Wendy Hinshaw

Assistant Professor

Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts & Letters

Department of English

whinshaw@fau.edu

Boca Raton Campus

Wendy Hinshaw

Wendy Wolters Hinshaw received her Ph.D. from The Ohio State University. She teaches courses in rhetoric, literacy, women's literature and prison writing, as well as a service-learning course in writing for nonprofits. Her articles on the rhetoric of trauma, teaching testimonial literature, and pedagogical approaches to student resistance have appeared in the journals JAC and Transformations . Her work on representations of trauma and lynching received the Elizabeth Flynn Award from the journal JAC . Professor Hinshaw's current research examines art and writing by prisoners.

Research – Through my teaching, my research and my advocacy I am working to bring public audiences to prisoners' writing and to help prisoners' voices to be heard. I see prison writing as a site for intervention in the growing U.S. prison system, now the largest in the world. Although the U.S. only accounts for about 5 percent of the world's population it houses 25 percent of its prisoners. As our rates of incarceration have increased in recent decades (700% since 1970) we have become less willing to listen to the voices of the incarcerated. The defunding of higher education programs as well as art and writing programs have made the walls separating prisoners from outsiders grow taller, and have made it harder for the public to understand the experiences and circumstances of those entering and living within the prison system. We are largely dependent on media and criminal justice "experts" to shape our understandings of crime and incarceration. My work focuses on sites of intervention and rupture within this closed system of communication, as I study organizations, researchers, activists, and individual writers and artists who find ways to reach over and through concrete walls and razor wire that separate public from prison. In my research, I seek to define methodologies for representing, incorporating and collaborating with incarcerated artists and writers. My current book project, Incarcerating Rhetorics, Publics and Pedagogies, analyzes the production and circulation of art and writing by prisoners, and places carceral art and writing within historical, institutional and cultural contexts in order to demonstrate how it shapes and is shaped by these intersecting forces. In addition to analyzing prisoner writing I also provide strategies for supporting its production, and for building partnerships between universities and prison writers.

CV

PJHR

Linda Medvin, Ph.D.

Director of FAU’s Center for Holocaust and Human Rights Education (CHHRE)

Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts & Letters

Peace, Justice and Human Rights Initiative

maillmedvin@fau.edu

location_on

Boca Raton Campus

Apply

Cost & Financial Aid

Why FAU

Academic Programs

Our Colleges

More Programs

Libraries

Campus

Campus Life

Student Life

Innovation & Business Development

Our Research Institutes

Stay Informed

Related Links

Sports at Florida Atlantic

Show Your Support

Facilities

Wendy Hinshaw

Wendy Hinshaw

CV

PJHR

Linda Medvin, Ph.D.

Doug McGetchin, Ph.D.

Precious Skinner-Osei, Ph.D.

Andra Opalinski

Colin Polsky, Ph.D.

Suzanne Pinos

Jean M. Pierre, Ph.D.

Ashley Kennedy

Patricia Liehr, Ph.D.

Mark Tunick, Ph.D.

Nancy Stein

Lianfen Qian, Ph.D.

Kelly Shannon

Gwendolyn Carey

Carla Calarge

Stephen Charbonneau

James Cunningham, Ph.D

Deborah D’Avolio, Ph.D

Gail Choate, Ph.D

Yashwant Bhagwanji, Ph.D, Prof.

Alan Berger

Traci P. Baxley, Ph.D, Prof.

Allan Barsky, Ph.D, Prof.

Wendy Hinshaw

Adam Dobrin