, theory, and/or practical application of qualitative, interpretive, and critical/cultural communication research. Currently published thro...

03/12/2019

There are 3 more days to submit pieces, either within the broader scope of the journal or in response to the special call. Please contact us at with any questions! We are all excited about beginning the process of putting together volume 18.

03/06/2019

Just a reminder that we are accepting submissions until March 15. If you/your grad students have something that may fit within the journal we hope you will consider sending it our way!

Kaleidoscope: A Graduate Journal of Qualitative Communication Research is accepting manuscripts for volume 18 scheduled for print in Fall 2019.

01/02/2019

We’re ringing in 2019 by sharing our call for manuscripts with you. This year, in addition to normal submissions, we invite submissions for the special call “Mystery & Methodology.” We look forward to your submissions, and please don’t hesitate to reach out via FB or email if you have any questions.

Kaleidoscope: A Graduate Journal of Qualitative Communication Research is accepting manuscripts for volume 18 scheduled for print in Fall 2019.

12/17/2018

We round out our latest issue with R. Chase Dunn’s “The Future is in Good Hands”. Check back tomorrow for our latest special call!

“President Barack Obama’s farewell address serves as a symbolic end to an eight-year tenure as president of the United States. The standard themes in Obama’s public addresses have been hope and change, and the president continues to elaborate on those here. While describing accomplishments of his administration and thanking important people, Obama uses his last address as president to craft a narrative in three strands—past, present, and future—meant to inspire civic engagement in his audience. I use Burke’s dramatistic pentad to discover how Obama rhetorically motivates his listeners towards this end. President Obama creates a sense of empowerment and audience identification with past American heroes by initially using purpose as a driving force, later emphasizing agency, and finally focusing on the agents who can accomplish the purpose. Obama’s farewell address illustrates the importance of presidential farewell addresses to shape the politics to follow, in this case by persuading citizens to engage in democratic processes.”

President Barack Obama’s farewell address serves as a symbolic end to an eight-year tenure as president of the United States. The standard themes in Obama’s public addresses have been hope and change, and the president continues to elaborate on those here. While describing accomplishments of his...