About Us

speakingfromthemargins.org is a non-profit (in fact, we're losing money) collective whose aim is to provide an opportunity for underrepresented scholars in academic fields that identify with communication and culture to join together in a professionally and personally productive environment.

Darrel Enck-Wanzer, Suzanne Enck-Wanzer, Jeffrey A. Bennett, David Moscowitz, and Byron Craig--all five of whom are graduate students in the Department of Communication and Culture at Indiana University--are the site's co-founders. once we get going, other moderators will join the team, and the site will evolve based on the recommendations of countless users. if you are interested in opening a new forum or becoming a moderator, please email Darrel Enck-Wanzer.

Darrel Enck-Wanzer (who is the site designer, administrator, site-wide moderator, and founding moderator of the Latino/a forums) is a Ph.D. student who studies political rhetoric. His scholarly interests include the broader connections between rhetoric and political theory, rhetorical understandings of "democracy," and the articulation of "Democracy" in contemporary American political discourse. His dissertation explores the possibilities for radical democratic resistance given the constraints of U.S. liberal democracy. Specifically, the project focuses on the New York Young Lords as an exemplary case study. In what spare time he has, he builds and administers several web sites, including speakingfromthemargins.org.

Suzanne Enck-Wanzer (who is the founding moderator of the women forums) is a doctoral candidate who studies mass-mediated representations of domestic violence through a feminist rhetorical lens. Her scholarly interests include "productive" critical attitudes toward "texts," feminist rhetorical theory/criticism, and the critique of how domestic violence gets represented and articulated in print media, cinema, and legal discourse. Suzanne also volunteers regularly at the local women's shelter as well being a member of its board of directors.

Jeffrey A. Bennett (who is the founding moderator of the GLBT forums) is a doctoral candidate in the department of Communication and Culture at Indiana University, Bloomington. His graduate studies have tended to emphasize the manner in which sexuality is articulated in cultural politics. Currently he is conducting research on sexuality and citizenship, examining how the nation-state cleaves specific images of gay men and how those men confront, challenge, complicate, or fall complicit to such depictions. Aside from citizenship and policy, he also has strong interests in gay independent film, queer theory, and conservative reactionary movements. Sexuality aside (blasphemy!), he also enjoys rhetorical theory, political communication, and gender and cultural studies.

David Moscowitz (who is the founding moderator of the Jewish forums) is a doctoral candidate who studies contemporary representations and responses that implicate how Jewish identity is rhetorically constructed vis-a-vis the familiar constraints of diaspora, difference, victimage, assimilation, antisecularism, and self-hatred. In his dissertation about the rhetorical formations of "tough Jews," he is working to create a more productive rhetorical understanding about how Jews can diminish one ideological legacy of victimage while preserving another one that has historically prided itself on its adherence to the values of openness to, respect for, and tolerance of peoples not like themselves.

Byron B. Craig (who is the founding moderator of the Black/African-American forums) is currently a first year doctoral student in Communication and Culture at Indiana University Bloomington. Having come from a small town, Sandusky, Ohio, he finds it warming to be in Bloomington, Indiana for the next few years. He lived in Atlanta, Georgia for fifteen years, attending Morehouse College. He has just recently completed his M.A. studies in African American and African Diaspora Studies at Indiana University. His thesis, entitled Exploring the Homo-Erotic and (Re)Defining the Harlem Renaissance: A Critical Examination of Nella Larsen’s ‘Passing’ and Richard Bruce Nugent’s “Smoke, Lilies, and Jade” was successfully defended in May 2002. His area of research, while expanding still, examines issues of sexuality in the black community and the continuing shroud of silence.