[The] concept of critical imagination [is] an inquiry tool, a mechanism for seeing the noticed and the unnoticed, re-thinking what is there and not there, and speculating about what could be there instead. 

Jacqueline Jones Royster & Gesa Kirsch  

Feminist Rhetorical Practices (pp. 20–21)

As writing center communities look to the future, it is time to consider the stories we tell, the stories that confine and constrain us, and the stories we want to tell about the work of writing centers. The pandemic has presented an opportunity for us to (re)imagine our writing centers with their commitments, practices, values, and “grand narratives” (McKinney). Along with this, the pandemic has amplified ongoing racial injustice, violence, and oppression, and we acknowledge that writing centers within predominantly white institutions are complicit in racist social systems. With this in mind, we must critically imagine the stories of writing centers and dream up through story, reflection, and inquiry the kinds of centers that “could be there instead.”

We know from both personal experience and from formal scholarship that storytelling, a shared act between tellers and listeners, has the potential to shape not just what we think, but how we think and make meaning together. As Andrea Riley-Mukavetz says, “story is theory” (110). Stories aren’t just a way to exchange information, but a way to inform cultures, change individual and collective actions, create community, and transform public opinion. Stories are a way of knowing. Stories are also a way into feeling and experiencing alongside others.

Given the backdrop of the pandemic, we must especially think about the stories and possibilities that challenge “returns to normal” and the taken-for-granted stories that constrain what a writing center is and does. Indeed, Laura Greenfield challenges writing centers to write new stories by committing to “new values, articulat[ing] a new reason for being, defin[ing] our work differently” (58). In this vein, Aja Martinez has also challenged writing centers to reconsider their stories around minoritized students and instead “build resistance and space with underserved students through coalitional practices that centralize the narratives of marginalized students as crucial to best serving their needs.” Likewise, Romeo Garcia has argued that writing centers must “be re-made from being a ‘white center’ to being a center in the process of becoming” (49) and imagine consultants as agents committed to enacting justice. These are a few examples of critically imagining writing centers and the complexities of the stories they tell. 

Acknowledging that there are multiple visions and realities of what it means to critically imagine a writing center, we are excited to accept proposals for ECWCA’s 2022 conference at Michigan State University from March 31 to April 2, 2022. We are honored to welcome Aja Martinez as our keynote speaker.

We invite you to think of storytelling broadly and to draw upon different methods of critically imagining and sharing stories--including but not limited to restorying, counter storytelling, queer storytelling, racial storytelling, antenarratives or protostories, and oral histories--to reimagine and realize the work of writing centers but also to celebrate the work already being done: 

We welcome a range of presentation types including workshops, panels, lightning talks, maker activities, interactive art, and participatory activities. Because we do not privilege Standard Written English, we recognize, honor, and value multiple Englishes in proposals. Proposals from people whose voices have historically been left out from academic spaces and conversations are especially welcome.

The deadline for proposal abstracts (250 words) is October 15, 2021. Visit ecwca.org for more information on creating a proposal and how to submit. For questions or concerns, reach out to Dr. Grace Pregent, Conference Chair, at pregentg@msu.edu. 

The deadline for proposals has been extended to November 11, 2021.

Works Cited 

García, Romeo. “Unmaking Gringo-Centers.” The Writing Center Journal, vol. 36, no. 1, 2017, pp. 29-60.

Greenfield, Laura. Radical Writing Center Praxis: A Paradigm for Ethical Political Engagement. University Press of Colorado, 2019.

Martinez, Aja Y. “Alejandra Writes a Book: A Critical Race Counterstory About Writing, Identity, and Being Chicanx in the Academy.” Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, vol. 14, no. 1, 2016, pp. 57-61.

McKinney, Jackie Grutsch. Peripheral Visions for Writing Centers. University Press of Colorado, 2013.

Riley-Mukavetz, Andrea. “Towards a Cultural Rhetorics Methodology: Making Research Matter with Multi-Generational Women from the Little Traverse Bay Band.” Rhetoric, Professional Communication and Globalization, vol. 5, no. 1, 2014, pp. 108-25.

Royster, Jacqueline Jones, and Gesa E. Kirsch. Feminist Rhetorical Practices: New Horizons for Rhetoric, Composition, and Literacy Studies. SIU Press, 2012.