Joan Faber McAlister

Birthplace

Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Colleges/universities attended

• Boise State University and University of Iowa
• Ph.D. in rhetorical studies from the University of Iowa with a special certificate in the project on the Rhetoric of Inquiry – 2005
• M.A. in communication from Boise State University – 1996
• B.A. in anthropology with an emphasis in cultural studies and ethnography from Boise State University – 1994
• Currently at Drake University

Joan Faber McAlister’s research focuses primarily on how images and space communicate messages in public culture through perceptions of beauty and critical theory. Her research using critical theory confronts ideological, societal, and structural binds found in culture as well as literature. McAlister focuses on analyzing topics including Congressional hearings, popular films, national news coverage, magazine advertisements, reality television, urban planning, and architecture. She approaches these documents with a focus on the relationship between social location and rhetoric or, in other words, how different individuals are placed in power and how the factors of class, gender, race, and sexuality impact these individuals. Her research is concerned with the different factors that are impacting cultural performance and create a sense of belonging that could have detrimental outcomes. She focuses on a concept of “home” being more than just a physical location. McAlister states that home is more about relationships between an individual and surroundings, between physical bodies and furniture, between desires and limitations. She states that “home” has to do with the associations between regional identities and cultures.

Collecting the Gaze: Memory, Agency, and Kinship in the Women's Jail Museum, Johannesburg

One of Joan Faber McAlister's award-winning publications is her essay Collecting the Gaze: Memory, Agency, and Kinship in the Women's Jail Museum, Johannesburg. This article discusses the views of Walter Benjamin in the Women's Jail museum in Johannesburg, South Africa. Walter Benjamin was a German Jewish philosopher who died in 1940 at the Women's Jail while avoiding deportation to either a French concentration campus or to a Nazi filled German home. The Women's jail is now a site that rests on the grounds of a former racially segregated prison that was in use from 1020 to 1983. This time period was a time that saw the introduction of the apartheid laws which sought to bring about racial segregation with the dominant power being white people. Those who resisted often faced repercussions which draws a parallel between the Women's Jail and a Nazi regime because both sites hold visible memories and are anguished with collectors. The Women's Jail holds memories of former inmates by directing the tourists gaze through haunting memories of collections of personal items such as newspaper clippings. Benjamin Walter's collection often included very personal items such as wedding photographs, shoes, and quotes that were placed where women had once lived and worked to present more depth into their personal experiences. McAlister then discusses how feminist critics of visual and public memories have concerns about the use of the gaze and the ability it has to change subjects into objects that then create a uniform story. The "male gaze" is associated with objectifying, defining, and exploiting females into objects for sexual pleasure to be viewed. The "tourist gaze" is a way of viewing culture as a commodity and can shift tragic sites of trauma into a site that offers pleasure at the expense of others pain, often with a consumerism goal. McAlister discusses how the gaze of visual and memorial culture causes concern about reestablishing hierarchical systems of race, class, gender, and sexuality that construct identities either through places of public memory or through the objectification of females. She also discusses how the Women's Jail displays the daily life of the prisoners such as the humiliating conditions that menstruating inmates were forced to live through. This includes exhibits detailing how inmates were not allowed to wear undergarments and were forced to push their thighs together or utilize shoe laces to hold pads in place while working. This shows the notable different between the experiences of female and male prisoners which provides visitors with a different gaze into the particular details of daily life while being incarnated. McAlister's article discusses how the Women's Jail shows visitors a piece of the responsibility to collect and preserve the past in order to change views of both the past and the future.

