Thompson, Julie M. 1965–

PERSONAL: Born November 26, 1965, in MN. Education: St. Cloud State University, B.A., 1988; Indiana University, M.A., 1992, Ph.D., 1998. Politics: "Leftist/ Progressive." Hobbies and other interests: Jazz music, jazz history, hip-hop culture.

ADDRESSES: Office—Hamline University, 1536 Hewitt Ave., MS-B1803, St. Paul, MN 55104. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: San Jose State University, San Jose, CA, lecturer, 1997–99; University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, visiting assistant professor, 1998–2000; Southwestern University, Georgetown, TX, assistant professor of communication, 2000–03; Hamline University, St. Paul, MN, director of writing center, tutoring programs, and academic skills programs, 2003–.

MEMBER: International Association of Jazz Educators, National Communication Association.

WRITINGS:

Mommie Queerest: Contemporary Rhetorics of Lesbian Maternal Identity, University of Massachusetts Press (Amherst, MA), 2002.

WORK IN PROGRESS: The Survivor Chronicles, autobiographical creative nonfiction; Jazz, Civil Rights, and Epidektic Form, completion expected in 2008.

SIDELIGHTS: Julie M. Thompson told CA: "Human suffering motivates my writing. I write to critique various modes and patterns of domination. My goal is to discover how humans can change their lives by changing the ways they think about language and by altering their language use patterns. In this sense, my work could be described as ideological rhetorical criticism. I see myself as an advocate and my writing is thus political. Popular culture and current events also provide the impetus for writing.

"My work has a variety of influences: historical and contemporary social/political struggles (such as abolition, civil rights rhetoric, feminism, and labor movements), classical theories of rhetoric—especially the conception of rhetoric offered by Isocrates (436-338 BCE) and adapted by Cicero (106-43 BCE) also come to mind. The works of Monique Wittig, bell hooks, and Kenneth Burke have been particularly inspiring. In contemporary rhetorical studies, I am continuously inspired with the insights offered by Phil Wander, Wenshu Lee, John Lucaites, John Poulakos, Dana Cloud, and Michael Calvin McGee. I hope to write as elegantly as Edwin Black someday.

"I tend to work from outlines. I enjoy the process of invention immensely; I work on style after crafting the argument and the arrangement. I carry a microcassette recorder with me and make notes for subjects about which I would like to or need to write. I trained as an argumentative writer/rhetorical critic; I'm adapting that orientation now into working on some creative nonfiction. My writing process cycles between invention and revision. I use writing as a tool to discover what it is that I really want to say. Writing is heuristic as well as expressive. I write to 'work through' various theoretical and political problems and to discover the rhetorical means by which human suffering can be ameliorated."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Journal of Sociology, May, 2003, Liahna E. Gordon, review of Mommie Queerest: Contemporary Rhetorics of Lesbian Maternal Identity, p. 1432.

Argumentation and Advocacy, winter, 2003, Robert Brookey, review of Mommie Queerest, p. 227.