My Research Philosophy

Research as Justice Work - As a critical rhetoric scholar dedicated to justice and equity, my research program concentrates on problems of power and ideology, as well as rhetorics that resist inequitable power structures. The rhetorical questions I concern myself with often include topics such as sex and gender justice, race and anti-racism, space and place, as well as public and counter memory.

Research as Teamwork – As a researcher, I prioritize interdisciplinary involvement because I believe in the inventive knowledges that arise from working with a team of diverse scholars. By collaborating with higher education researchers, historians, digital studies scholars, sociologists, and more, my scholarship is creative and dynamic and relevant across fields of knowledge.

Research as Teaching Work – Research and teaching are mutually informative practices, so my scholarship translates to the classroom where students are encouraged to co-produce critical sensibilities and worldviews. I push students to see the world from an ideological perspective and consider creative alternatives to today’s most pressing rhetorical problems.

Refereed Journal Publications   

Simpson, Whitni, Chaira Palladino, Benjamin K. Haywood, Sarah Adeyinka-Skold, Alyson Farzad-Phillips, Brandon Inabinet, Claire Whitlinger, John A. McArthur, and James Engelhart. “Inclusive Placemaking: A Study of the Joseph Vaughn Plaza at Furman University.” Carolina Currents: Studies in South Carolina Culture, 1:1 DOI: 10782302.14

Farzad-Phillips, Alyson “Disrupting institutional memory sites: Racialized counter-memory at the University of Maryland,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies (2023) 20:1, 24-31, DOI: 10.1080/14791420.2023.2169725  

 Ashby-King, Drew, Jeannette Iannacone, Victoria Ledford, Alyson Farzad-Phillips, Matthew Salzano, and Lindsey Anderson. “Expanding and Constraining Critical Communication Pedagogy in the Introductory Communication Course: A Critique of Assessment Rubrics.” Communication Teacher (2021)  DOI: 10.1080/17404622.2021.1975789

Farzad-Phillips, Alyson. “Huddles or Hurdles? Spatial Barriers to Collective Gathering in the Aftermath of the Women’s March.” Women Studies in Communication (2020) 43:3, 247–270, DOI: 10.1080/07491409.2020.1747127

2024

2023

2021

2020

Research Program

Through my research, I want to better understand how rhetoric aids or inhibits movement towards equity, especially racial and gender equity. I engage in critical, digital, historical, and field research methods that cover a breadth of topics including feminism, race, power, higher education, and more. I oftentimes find myself delving into questions of public memory and place-making as I try to understand the rhetorical moves that we make as individuals and institutions.

My feminist scholarship is informed by both my academic training (four graduate level courses in WGS studies) and my anti-racist values. I have received several awards and recognitions for my “Huddles or Hurdles” paper which questions the spatial logics of intersectional feminist organizing.

I have also recovered two speeches made by Gloria Steinem & Dorothy Pitman Hughes in the early 1970s, and I spoke at conferences about the “radical sisterhood” that the two women exhibited in their speaking tour.

Anti-Racist Feminism

Driven by my previous work at Vanderbilt University’s diversity office, I continue to be intrigued by the issue of racial justice as it is faced in university settings.

My two most recent peer-reviewed journal publications consider the role of public memory and place-making when remembering a Black member of a university community. I believe it is important to think about how universities choose to remember, how students contribute to place-making by using these spaces, and how these choices affect the options for justice in the future.

I have also traveled to the Universities Studying Slavery (USS) consortium at the University of Virginia and spoke to both researchers and practitioners about how universities can offer counter-memory campus tours that enacts true anti-racism rather than complicit revisionist history.

Race & Higher Education

I completed my dissertation, “Combatting White Supremacy on Campus: Racialized Counter Memory and Student Protests in the 21st Century” in December 2021. In this work, I bring together my interest in racial justice and college student protests. I forward a theory of “racialized counter-memory,” which I plan to publish more about, moving forward.

I have studied college student protests both historically (as far back as the Great Butter Rebellion of 1766) and contemporarily, with issues related to free speech, gender and sexuality equity, anti-war protests, and racial justice. Being able to write and speak authoritatively on this history is useful as student protests are relevant and newsworthy in our public discourse every few years.

College Student Protests

Bringing together my love for teaching and my drive for justice-oriented research, I am committed to conducting and publishing research about pedagogy that forwards equitable teaching practices.

I have presented at multiple conferences both offering best practices (e.g. formative/summative feedback loop) and presenting G.I.F.T.S (Great Ideas for Teaching Students).

My collaborative research team at the University of Maryland also produced a peer-reviewed article that surveyed grading rubrics in public speaking and argued that we should re-invent student-driven, de-colonial rubric structures in these courses.

Pedagogical Research

Current Research Project

I am currently working on a paper titled “From In Loco Parentis to In Loco Maternis: Gendered Rhetoric and Relational Promises in the 21st Century University.” I argue that in loco maternis, as a gendered concept, is derivative of in loco parentis, the historical social construct that guided student life and regulation in early United States colleges. In loco parentis, which in Latin translates to “in the place of the parent,” was a guideline of practice for college leaders, specifically in the 17th through 19th centuries, to foster the moral and physical welfare of their college pupils who resided in their schools (Landau, 2014). In loco maternis offers a more current theoretical concept of university-student relations by delving into traditional metaphors of mothering and motherhood. I posit that “in place of the mother/maternal,” the contemporary responsibility of university administration is now to provide wellbeing via nurturing guidance rather than surveilled punishment…

Awards & Recognitions

  • Organization for Feminist Research on Gender and Communication, 2021.

    This annual award is given for the top peer-reviewed essay published in Women’s Studies in Communication over the past calendar year, as voted on by the editorial board. The winning essay exemplifies the mission of ORWAC and makes meaningful contributions to the field.

  • Furman University, 2022

    Chosen amongst Furman University faculty who published research between 2020 to 2022 to present my recent WSIC publication in front of Furman faculty, university leadership, and Board of Trustees. 

  • University of Maryland AADHum Initiative; 2017–2018.

    This one-year support fellowship provided programing that deepened the fellows (competitively chosen via application) understanding of digital humanities in moving Black-focused projects forward. Scholars receive individualized assistance from AADHum and MITH staff to support the digital development of their scholarship.

  • UMD Department of Communication, 2020

    Presented to the best nominated graduate student paper. The nominated paper must have been presented at a professional conference or symposium or accepted for publication in an academic journal in the calendar year preceding the granting of the award. 

Student Scholarship

I love collaborating with students, and had the opportunity to encourage my Rhetorical Criticism students to submit their work to the Theodore Clevenger Jr. Undergraduate Honors Conference of the Southern States Communication Association in 2023. All three students who submitted were accepted.

As one student commented of the experience of presenting her research at a regional professional conference: “I felt a new sense of empowerment after that day regarding my academic work.”