Kirsti Cole, Ph.D.

Education:

• Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Composition from Arizona State University
• Graduate Certificate in Women’s Studies from Arizona State University
• B.A. in English Literature from University of Montana

Biography:

Kirsti Cole grew up on university campus across the country and became an English Professor at Minnesota State University in 2008 after receiving her Ph. D. from Arizona State University. Her graduate studies as well as her research and teaching are interdisciplinary and include foci in rhetoric, composition and writing studies, feminist and gender studies, and literature. Her forthcoming works include two co-edited collections. Academic Labor beyond the College Classroom: Working for Our Values is forthcoming from Routledge Press and focuses on the concept of service activism, or the labor that faculty across disciplines participate in beyond teaching and research in the contemporary university. Her second collection, Transformations: Change Work Across Writing Programs, Pedagogies, and Practices is discipline specific and looks at the current transformations happening across composition and writing programs in the United States. It is forthcoming from Utah State University Press. In addition to her work in labor, higher education, and composition, she has also published extensively in digital feminist activism, feminist comedy, and activist rhetoric that engages both academic and public discourses.

Recent Publications:

Books:

Cole, Kirsti and Holly Hassel, Eds. Surviving Sexism in Academia: Strategies for Feminist Leadership. London: Routledge, 2017.

Chapters:

Bivens, Kristin, Kirsti Cole, and Amy Koerber. “Activism by Accuracy” IN Women’s Health Advocacy: Rhetorical Ingenuity for the 21^st Century. London: Routledge, 2019.

“No Body is Disinterested: The Discursive Materiality of Composition in the University” IN Reinventing (with) Theory in Rhetoric and Writing Studies: Essays in Honor of Sharon Crowley. Skinnell, Ryan, Kendall Gerdes, and Andrea Alden, Eds. Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, 2018.

“Transgressing the Digital Terrain: Humor in Feminist Responses to Trolling” IN Trans*gressions in Communication. Manning, Jimmie and Jennifer Dunn, Eds. London: Routledge, 2018.

Renegar, Valerie R., Lacy Lowrey, and Kirsti Cole. “Amy Schumer: Comedy’s Blond Feminist Badass and The Limitations of White Feminism” IN Women, Feminism, and Pop Politics: From "Bitch" to "Badass" and Beyond. Anderson, Karrin Vasby, Ed. New York: Peter Lang, 2018.

Articles:

Bivens, Kristin, Kirsti Cole, and Leah Heilig. “The Activist Syllabus as Technical Communication and the Technical Communicator as Curator of Public Intellectualism.” Technical Communication Quarterly. 20 June 2019. https://doi.org/10.1080/10572252.2019.1635211

Bivens, Kristin and Kirsti Cole. ”The Grotesque Protest in Social Media as Embodied, Political Rhetoric.” Journal of Communication Inquiry. 9 October 2017. https://doi.org/10.1177/0196859917735650