Spring 2026: Leal-Anzaldúa Fireside Chat

 

This lecture series features the scholarship and research of USD faculty that centers around issues of diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice. The goal of the Leal-Anzaldúa Fireside Chat is to inspire campus conversations, elicit community engagement, gather feedback on the scholarship, and increase our collective learning about a broad range of diverse topics. Faculty from all disciplines are encouraged to present their work during the Leal-Anzaldúa Fireside Chat. The presented works could be in the form of a book talk, discussion of published work, review of preliminary findings, an art exhibit, or other works in progress. Lectures are free and open to the University community and the public.

 

Spring semester's Leal-Anzaldúa Fireside Chat will feature Diane Keeling, PhD, Professor, Department of Communication, University of San Diego.

 

Dr. Diane Marie Keeling is a rhetorical theorist in the Department of Communication who studies rhetoric’s intellectual history, rhetorics of science, and intersectional feminism. Her research has been published in the field of rhetoric's premier outlets, including Rhetoric Society Quarterly, Quarterly Journal of Speech, and Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication. Her students learn rhetorical skills in courses such as Rhetoric, Critical Whiteness and Communication Practices, Podcast Storytelling, Gender Communication, and Advanced Public Speaking. Dr. Keeling is a past president of the Organization for Feminist Research on Gender and Communication, faculty producer of There's More podcast and live storytelling, and a board member of the Friends of International Friendship Park where she co-facilitates the creation of an International Friendship Park archive with the Museum of US. She earned her PhD in Rhetoric from the University of Colorado-Boulder with certification in Women & Gender Studies.

Order of Events:

Coalitions are crucial for creating political, economic and environmental changes. This talk will discuss the rhetorical landscape of coalitions as they attempt to create meaningful change. Theories of rhetoric often presume the need to create common ground to move audiences towards collective action, such as using "shared" memories to craft discursive appeals. Of concern, however, is the way appeals to common ground can erase the heterogeneity of individuals who form coalitions. Argentine feminist philosopher and activist María Lugones insists that individuals in coalitions are active subjects who are not driven by homogenous intentions. Instead of achieving common ground discursively, coalition members "witness faithfully" in ways that are "in collision with common sense, with oppression." Using a case study of the place-based coalition Friends of International Friendship Park, which advocates for a park at the Tijuana-San Diego border, Dr. Keeling will discuss the way coalitional rhetoric functions through uncommon ground, arguing that a shift away from shared memory to sharing memories honors the active and heterogeneous subjectivities of coalition members and amplifies a coalition's rhetorical possibilities.