[ATTW-L] CFP edited collection "Mental Health Rhetoric Research: Toward Strategic Interventions”

Tue Nov 12 15:47:13 UTC 2019

Colleagues,

Please share widely and excuse x-posting.

Sincerely,

Cathryn

*CFP edited collection *

Tentative Title:

*“Mental Health Rhetoric Research: Toward Strategic Interventions”*

A burgeoning research area in the rhetoric of health and medicine, *mental
health rhetoric research (MHRR)* is a term that J. Fred Reynolds (2018)
used in the inaugural issue of the *Rhetoric of Health and Medicine *journal
to describe the “significant body of work applying the tools and terms of
rhetoric to the world of mental health” that first appeared in the 1980s
and continued in fits and starts for the decades to follow (p. 1). As
Reynolds documented, in the past, rhetoricians have studied issues of
mental health from a variety of (inter)disciplinary angles using a wide
range of methodological approaches (see bibliography for further reading).

This *planned, peer-reviewed edited collection*, edited by Lisa Melonçon
and Cathryn Molloy and tentatively titled “*Mental Health Rhetoric
Research: Toward Strategic Interventions*,” will add to the vibrant
existing literature in MHRR through studies that examine a variety of
topics that fall within the broad spectrum of “mental health” through the
lens of “interventions.” The chapters therein will, thus, use rhetorical
theories and concepts and/or rhetorically inflected concepts that grow out
of bodies of knowledge in technical communication to propose strategic
interventions into a specific mental health reality.

The book will be divided into three sections: 1) interventions to end
stigma and/or to encourage advantageous mental help-seeking/ mental
health-seeking behaviors, 2) methodological interventions for studying and
researching specific communities or approaches,

and 3) interventions designed to qualify and promote the affordances of
“mad” subjectivities and/or neurodiversities

The word “interventions,” of course, implies an “intermediary” who is
“‘stepping in’, or interfering in any affair, so as to affect its course or
issue” (OED Online). Interventions that grow out of rhetorical theories
might, thus, use an expansive view of rhetoric to purposefully craft such
involvements. Rhetorical interventions are firmly transgressive and, thus,
require tenacity, creativity, and boldness.

In each section, we’d especially like to consider chapters that will employ
a wide variety of methodological approaches (i.e. critical discourse
analyses, ethnographic inquiries, autoethnographic inquiries, case studies,
textual analyses) to engage such topics as:

·      Diagnostic tools, texts, and techniques

·      Somatizations, psychogenic symptoms, and medical causes of mental
illness

·      Anti-stigma, mental health awareness, and other activist and/or
advocacy-related initiatives

·      Comorbidities, chemical dependencies, addiction, and recovery

·      Care settings (i.e. intensive outpatient, psychiatric hospitals,
community centers, rehabilitation centers, etc.).

This list is not exhaustive, of course, but is representative of topics
that are especially of interest. All proposed chapters, though, should: 1)
clarify how they are engaging rhetorical theories and/or rhetorically
inflected theories that grow out of technical communication; 2) name the
specific method/ologies employed; and 3) identify which of the three
sections they envision for their work. Additionally, proposed chapters
should ideally have clear connections to existing MHRR literature (see
bibliography below). For more information on research methods and
methodologies in the rhetoric of health and medicine, please see Melonçon
and Scott’s (2017) *Methodologies for the Rhetoric of Health & Medicine.*
<https://www.routledge.com/Methodologies-for-the-Rhetoric-of-Health--Medicine-1st-Edition/Meloncon-Scott/p/book/9781138235861>

Once a table of contents has been generated and a strong set of sample
chapters selected, Southern Illinois University Press will consider this
collection.

Please send 250 to 500-word proposals to: molloycs at jmu.edu by *February 15,
2020.*

Responses to proposals will be sent by *March 15, 2020* with full chapter
drafts (of approximately 2500 to 4000 words) due by *June 15, 2020. *

Queries very welcome!

*Brief Bibliography of MHRR Sources *

Berkenkotter, C. (2008). *Patient tales: Case histories and the uses of
narrative in psychiatry*. Columbia: Univ of South Carolina Press.

Emmons, K. (2010). *Black dogs and blue words: Depression and gender in the
age of self-care*. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Retrieved
from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/jmu/detail.action?docID=868537

Hanganu-Bresch, C., & Berkenkotter, C. (2019). *Diagnosing madness: The
discursive construction of the psychiatric patient, 1850-1920*. Columbia,
SC: University of South Carolina Press.

Heilker, P., & Yergeau, M. (2011). Autism and rhetoric. *College English*,
*73*(5), 485-497. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/23052337

Holladay, D., & Holladay, D. (2017). Classified conversations: Psychiatry
and tactical technical communication in online spaces.* Technical
Communication Quarterly, 26*(1), 8-24. doi:10.1080/10572252.2016.1257744

Johnson, J. (2010). The skeleton on the couch: The eagleton affair,
rhetorical disability, and the stigma of mental illness.* Rhetoric Society
Quarterly, 40*(5), 459-478. doi:10.1080/02773945.2010.517234

Lewiecki-Wilson, C. (2003). Rethinking rhetoric through mental
disabilities.* Rhetoric
Review, 22*(2), 156-167. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/3093036

McCarthy, L. P., & Gerring, J. P. (1994). Revising psychiatry's charter
document: DSM-IV.* Written Communication, 11*(2), 147-192.
doi:10.1177/0741088394011002001

Meloncon, L., & Scott, J. B. (2018). Manifesting a scholarly dwelling place
in RHM.* Rhetoric of Health & Medicine, 1*(1-2), x.
doi:10.5744/rhm.2018.1001

Molloy, C. (2015). Recuperative ethos and agile epistemologies: Toward a
vernacular engagement with mental illness ontologies.* Rhetoric Society
Quarterly, 45*(2), 138-163. doi:10.1080/02773945.2015.1010125

Prendergast, C. (2001). On the rhetoric of mental disability, In J. C.
Wilson (Ed.), *Embodied rhetoric: Disability in language and culture* (pp.
47-60). Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.

Price, M. (2011). *Mad at school: Rhetorics of mental disability and
academic life*. Landing, MI: University of Michigan Press.

Reynolds, J. F. (2018). A short history of mental health rhetoric research
(MHRR).* Rhetoric of Health & Medicine, 1*(1-2), 1-18.
doi:10.5744/rhm.2018.1003

Reynolds, J. F., & Mair, D. C. (2013). *Writing and reading mental health
records: Issues and analysis in professional writing and scientific
rhetoric*. New York: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780203811221

Rothfelder, K., & Thornton, D. J. (2017). Man interrupted: Mental illness
narrative as a rhetoric of proximity.* Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 47*(4),
359-382. doi:10.1080/02773945.2017.1279343

Segal, J. Z. (2008). *Health and the rhetoric of medicine*. Carbondale, IL:
Southern Illinois University Press. Retrieved from
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/jmu/detail.action?docID=1354472

Uthappa, N. R. (2017). Moving closer: Speakers with mental disabilities,
deep disclosure, and agency through vulnerability.* Rhetoric Review, 36*(2),
164-175. doi:10.1080/07350198.2017.1282225

Yergeau, M., & Huebner, B. (2017). Minding theory of mind. *Journal of
Social *

*Philosophy*, 48(3), 273-296. doi:10.1111/josp.12191
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