NCID-0921
Christina Cedillo
Associate Professor of Writing and Rhetoric
University of Houston-Clear Lake
Education/Degree:
1 English (Texas A&M University)
About
I am an Associate Professor at the University of Houston-Clear Lake where I teach first-year and advanced writing courses and graduate rhetorics courses at Ramsey Prison Unit. My research examines intersections of race, gender, and disability, and I apply this research in the creation of inclusive pedagogies. Drawing on critical race theory, disability rhetorics, and decolonial theories, my work highlights tropes and topics across time periods to show how colonization and coloniality affect the lives of Latinxs and other racialized groups and how coloniality renders queer and trans people and Indigenous populations vulnerable using deliberately-constructed categories of race, gender, and disability. I am a co-chair of the Conference on College Composition and Communication's Latinx Caucus and past co-chair the Committee on Disability Issues, as well as the 2021 recipient of the National Council of Teachers of English Leadership Award for People with Disabilities.
Current Work
My research focuses on rhetorics of dehumanization, or how marginalized people are framed as being less than fully human, based on race, gender, and disability. This research examines both historical and contemporary contexts because this long focus helps me to understand where these harmful ideas originate, how they change over time, and how we might fight against them in our teaching and in everyday life. Currently, I am working on a book project titled Embodying the Struggle: The Multimodal Rhetorics of Women of Color Activists. Drawing on critical race studies, women of color feminisms, and rhetorical theory, this book explains how certain Black, Latinx, and Indigenous women activists of the 20th and 21st centuries have carefully composed their public images and messages in order to be heard and to promote social justice. I am also the lead editor of the Journal of Multimodal Rhetorics, a journal that deliberately centers scholarship from marginalized perspectives.