Workshop 7: Fractal Rhetorics Interventions: A Design Thinking Approach to Scaling Feminist Rhetorical Action

Leaders: Tammie M. Kennedy (University of Nebraska at Omaha) and Jessi Thomsen (Western Kentucky University)

What becomes possible when we treat feminist rhetorical action not as a
choice between small interventions and large-scale change, but as a both/and? In this
workshop, participants will work as a community of thinkers and doers to explore that question
through “fractal rhetorics” and a collaborative design thinking process. Drawing on the fractal as
a “theory-in-motion” (Maier et al. 2020), we will zoom in on the often overlooked, sometimes
nearly invisible actions through which feminist rhetorical work takes shape, gains momentum,
and sustains itself over time. At the same time, we will zoom out, tracing how these seemingly
small actions repeat, reverberate, and accumulate across larger systems, communities, and
structures. Design thinking offers participants a practical methodology for moving between these
scales. Through iterative, collaborative activities, participants will identify places where focused
fractal interventions might interrupt entrenched patterns, open new possibilities, or make larger
change more imaginable. Rather than approaching “wicked problems” as puzzles that can be
neatly solved, we will ask how attending to scale, repetition, relation, and movement can reveal
points of intervention that might otherwise remain unseen. Participants will leave the workshop
with two interconnected outcomes. First, they will gain frameworks and methods for bringing
fractal rhetorics and design thinking into their own feminist commitments, teaching, scholarship,
organizing, and other practices. Second, each participant will develop a tangible deliverable
responding to a “wicked problem” they bring to the workshop—turning theory into motion and
leaving with a concrete intervention designed to keep moving.

Note from the organizers:
As per previous workshops, there may be pre-reading and pre-work required before June. Your leaders will reach out to you some time after registration with additional details.

There will be no A/V equipment available in this workshop. The workshop leaders encourage participants to bring charged devices with their preferred hardware and software pre-loaded, especially for any participants who have accessibility needs. You should indicate any accessibility needs on your registration form.