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.

Share

COinS