Introduction

My research engages the concerns of contemporary feminist theorists, rhetoricians, and historians by examining the circulation of sex, gender, and race identifications in the U.S. contexts that span from the nineteenth century onward. I pay particular attention to social movement discourse and public memories about resistance.

Bio

Kristan Poirot is a jointly-appointed Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and Women’s and Gender Studies Program at Texas A&M University. She is the Director of Graduate Studies, and she teaches courses on feminist history and theory, black freedom movements, gender and communication, and rhetorical criticism. Her research is interdisciplinary in scope and equally invested in rhetorical studies and feminist/gender studies. She engages the concerns of contemporary feminist theorists, rhetoricians, and historians by examining the circulation of sex, gender, and race identifications in U.S. contexts that span from the nineteenth century onward. In her work, Poirot examines number of different rhetorical sites to better understand the situatedness of these identifications. She pays particular attention to social movement rhetorics and public memories about resistance and white heteronormative male supremacy.  Her focus on place and context enables a feminist intervention that grapples with both the conceptual and material entailments of sex, gender, and racial disparity.  She is the author of one book, A Question of Sex: Feminism, Rhetoric, and Differences That Matter (University of Massachusetts Press, 2014) and a number of articles published in the Quarterly Journal of Speech, Rhetoric Society Quarterly, Rhetoric & Public Affairs, and Women’s Studies in Communication.

Courses Taught

Undergraduate Courses:

• COMM 203: Public Speaking
• COMM 301: Rhetoric of Western Thought
• COMM 407: Women, Minorities, and the Mass Media
• COMM/WGST 420: Gender and Communication
• COMM/AFST 425: Rhetoric of the Civil Rights Movement
• WGST 200: Introduction to Women’s & Gender Studies
• WGST 401: Feminist Theory
• WGST/ENGL 481: Women’s Rhetoric

Graduate Courses:

• COMM 640: Rhetorical & Textual Methods
• COMM 650: American Public Address since 1850 (Black Freedom Movements)
• WGST 689: Sex & Feminism

Representative Publications

• Poirot, K. (In Press) “Gendered Geographies of Memory: Place, Violence, and Exigency at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.” Rhetoric & Public Affairs.
• Poirot, K.; Watson, S.E. (2015) “Memories of Freedom and White Resilience: Place, Tourism, and Urban Slavery.” Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 25.2: 91-116.
• Poirot, K. (2010). “(Un)Making Sex, Making Race: Nineteenth Century Liberalism, Difference, and the Rhetoric of Elizabeth Cady Stanton.” Quarterly Journal of Speech, 96, 185-208.
• Poirot, K. (2009). “Domesticating the Liberated Woman: Containment Rhetorics of Second Wave Radical/Lesbian Feminism.” Women’s Studies in Communication, 32, 263-292.
• Poirot, K. (2004). “Mediating a Movement, Authorizing Discourse: Kate Millett, Sexual Politics, and Feminism’s Second Wave.” Women’s Studies in Communication, 27, 204-235.

Books

Poirot, Kristan. A Question of Sex: Feminism, Rhetoric, and Differences that Matter (University of Massachusetts Press, 2014).

Motivated by a series of historical and conceptual critiques of “sex” that emerged in the early 1900s, I explore the ways feminist movements have questioned the contours of sexed distinctions and practices over time. Although a radical rethinking of sex, gender, and sexuality has informed a voluminous body of feminist work done on historical and contemporary instances of sex/gender bending, it has contributed little to inform an understanding of the history of U.S. feminist movement practices and discourse. A Question of Sex addresses this gap, demonstrating the ways the sex “scholarly revolution” described above compels a rethinking of U.S. feminist movements, their investments, and various cultural interventions.