Dr. Tarez Graban
Dr. Graban, associate professor of English and honors teaching scholar, joined the Florida State University faculty in 2012. She teaches global rhetorics, histories of rhetoric, human rights rhetoric, theories of composition, transnational and comparative research methodologies, public discourse, and environmental rhetoric. From 2013 to 2020 she led the campus-wide Digital Scholars reading group and DH collaboratory, and from 2018 to 2020 she was co-director of the Demos Project for Studies in the Data Humanities. She has been nominated for several teaching awards and most recently received the Inclusive Teaching and Mentoring Award. Prior to FSU, she also worked extensively with international and resident multilingual students and students in the interdisciplinary Individualized Major program at Indiana University, trained and mentored graduate TAs in teaching college composition, and earned several awards and small grants for designing, teaching, and administering service-learning courses. With backgrounds in rhetorical studies, writing studies, archival studies, linguistics, digital humanities, and writing program administration, she regularly directs graduate and undergraduate researchers at FSU (in Rhetoric and Composition, EWM, and English), and serves as the outside reader on doctoral committees at other schools.
Currently, she investigates the rhetorical practices and archival positioning of women aca¬demics, activists, and elected leaders in southern Africa and the Middle East, especially as their practices and positioning are informed by the opening up of democratized information spaces. Her current book project, Rhetorika Afrika, occurs at the intersection of rhetorical theory, archival studies, data feminism, and postcoloniality. From 2015 to 2018 she held a faculty research fellowship at the University of South Africa. Her scholarship appears in peer-reviewed journals and edited collections with both national and international readerships and has won several awards. She is a frequent collaborator with scholars in rhetorical studies, composition studies, archival studies, and the digital humanities, having co-authored or co-edited several books and special issues, and having contributed to large-scale digital repositories, including the Women and Social Movements database.
Two hallmarks of her academic career include service in the interest of shared governance, and cross-generational mentoring. Since joining the Faculty Senate in 2013, Graban has served on several standing and ad-hoc Senate committees, including the Undergraduate Policy Committee, Honors Program Policy Committee, Teaching Evaluations, ADA Accommodations, FSU’s gift policy review, and Graduate Policy Committee review subcommittees. From 2013 to 2018, she was a Senator in the faculty union, UFF-FSU. She currently chairs the Honors Program Policy Committee. She has also served in national leadership positions for the Coalition of Feminist Scholars in Rhetoric and Composition; the Global & Non-Western Scholars group of the Conference on College Composition and Communication; the African Association for Rhetoric; and Peitho journal, whose editorial board she currently chairs. She mentors graduate students and junior scholars in various locations across the globe with the international African Feminist Initiative, and at various U.S. universities for the Coalition of Feminist Scholars.
Dr. Graban is a graduate of Brown University (A.B. English / A.B. Religious Studies, 1993), and Purdue University (PhD English, 2006).