Lives of the Mind/Body: Alarming Notes on the Tenure and Biological Clocks

Another of Joan Faber McAlister’s noteworthy publications is her article, Lives of the Mind/Body: Alarming Notes on the Tenure and Biological Clocks. This article seeks to draw attention to the biological clocks that women are encouraged to constantly worry about throughout their careers. The article discusses the idea that women are torn between achieving academically, in McAlister’s situation, and keeping the “expiration dates” of women’s private parts to themselves. If women pay too much attention to their biological clocks in order to begin a family they will seemingly struggle to stay on the same pace with their male colleagues academically. The article also discusses how McAlister feared bringing children into her life because she may be viewed as feminine and motherly which would contradict her outward tough and professional persona as a scholar. Having children was more often than not viewed as being not committed to academic work by her male colleagues who were published or more revered. It was not until after visiting with her advisor, a well established scholar, to discuss the dilemma of McAlister’s biological clock did she decide to have children. After gaining this approval, the article discusses how McAlister did conceive her first child who was stillborn on April 3, 2000. Now, she has a daughter and twins (one male and one female) who altered both physical and university life. While still pursuing a tenured position, McAlister found that she needed to keep her bodily connections with her babies private. For example, in the article she discusses hiding in a corner of a conference room to prepare for her “job talk” when in fact she needed time to breast pump for her children. While McAlister did get offered a position, she discusses how asking for time to specifically breast pump would have made her seem potentially less fit for the position. Meanwhile, the article also discusses the biological clock point of view in McAlister missing many “firsts” from first steps to first words while working on her dissertation and pursing her scholarly goals. The overarching goal of McAlister’s article is to draw attention to how scholarly discourse is gendered and requires more discussion on what defines productivity.

• 2016 to Present - Membership Officer for the Rhetoric Society of America
• 2011 to Present - Associate Professor - Department for the Study of Culture and Society - Drake University
• 2010 to Present - Coordinator of Public Speaking Instruction - Drake University
• 2013 to Present - Director - Drake University Speaking Center
• 2013 - Chair of the Jane Jacobs Urban Communication Book Award Committee
• 2012 to 2016 - Editor of the Women’s Studies in Communication - Organization for Research on Women and Communication - Taylor & Francis
• 2012 - Editorial Board for The Quarterly Journal of Speech member
• 2005 to 2011 - Assistant Professor – Department for the Study of Culture and Society – Drake University
• 2010 - Chair of the American Studies and the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer Communication Studies Divisions of the National Communication Association
• 2003 to 2005 - Speaking Center Director – Rhetoric Department – University of Iowa
• 2002 to 2005 - Lecturer – Rhetoric Department – University of Iowa
• 1999 to 2002 - Writing Center Tutor – Rhetoric Department – University of Iowa
• 1998 to 2002 - Graduate Instructor – Rhetoric Department – University of Iowa
• 1999 - Administrative Assistant – University of Iowa Writing Center
• 1996 to 1998 - Teaching Assistant – Department of Communication Studies – University of Iowa
• 1998 - Research Assistant – Department of Communication Studies – University of Iowa
• 1995 to 1996 - Research Assistant – Boise State University

• 2016 - Francine Merritt Award - Outstanding contributions to women's lives in communication from the Women's Caucus, National Communication Association
• 2016 - Distinguished Engagement Award - College of Arts & Sciences, Drake University
• 2013 - Article of the Year Award - “Collecting the Gaze: Memory, Agency, and Kinship in the Women’s Jail Museum, Johannesburg.” Women’s Studies in Communication. 2013 (36:1) 1-27. National Communication Association –Visual Communication Division
• 2011 - Monograph of the Year Award – “Figural Materialism: Renovating Marriage through the American Family Home.” Southern Journal of Communication. 2011 (76:4) 279-304. National Communication Association – GLBTQ Division and Caucus
• 2008 - Gary Gumpert Research Incentive Award ($1000) – “Rhetorics of Home in Post-Apartheid South African Housing Policy,” Urban Communication Foundation (November)
• 2001 - Honorable Mention – “Constructing the Suburban City: The Megamall as Cultural Space,” James F. Jakobsen Graduate Forum, University of Iowa (March)
• 2000 - Honorarium as Invited Participant – Workshop on Visual Rhetorics – University of Iowa (August)
• 2000 - Top Oral Presentation – “Community and Fantasy in New Suburbia” – University of Iowa Graduate Forum (April)
• 1996 - Top Instructor Award – University of Iowa Panhellenic Association
• 1996 - Top Two Paper – “Government Interference, Taxpayer Expense and Constitutionality: The De-Gaying of Idaho’s Anti-Gay Initiative.” Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Studies Division – International Communication Association Conference