Department Chair
Rhetoric and composition is my primary field of study. My teaching includes undergraduate and graduate courses in rhetorical theory, composition, and women's literature. My administrative duties currently include serving as Chair of the English Department.
My research examines the cultural presence and/or absence of women's voices. For example, Anglo-American Feminist Challenges to the Rhetorical Traditions studies how women's voices emerge in western rhetorical traditions. Who's Having This Baby? studies how women's voices emerge (or not) in literary and lived birthing narratives. Rhetorical Listening studies troubled identifications with gender and whiteness in public debates, rhetorical scholarship, and composition pedagogy.
As a past president of the Coalition of Women Scholars in the History of Rhetoric & Composition and as a current member of MLA's Division on Teaching Writing and of CCCC's Task Force on Databases, I am active nationally in professional organizations. And when not I'm not busy with teaching or research, you can find me in my garden or at the movies.
- Bibliography for Symposium on Whiteness Studies, Rhetoric Review (Fall 2005)
- Due Date Pushed Back to Thursday (Class Magazine for ENGL 3210: Advanced Comp Fall 2012)
- What Are We Writing About, Dr. Ratcliffe? (Class Magazine for ENGL 3210, Adv. Comp, Fall 2009)
Teaching Fields
- Rhetoric and Composition
- Women's Studies
- Feminist Theory
Office Hours
Spring 2013
- M-TH By appointment (call 288.7179)
- Friday - Research Day
Teaching Schedule
Spring 2013
- 4220/101, Art of Rhetoric, TTH 12:30-1:50, DS350
Research Interests
- Listening as a Rhetorical Art
- Feminist Theories of Rhetoric
- Women's Voices in the History of Rhetoric
- Critical Race Studies, including Whiteness Studies
Selected Publications
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Silence and Listening as Rhetorical Arts. Co-edited with Cheryl Glenn. Southern Illinois University Press 2010.
- Performing Feminist Administration in Rhetoric & Composition Studies. Cresskill: Hampton P, 2010. (Co-edited with Becky Rickly; authored Introduction & Afterwords).
- “20th- and 21st-century Rhetoric Scholarship.” The Present State of Scholarship in in Historical and Contemporary Rhetoric. 3rd ed. Eds. Winifred Horner and Lynne Gaillet. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2010.
- “Bathesheba’s Dilemma: Defining, Discovering, and Defending Anglo-American Feminist Theories of Rhetoric.” Walking and Talking Feminist Rhetorics: Landmark Essays and Controversies. Eds. Linda Buchanan & Kathryn J. Ryan. West Lafayette: Parlor Press, 2010. 79-106. [Reprint of Chapter 1 of Anglo-American Feminist Challenges to the Rhetorical Traditions]
- Rhetorical Listening: Identification, Gender, Whiteness. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois UP, 2005.
- Who’s Having This Baby?: Perspectives on Birthing. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State UP, 2002. (Co-authored with Helen Sterk, Carla Hay, Alice Kehoe, and Leona VandeVusse).
- Anglo-American Feminist Challenges to the Rhetorical Traditions: Virginia Woolf, Mary Daly, and Adrienne Rich. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois UP, 1996.
- Published “20th- and 21st-century Rhetoric Scholarship.” The Present State of Scholarship in Historical and
Contemporary Rhetoric. 3rd ed. Eds. Winifred Horner and Lynne Gaillet. Columbia: University of Missouri
Press, 2010. - “Coming Out: Or, How Adrienne Rich’s Feminist Theory Complicates Intersections of Rhetoric and Composition Studies, Cultural Studies, and Writing Program Administration.” Rhetoric Redefines Theory, Pedagogy, Practice. Eds. Joy Ritchie and Kate Ronald. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann P, 2006.
- “Whiteness Studies.” Rhetoric Review.24 (2005): 359-373.
- “Cultural Autobiographics: Complicating the ‘Personal Turns’ in Rhetoric and Composition Studies.” The Private, the Public, and the Published: Reconciling Private Lives and Public Rhetoric. Eds. Thomas Kent and Barbara Couture. Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, 2004 .
Honors/Awards
- Invited to co-edit the Landmark Essay series with James Murphy (Routledge), 2012
- Elected President of Rhetoric Society of America 2012; RSA Conference Chair, Philadelphia, May 2012.
- Invited to serve on the CCCC Research Committee 2011-2014
- Invited to serve on the advisory board of Penn State Press's Rhetoric and Democratic Deliberation Series.
- Awarded the 2010 Nora Finnigan Werra Faculty Achievement Award by the Association of Marquette University Women.
- Co-chairs (with Rana Altenberg and Donna Farrell) the Centennial Celebration of Women at Marquette (AY 2009-10).
- Selected as Marquette University's Nominee for the 2008 U.S. Professor of the Year Awarad
- Appointed to a 3-year term on the Advisory Committee for PMLA, the journal of the Modern Language Association. 2008-11
- Invited Speaker at 2008 Summer Seminar in Rhetoric and Composition. Michigan State University
- Invited to present the Kenneth Burke Lecture at Penn State University, 2008
- Elected to to Rhetoric Society of America's Executive Board, 2007-10; currently President-elect.
- Elected to MLA's Division on Teaching of Writing, 2006-2010
- Invited to present Keynote at Feminisms and Rhetorics Conference, 2007
- Awarded CCCC Outstanding Book Award (for Rhetorical Listening), 2007
- Awarded Rhetoric Society of America Book Award (for Rhetorical Listening), 2007
- Awarded JAC Gary Olson Award (for Rhetorical Listening), 2006
- Awarded CCCC Writing Program Certificate of Excellence (For Marquette University's First-Year English Program), 2006
- Awarded Marquette University Award for Teaching Excellence (Robert and Mary Gettel Faculty Award for Teaching Excellence), 2005
- Awarded Marquette University Student Affairs Award, 2004
- Awarded Education School Grant for Computer Training to redesign First-Year Writing Program, Marquette University, 2002
English Department
