Well gang, it’s spring break for Purdue. I’ll be spending most of next week in Indianapolis– no airfare! no Greyhound!– at the Conference on College Composition and Communication. I’ll be filing some dispatches from there for this here blog. If my past two CCCCs experiences are any indication, it’ll be fun, frustrating, inspiring, depressing, an opportunity to connect with my community and a reminded of how lonely I can feel in my discipline, all at the same time. I have a bunch of panels and group meanings I am planning to attend, with a special focus on adjunct labor issues and how to organize for better working conditions for contingent faculty. I’ll be presenting myself, about the importance of better integrating statistics and quantitative research into our discipline while honoring the humanities and retaining our traditional values. That would be a controversial topic for this forum, but I’m presenting at 8:00 AM the morning after the biggest party of the week, so I doubt there will be much of a crowd to get offended.

I do want to take a moment and mention 4C4Equality. It’s an initiative some grad school friends of mine have started, and which I’m happy to be participating in. As you may have heard, for awhile the Indiana state legislature was pushing forward an explicitly anti-gay marriage bill. I’m happy to say that proposal has, for now, been shelved. But peers of mine have decided to undertake a project to discuss the importance of marriage equality in Indiana, where there is still no right for  same sex couples to marry. The purpose of this is both specific and general. First, there’s the issues of marriage equality in Indiana itself. While I’m on the record as saying that the reduction of the queer rights movement to a singular focus on marriage rights is an unfortunate development, I’m obviously 100% committed to the movement for equal marriage rights for all consenting adults. Second, the organizers of 4C4Equality are interested in fostering more site-specific public outreach and community engagement at the locations of major conferences. Too often, conferences have a placeless quality, not really engaging with the local issues and contexts where they take place. We hope this kind of local political engagement will continue into the future.

This initiative, by the way, is independent and not a formal extension of CCCC. To make matters even better, from my perspective, we’re gotten some heat  from some people within the rhet/comp community for not respecting the process or going through established channels. (Because nothing says radical critique like going through established channels.) It’s interesting how often activism becomes embroiled in “issue ownership,” where veteran organizers come to take a territorial attitude towards particular political issues. I don’t mind these tensions. I think they are productive and a necessary part of real, messy political engagement.

I’ll hopefully have posts up from the site of the conference soon. If you’re interested in 4C4E, please check out the webpage or Twitter account, and if you’re in the Indianapolis area, don’t be afraid to come down to the JW Marriott hotel in downtown where we’ll be tabling. Looking forward to it.