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Jennifer Sano-Franchini

Gaziano Family Legacy Professor and Associate Professor of English

Curriculum Vitae

Jennifer Sano-Franchini researches the linkages between culture, meaning-making, power, and technology. She has published on a range of topics including the affective politics of Facebook’s user interface design, Asian American sonic rhetorics, and emotional labor on the academic job search in journals such as College Composition and Communication; Technical Communication Quarterly; and Rhetoric, Professional Communication, and Globalization, and edited collections including Equipping Technical Communicators for Social Justice Work, Rhetoric and Experience Architecture, and Rhetoric and the Digital Humanities. She teaches courses on professional writing theory, multimedia writing, cultural rhetorics, and feminist interaction design.

Professor Sano-Franchini has held leadership roles in several national professional organizations in her discipline of rhetoric and writing studies, including the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC), the Modern Language Association (MLA), and the Consortium of Doctoral Programs in Rhetoric and Composition (CDPRC). She currently serves as Assistant Chair of the CCCC and is the Program Chair for the 2024 CCCC Convention in Spokane. She previously co-chaired the 2022 Association of Teachers of Technical Writing (ATTW) Virtual Conference.

Sano-Franchini completed her BA and MA degrees in English at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, and her PhD in Rhetoric and Writing at Michigan State University. She also has seven years of previous industry experience as a document designer and professional writer. 

 Specializations: 

  • technical communication
  • cultural politics of user experience (UX) design
  • cultural and digital rhetorics
  • Asian American rhetoric
  • the rhetorical work of institutions

Recent Publications: 

Sano-Franchini, Jennifer. (2023). “Re-Orienting Rhetorical Theory in an Asian American Rhetorics Seminar.” Course Design. Composition Studies 51(1), 111–123. https://compositionstudiesjournal.files.wordpress.com/2023/06/sano-franchini.pdf 

Monberg, Terese Guinsatao and Jennifer Sano-Franchini. (2023). “Asian American Affect and Advocacy: Remembering Hyoejin Yoon.” Peitho: Journal of the Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition, 25(3). https://cfshrc.org/article/asian-american-affect-and-advocacy-remembering-hyoejin-yoon/ 

Sano-Franchini, Jennifer, Jones, André M., Ganguly, Priyanka, Robertson, Chloe J., Shafer, Luana J., Wagnon, Marti, Awotayo, Olayemi, and Bronson, Megan. (2023). “Slack, Social Justice, and Online Technical Communication Pedagogy.” Technical Communication Quarterly, 32(2), 134–148. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10572252.2022.2085809 

Sano-Franchini, Jennifer, Johnson, Nathan R., and Lane, Liz. (2023). “Teaching bell hooks in Technical and Professional Communication.” College English, 85(3), 205–216. https://library.ncte.org/journals/ce/issues/v85-3/32374 

Chen, Chen, Dev Bose, Jennifer Sano-Franchini, Elizabeth Keller, Ruth Osorio, and Elliot Tetreault. (2023). “Interrogating the 4Ps: Positionality, Privilege, Power, and Professionalism in the Rhetoric and Composition Job Market.” Composition Studies 50(3), 20–39. https://compositionstudiesjournal.files.wordpress.com/2023/03/chen-etal.pdf 

Sano-Franchini, Jennifer. (2021; released 2022). “Programmatic Efforts to Redress Anti-Blackness in Technical and Professional Writing.” Open Words: Access and English Studies, 13(1), 153–168. https://wac.colostate.edu/docs/openwords/v13n1/sano-franchini.pdf 

Recent Invited Talks and Workshops:

Asian American Feminist Rhetorics and Intersectional Labor Politics. Co-leader with Terese Guinsatao Monberg. 10th Biennial Rhetoric Society of America Summer Institute. The Pennsylvania State University. May 2023. 

Inclusive Pedagogy in Technical and Professional Writing. Rowan University. Mar 2022.

Dimensions of Asian and Asian American Rhetorics. Program in Writing and Rhetoric, with the Asian American Activities Center. Stanford University. Feb 2022.

Gender, Sexuality, and the Model Minority Myth. Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition. Webinar. Jan 2022.