College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences

Rhetoric and Settler Inertia: Strategies of Canadian Decolonization explores how communication might accelerate decolonial actions in Canada.

Tracing a middle path between essential Indigenous-focused calls for resurgence, and idealistic appeals to settler conscience, Patrick Belanger identifies communication forms that can generate settler support for decolonization.

Accenting the importance of both Indigenous and settler audiences, this book suggests the promise of decolonial rhetoric framed in the language of mutual benefit.

The book was published in 2019.

HCOM Professor Kelly Medina-Lopez and Students Present Research at Conference

HCOM Professor Kelly Medina-López and HCOM majors Ilene Gomez and Sonia Olmos attended the 3rd Biennial Cultural Rhetorics Conference at Michigan State University where they presented their original research on a panel titled, "A Guatemalan, A Salvadoran, And A Chicanx Walk Into A Classroom: Textiles, Myths, and Cultural Rhetorics Mentorship." Their trip was sponsored by CSUMB's Undergraduate Research Opportunities Center.

Professor Patrick Belanger Forthcoming Book

HCOM Professor Patrick Belanger's new co-authored book, Community-Focused Counter-Radicalization and Counter-Terrorism Projects: Experiences and Lessons Learned. will be published by Lexington Books in November, 2018. In the book, Professor Belanger, along with his co-authors Kawser Ahmed and Susan Szmania, focus on the perceptions and experiences of twenty-nine community-based counter-radicalization project leaders in eight western countries: the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, Germany, Belgium, Scotland, and France. By highlighting the importance of listening to community members, the book offers a rare chance to directly hear community members’ ideas, frustrations, and hopes.

Kent Leatham New Poetry

Kent Leatham has three poems forthcoming this fall in the literary journal Angel City Review, three poems forthcoming in the journal Word/For Word, and one poem already released in the journal Softblow. These poems deal with intersecting themes of violence and tragedy (such as the mass shooting in Orlando in 2016), contemporary queer identity, environmental destruction, political unrest, and a continuing exploration of the author's own ambiguous ancestry.

Professor Debian Marty on Slavery, Ancestry and Racial Reconciliation

HCOM professor Dr. Debian Marty's essay, "Born Both Innocent and Accountable: A Moral Reckoning" will appear in the forthcoming anthology Slavery's Descendants: Shared Legacies of Race and Reconciliation to be published by Rutgers University Press in the spring. The book is a product of the Coming to the Table Writers Group, a national organization that brings together descendants of enslavers and the enslaved for racial reconciliation. Professor Marty's chapter examines the moral choices made by her Quaker ancestors, one of whom was an enslaver and one who was anti-slavery, and the subsequent moral legacies that white people still are reckoning with today.

Professor Jennifer Fletcher Publishes New Book

In Teaching Literature Rhetorically: Transferable Literacy Skills for 21st Century Student, HCOM Professor Jennifer Fletcher explores rhetorical approaches to novels, short stories, poetry, and drama that empower all students to read and write across the diverse contexts of today and tomorrow. In this resource for secondary school English teachers, Dr. Fletcher shows how teaching literature rhetorically prepares students to be adaptive thinkers and communicators who can transfer their learning to new tasks and settings. The book is available from Stenhouse Publishers.

Stephanie Spoto Explores Educational Rights, International Students and Pedagogy in Edited Collection

Lecturer Stephanie Spoto has co-edited a collection of essays entitled International Education, Educational Rights and Pedagogy along with Dr. Maja Milatovic (Australian National University) and Dr. Lena Wanggren (University of Edinburgh). The collection is a special issue of International Education: Comparative Perspectives. As Spoto and her co-editors note, "The increased commodification and marketization of higher education complicate the present challenges in ensuring culturally sensitive and competent pedagogies and enabling international students’ educational rights and equal access to opportunities and knowledge. Linking the multifaceted concept of educational rights to international student education and pedagogy, we explore issues related to cultural diversity, safety, vulnerability, welfare, peaceful co-existence in a changing global environment."

Lecturer Meghan O'Donnell Contributor to Women's History Collection

HCOM Lecturer Meghan O'Donnell was a contributing author in the recently published four volume series, Women in American History: A Social, Political, and Cultural Encyclopedia and Document Collection published by ABC-Clio. Her two articles focused on suffrage and abolition activists, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Anna Elizabeth Dickinson. As the publisher notes, "this four-volume set documents the complexity and richness of women's contributions to American history and culture, empowering all students by demonstrating a more populist approach to the past."

HCOM Professor John Berteaux Presents Paper in China

HCOM Professor John Berteaux presented his paper, ”Contested Courses - Contested Concepts: A Defense of the Humanities,” at the 48th International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations (ISCSC) Conference this past summer. The conference was held at Soochow University located in Suzhou China. Soochow is one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in China.