Matthew Abraham

Interests

Teaching

Undergraduate CoursesRhetoric Traditions (ENGL 362)Introduction to Literary Analysis (ENGL 380)General Education 160A (Concepts in Postcolonial Theory)General Education 1601D (The Concept of Evil)Graduate CoursesENGL 696E Controversies in Rhetoric and CompositionENGL 696S Emerging Trends and Methods in Composition StudiesENGL 696S Emerging Trends and Methods in Rhetorical Studies

Research

Rhetoric and Composition, Ethnic Rhetorics, Rhetorics of the Israel-Palestine conflict, and Postcolonial Theory

Courses

Scholarly Contributions

Books

• Abraham, M. (2021). Beyond Fragility and Prefigurative Politics in Anti-Racist Critiques in Rhetoric and Composition. Kendall Hunt.
• Abraham, M. (2022). The Lure of Disempowerment: Reclaiming Agency in the Age of CRT. Kendall-Hunt publishing.
• Abraham, M. (2022). The Lure of Disempowerment: Reclaiming Agency the Age of CRT. Kendall Hunt Publishing.
• Abraham, M. (2015). Toward a Critical Rhetoric on the Israel-Palestine Conflict. Andersonville, SC: Parlor Press.
• Abraham, M. (2014). Intellectual Resistance and the Struggle for Palestine. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan.
  More info

  Intellectual Resistance and the Struggle for Palestine looks at the Question of Palestine as a site of controversy, a place of physical and intellectual repression as well as physical and intellectual resistance, a memory not to be forgotten, and a topos for thinking about liberation and empowerment. By examining the intellectual example of the late Edward Said in his advocacy for Palestinian self-determination, who emerged out of the tradition of the New York Intellectuals, Abraham explores Said's resistance as a Palestinian intellectual to the discourse of Zionism within the United States. In addition to Said's intellectual resistance, Intellectual Resistance and the Struggle for Palestine looks at the most extreme forms of Palestinian physical resistance against Israeli occupation (suicide bombing), arguing that it constitutes a form of biopolitical intervention to advance communal memory and goals, although it is most frequently dismissed in the West as a nihilistic act with no connection to politics. By bringing together intellectual interventions such as Said's together with the most violent form of resistance on the ground, Abraham posits that the Question of Palestine is an issue that cannot be ignored as it intrudes into daily life, domestic debates, and foreign policy considerations.

Chapters

• Abraham, M. (2019). Palestinian Bodies in Erasure: Civility Rhetorics and the Bounds of the Permissible. In Civility, Free Speech, and Academic Freedom:(p. 38). New York: Routledge.
• Abraham, M. (2021). entitled “Civility and the Bounds of the Permissible: Scholars of Color Embodying the Very Social-Political Dynamics at the Heart of Their Critiques.”. In Civility, Free Speech, and Academic Freedom in Higher Education(pp 111-131). Routledge.
• Abraham, M. (2019). Recognizing and Saving Black Lives, Recognizing and Saving Palestinian Lives: The Power of Transnational Rhetorics in Locating the Commonality of Liberation Struggles. In Rhetorical Activism, 2nd Edition(p. 20). New York: Routledge.
• Abraham, M. (2020). Selim Bakri’s Quest for a Palestinian Identity: Hanna K. and the Palestinian “Permission to Narrate”. In Edited collection on Costa-Gavras's cinematic explorations(pp 24 double-spaced spaces in Microsoft word document). Manchester, England: Manchester University Press.
• Abraham, M. (2018). "The Palestinian Body in Protest". In Unruly Rhetorics(p. 22). University of Pittsburgh.

Journals/Publications

• Abraham, M. (2016). Edward Said and the Recuperation of the Human. Saba Ülkesi, 46, 4.
• Kalbfleisch, E. (2016). Special Colloquia on Independent Writing Programs. College Composition and Communciation, 68(1), 42.
  More info

  This special colloquia on independent writing programs has been published in College Composition and Communication. It was published in the September 2016 special issue focused on "Political-economies of composition."
• Abraham, M. (2015). Conceptualizing Academic Freedom After the Salaita Case. Journal of First Amendment Studies, 6.
• Abraham, M. (2014). “Recognizing the Effects of the Past in the Present: Theorizing A Way Forward on the Israel- Palestine Conflict". JAC: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Rhetoric, Culture and Politics, 33(1&2), 28.

Presentations

• Abraham, M. (2017, July). "Self-constitutive Rhetoric in the Service of Dissent". Rhetoric Society of Europe Conference on "Unity and Division". Norwich, England: Rhetoric Society of Europe.
  More info

  This talk focused on Haneen Zoabi's July 2016 speech about Israel's handling of the Mavi Mamara incident.
• Abraham, M. (2017, March). College Composition and Communication Think Tank: Think Tank on Taking Action as An Organization. College Composition and Communication. Portland, OR: College Composition and Communciation.
  More info

  From the program:Professional organizations are expected to issue responses to eventsthat come to the attention of national and international media relevantto their areas of commitment and expertise. While CCCC has a longhistory of preparing and issuing resolutions and statements addressingsuch matters (e.g., language rights, working conditions for writingteachers, writing assessment), it lacks a nimble means by which toaddress developments of concern to its membership that merit quickresponse.This will be a working session in which attendees will participatein developing a set of concrete proposals for how CCCC might beenabled to take quick and appropriate action in response to issues ofconcern to its membership relevant to its area of commitment andexpertise. Specifically, this Think Tank will be devoted to identifyingand articulating• the range of concerns arising in the public media to which CCCCas an organization should respond;• the organizational mechanisms by which CCCC might determinehow best to respond to such matters;• the forms such responses might take.Portland Ballroom
• Abraham, M. (2016, Spring (May)). Special panel on the Race, Rhetoric, and the Prophetic: The Obama Presidency in Relief. Rhetoric Society of America. Atlanta, GA: U of A.
• Abraham, M. (2016, Spring). “Racial Microaggressions in Theoretical Spaces: Assessing Rhetoric and Composition’s Relations to People of Color.”. Conference on College Composition and Communication. Houston, TX: U of A.

Reviews

• Abraham, M. (2016. Protecting the Intellectual Mission in the Age of Neoliberal Expansion(p. 11). Society for Contemporary Thought and the Islamicate World Review.
• Abraham, M. (2016. Review: Benjamin Ginsberg, The Fall of the Faculty: The Rise of the All Administrative University. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2016(p. 6). Logos: A Journal of Modern Society and Culture.