Dr. Wright does work on the rhetoric of memorial place as well as on nineteenth-century women’s rhetoric. With all her work focusing on how marginalized people find voice in societies that try to silence them, most recently she has been examining the influence of French Catholic women religious (commonly known as nuns) on writing pedagogy in the United States. Dr. Wright’s work outside the academy has similar goals: she has been an activist in many areas of social justice, co-hosted and co-produced a radio show on not-for-profit companies, and owned a fair trade company, Fa La Lo. Additionally, before entering the academy, Dr. Wright worked in the professional theatre as a member of Actor’s Equity Association, Stage Directors and Choreographers Society and Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of America.
Education
PhD, Communication and Rhetoric, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
MA, English Literature, Columbia University of New York
MBA, Rivier University
BA, English Literature with a minor in Theatre, Hamilton College.
Courses Taught
WRIT 1120: College Writing
WRIT 8902: Teaching College Writing
WRIT 31xx: Advanced Writing
WRIT 2506: Introduction to Writing Studies
WRIT 4200: Writing and Culture
Special Topics creating Duluth Journal of Undergraduate Biology (co-taught with Biology Faculty)
Research Interests
Rhetorical memory, women's nineteenth-century rhetoric, history of rhetorical education in America (particularly education provided by Catholic women religious), and rhetoric of the marginalized.
Publications
“’Virtue and Knowledge Combined’: French Catholic Tradition Within a Nineteenth-Century American School for Women.” Rhetoric Review 34.4 (2015).
“’Carry Your Green Book With You’: The Green Book as Representative Anecdote.” Rhetoric Across Borders. Ed. Anne T. Demo. Parlor Press, 2015.
“A Lack of Markers: Collective Memory of the Confederacy in Elmira, New York.” Markers: Annual Journal of the Association for Gravestone Studies 28 (2013).
“’God Sees Me’: Surveillance and Oratorical Training at St. Mary’s- of- the-Woods in Indiana.” Rhetoric, History, and Women's Oratorical Education: American Women Learn to Speak. Ed. David Gold and Catherine Hobbs. Routledge, 2013
“More Than ‘A Heap of Dust’:The Material Memorialization of Three Nineteenth-Century Women’s Graves.” Women and the Material Culture of Death. Ed. Beth Fowkes Tobin and Maureen Daly Goggin. Ashgate Publishing, 2013.