Dr. Danielle Bacibianco
(she/her/hers)
B.A. in English, St. John’s University
M.S. Ed. in Secondary Education English, CUNY College of Staten Island
M.A. in English, CUNY College of Staten Island
Ph.D. in English, St. John’s University
Research/Teaching Interests: Rhet/Comp, Literacy Studies, Community Literacy, Activist Ethnography, Recovery Literacies, Recovery Storytelling, Digital Rhetoric, Public Rhetoric, Research Methods, Qualitative Research, Activist Pedagogy, Digital Storytelling Projects, Cultural Studies, Feminist and Gender Criticism and Queer Rhetoric, Queer Literacies, Queer Theory & LGBTQ+ Studies, Literary Journalism, Digital Humanities
Courses Taught at SJU: ENG 1100c – LITERATURE IN A GLOBAL CONTEXT, ENG 1040 – INTRODUCTION TO BUSINESS WRITING, ENG 1006 – EFFECTIVE BUSINESS WRITING; Dr. Danielle Bacibianco’s Courses are LGBTQ+/Non-Binary/Gender Non-Conforming Safe Zones; Featured in “10 Classes That Make Your St. John’s University Experience Even Better” by Dina Said
Dr. Danielle Bacibianco graduated from St. John’s University with a Ph.D. in English in May of 2021, and was the selected graduate speaker for the 2021 St. John’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Virtual Graduate Commencement.
Currently, Dr. Bacibianco is an Adjunct Assistant Professor for CUNY Borough of Manhattan Community College and The College of Staten Island, as she continues her autoethnographic work. In Fall of 2022, Dr. Bacibianco co-facilitated a university-wide ACEI Teaching Fellows LGBTQIAP+ Course Content Development and Queer Representation in Curriculum Workshop at St. John’s University, on behalf of the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) Interdisciplinary Minor, with Dr. Lisa Robinson, who also recently graduated from the English Department’s Ph.D. program. In the past, Dr. Bacibianco was an Adjunct Associate Professor at St. John’s University, where she taught literature and business writing courses. In 2021, a former St. John’s University student included Dr. Bacibianco’s (former Bacigalupo’s) course in a College Magazine article, “10 Classes That Make Your St. John’s University Experience Even Better.”
Dr. Bacibianco was announced as the recipient of the 2022 CCCC Lavender Rhetorics Award for Excellence in Queer Scholarship’s Dissertation Award at the Cs Awards Presentation during the 2022 CCCC Annual Convention in March for, “Queerstory of Recovery: Literacy and Survival in A.A.;” see Prize for Dr. Danielle Bacibianco!. The Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) is an association within the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). As stated by the CCCC Selection Committee for this award:
Meticulously researched, Bacibianco’s work elegantly blends personal narrative of recovery with scholarship. By moving in and around the white, cisgender hegemonic narratives of Alcoholics Anonymous, the author was able to situate those narratives into the historical context from which they emerged, identify counter voices within AA, and offer a personal futurity of testimony by queering rhetoric, space, and narrative through their recovery podcast. The research, which infiltrates the sub-community of AA and further identifies the queer sub-community within, seems rhetorically relevant to other suppressive communities.
As a writing studies and community literacy scholar, creating citizenship and civic engagement within the classroom not only comes from Dr. Bacibianco’s research but also from her personal commitment to and experience with advocating for Queer voices, especially in hegemonic storytelling spaces. In her dissertation, “Queerstory of Recovery: Literacy and Survival in A.A.,” Dr. Bacibianco offers an interdisciplinary autoethnographic exploration and intervention of the lack of Queer visibility in Alcoholics Anonymous recovery literacy. Through her research and work with community literacy and public rhetoric research, Dr. Bacibianco promotes the activism of Queer recovery rhetorics, describing how “Voices from Rock Bottom” (VFRB), the Staten Island based digital storytelling project turned podcast which she founded in 2018, develops a theory of “Queerstory.” Queerstory is a counter rhetorical methodology that empowers Queer rhetors to embrace their overlapping identities, histories, and voices to educate in public addiction recovery spaces, especially rhetorically and culturally dominant spaces like Alcoholics Anonymous. Recently, Dr. Bacibianco submitted an article to Writers: Craft & Context reflecting on Queer activism and describing how to develop Queerstory through autoethnographic research, this manuscript is currently under review.
Dr. Bacibianco has regularly presented research on rhet/comp pedagogy at conferences, including the national Conference on College Composition and Communication. In 2017, for example, her panel on equitable assessment included Dr. Asao Inoue as respondent. Dr. Bacibianco values department and college-wide conversations on the teaching of writing, with emphasis on rhetoric and composition studies.
As part of her service to the recovery community, and her continued commitment to cultural studies and public rhetoric activism, Dr. Bacibianco directed Gary Lennon’s 1995 play, Blackout, at SeaView Playwrights Theatre, a community story about an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting during the 1990s in NYC, that takes place on Christmas Eve. In December 2023, Dr. Bacibianco will be directing Bill W. and Dr. Bob, by Sam Shem and Janet Surrey, which is a 2007 off-broadway production that tells the story of the two co-founders of Alcoholics Anonymous and the early days of the 12-Step program of recovery.
For further inquiries, Dr. Bacibianco can be reached by email at: dbacibianco@gmail.com, or via social media: @DrProfB (Twitter/Instagram)
