Date of Award
2025
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
English (Ph.D.)
Department
English
First Advisor
Steven Alvarez
Second Advisor
LaToya Sawyer
Third Advisor
Raj Chetty
Abstract
This dissertation explores pathways to addressing student suffering at the intersection of mental health and academic performance in Higher Education. I argue that Learning Specialist roles offer spaces to practice trauma-informed, anti-oppression approaches to academic support through liberatory, healing rhetorical and literacy practices. This study uses James Berlin’s theory of social epistemic rhetoric and bell hooks’ concept of theory as liberatory praxis to perform rhetorical analyses of the foundational texts guiding specific anti-oppression and/or mental health recovery organizations. By identifying rhetorical strategies in grassroots community organizations' texts, this project yields implications for naming and practicing a critical literacy framework I call socio-emotional literacy as a form of liberatory harm reduction in universities as we work toward abolition.
Recommended Citation
Lebowitz Patel, Jennifer, "NEITHER WITHOUT BOTH: CONFRONTING OPPRESSION AND TRAUMA IN UNIVERSITIES – COMMUNITY RHETORICS TOWARD ABOLITIONIST CRITICAL LITERACY PRACTICES" (2025). Theses and Dissertations. 946.
https://scholar.stjohns.edu/theses_dissertations/946