Dr. Elizabethada A. Wright
Professor
Ph.D., Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
M.A., Columbia University
B.A., Hamilton College
Phone: (603) 897-8283; Email: ewright@rivier.edu
Specialties
- Nineteenth-Century Women’s Written and Spoken Rhetoric (esp. Fanny Fern)
- Public Memory
- The history of women’s education in America
- The rhetoric of the American cemetery
- Feminist film theory
BackgroundBefore entering academia, Elizabethada Wright worked in the professional theatre as a director, dramaturg, and stage manager. While working in the theatre, she completed her M.A. in English Literature and began teaching part time. She quickly fell in love with teaching. Her work in graduate school expanded this love to research. At Rivier University, she happily meshes her two loves. Additionally, traces of that past work in the theatre remain in her work here at the University as she continues playwrighting and teaching theatre.
Academic Philosophy"Always, in my teaching, my first concern is the student. I want to make sure the student is able to learn what s/he is studying. I also recognize that the first ingredient in this ability is desire. If a student wants to succeed, s/he should be able to do so. With the wide range of students here at Rivier, learning how to help students succeed has been a constant learning process. I want students to feel challenged, but not overwhelmed. Learning (and relearning with each new class) how to do this has been a constant challenge for me, a challenge I gladly meet."
Recent Publications
- “Reading the Cemetery, lieu de memoire par excellance.” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 33 (Spring 2003).
- “Open-Ended Oratory: Fanny Fern’s Use of the Periodical as a Rhetorical Platform.” American Journalism 18 (2001).
- “Joking isn’t Safe: Fanny Fern’s Illustration of Possibilities in Irony’s Problems.” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 31 (Spring 2001).
- "From Rhetoric to Composition: The Teaching of Writing in America to 1900" (co-authored with S. Michael Halloran). A Short History of Writing Instruction: Antecedents of American Composition Practices, 2nd Edition. Ed. James Murphy. Hermagorus Press, 2001.
- “Keeping Memory: The Cemetery and Rhetorical Memory in Constance Woolson’s ‘Rodman the Keeper.” Studies in the Literary Imagination (Spring 2006). ‘Rodman the Keeper’”