Education
- PhD, English - Rhetoric and Composition, graduate certificate in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, University of Kansas, 2023
- MA, English - Manuscript, Print Culture, and Editing, University of Missouri - Kansas City, 2019
Bio
Brynn Fitzsimmons (they/them/theirs) researches how we talk about the body, embodiment, health, safety, intimacy, and access in the context of arguing for or practicing social change. Their current monograph project, Life-Affirming Discourses: Counterbodiment, Counterstory, and Community Organizing examines how prison abolitionists in Kansas City, Missouri reframe what embodiment means as a foundational part of their activism, and how these shifts open possibilities for radically different public discourse about topics like community health and public safety.
Dr. Fitzsimmons is also a member of an ongoing research collaboration under the University of Kansas Center for the Study of LGBTQIA+ College Students (CSLCS), where they are researching the experiences and discursive practices of asexual and aromantic college students. As a rhetorician, Dr. Fitzsimmons’ work in this collaborative focuses on topics such as epistemic justice, intimacy as a discursive practice, and communication patterns that challenge allonormative norms.
Dr. Fitzsimmons’ work emphasizes participatory and community-based research methods as well as community-engaged writing, research, and teaching projects. Their public work has included serving as an Associate Editor for Kansas City citizen journalism project Independent Media Association, as a humanities consultant for a Humanities Kansas “Humanities for All” grant, an Applied Humanities Fellow with the Arts Council of Johnson County (KS), and as a blog editor for books-to-prisons program Liberation Lit.
Selected Publications
Book Chapters
- “From Analysis to Civic Participation: Citizen Journalism, Media Literacy, and Epistemic Justice,” in Counterspaces and Counterstories for Writing Transfer: Toward Epistemological Justice in Writing Transfer Contexts, ed. Libbi Miller and Lisa Tremain, WAC Clearinghouse, coauthored with Andrei Stoica, forthcoming.
- “Have Your Cake and Learn About It Too: Supporting Asexual and Aromantic College Students,” coauthored with Amanda Mollet and Shay Valley, in Perspectives on Transforming Higher Education and the LGBTQIA Student Experience, ed. Andrew S. Herridge, Kaity Prieto, IGI Global, January 2024, pp. 68-90.
- “Trauma Together: Rethinking Collaborative Learning,” in Trauma-Informed Pedagogy, ed. Ernest Stromberg, Routledge, 2023.
- “It’s Got to Be in Your Head”: Using Mental Illness to Silence Chronic Conditions in Netflix’s Afflicted,” in Streaming Mental Health and Illness: Essays on Representation in Netflix Original Programs, ed. Emily Katseanes, McFarland, December 2022.
Journal Articles
- ““There’s no roadmap for this”: Asexual and Aromantic Students’ Healthy Intimate Relationships,” with Amanda Mollet and Shay Valley, Sexuality Research and Social Policy, forthcoming.
- “Coalitional Refusal: Transformative Justice Beyond Repair,” coauthored with Pritha Prasad, Peitho (special issue “Coalition as Commonplace: Centering Feminist Scholarship, Pedagogies, and Leadership Practices”), vol. 25, Issue 4, Summer 2023.
- “Storying Access: Citizen Journalism, Disability Justice, and the Kansas City Homeless Union,” Community Literacy Journal (special issue “Accessing Community Literacies”), Vol. 17, Issue 1, Article 4.
- “Ace Detective,” (Twine-based game plus critical essay exploring asexual/aromantic identity) OneShot: A Journal of Critical Games and Play, coauthored with Emma Kostopolus, 2021.
Selected Awards and Grants
- Rhetoric Society of America Dissertation Award, 2024
- University of Alabama College Academy of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Arts Activity Grant, 2024
- University of Kansas James A. Gowen Memorial Award for Excellence in Rhetoric and Composition, 2022
- University of Kansas, Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant Award, 2022
- Rhetoric of Health and Medicine Symposium Barbara Heifferon Graduate Student Fellowship, 2021
- KU Commons Humanities, Health, Arts, and Research Collaborative Seed Grant, 2021
- University of Missouri – Kansas City Sosland Teaching Award, Co-Recipient, 2018