M. Amanda Moulder, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Institute for Writing Studies
moulderm@stjohns.edu
Ph.D. in English, University of Texas-Austin, 2010
M.A. in English, University of Texas-Austin, 2005
B.A. in English and American studies, Goucher College, Baltimore,
MD, 2000
My research is in writing pedagogy, cross-cultural
communication, and nonwestern rhetorical history. My
scholarship looks at traditionally excluded rhetorical and literacy
traditions on their own cultural and political terms, and also,
examines the types of rhetoric and literacy that result when
distinct cultural traditions interact on uneven ground, where one
culture has greater political power than the other. My
current book project, “They ought to mind what a woman says”:
Early Cherokee Women’s Rhetorical Traditions and Rhetorical
Education, builds on recent scholarship in nonwestern
rhetorics and uses the tools of literacy studies to recover
Cherokee women’s voices and theorize how they contribute to a
Cherokee rhetorical tradition. I examine archival materials
to show how Cherokee women both used their own situated literacies
and adapted English-language alphabetic literacy to serve their
communities and resist colonialism. Also, I look at the
implications of this historical study for contemporary research in
composition studies. My research illustrates how Cherokee
women’s English-language literacy acquisition is analogous to
contemporary literacy and writing pedagogy debates. The
categories of gender, class, and ethnicity that affect definitions
of “good” writing are as relevant today as they were in this
historical context. My goal with this work is to offer
insight into how writing teachers can disrupt hierarchies of power
and privilege, avoid colonialist impulses that normalize structural
inequalities, and collaborate with students to challenge accepted
notions of what makes a piece of writing “good” or
“successful.”