This dissertation explores the emotional labor of women-identified writing program administrators (WPAs) through the lens of imposter syndrome. The theoretical framework I build is based upon an autoethnographic, cultural rhetorics, and feminist-informed methodology in which I center story as theory and see myself as a participant as well as a researcher. The methods used in the study include participant interviews and personal video diary entries of three current WPAs and myself over a 15 week period in the fall of 2019 in which I studied not only what was said in the conversations, but also how the body reacted to what was being said. By collecting this large amount of personal-experience data, I’m able to listen to the stories of my participants as the theories onto which I build my primary framework for this dissertation. In listening to my participants’ stories, I understand the emotional, embodied reactions my participants and I have to ideas of feeling “less than” in roles that we are absolutely qualified for. Through (auto)ethnographically-informed qualitative interviews, I worked with three writing program administrators—two writing center directors and one First-Year Writing director—to illuminate how women-identified academic professionals think and talk about their bodies and emotions at work through the lens of imposter syndrome. In studying how WPAs confront feelings of imposter syndrome and what their embodied working practices create, I find that my participants are Radically Willful Women who, despite knowing the consequences of imposter syndrome, engage in activities that produce it anyway. Therefore, radically willful women continually participate in roles that produce imposter syndrome because their participation makes imposter syndrome feel less daunting and proves that it is a temporary state.
Read
