Professor Tami Spry accepts her award from National Communication Association President Ron Jackson II Nov. 10 at the NCA 104th Annual Convention.
The National Communications Association (NCA) honored communication studies professor Tami Spry for her writings on autoethnography.
Spry accepted the 2018 Lilla A. Heston Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Interpretation and Performance Studies at the National Communication Association 104th Annual Convention Nov. 10 in Salt Lake City.
The award is given annually for outstanding published research and creative scholarship in interpretation and performance studies during the previous three-year period.
The award honors Spry for her book “Autoethnography and the Other: Unsettling Power Through Utopian Performatives.”
“Authoethnography” challenges the critique of autoethnography as overly focused on the self, as it calls for a performative autoethnography that both unsettles the “I” and represents the “Other” with equal commitment.
The work expands on Spry’s popular “Body, Paper, Stage” by using uses a variety of examples, literary forms and theoretical traditions to reframe this research method as transgressive, liberatory and decolonizing for both self and Other.
In addition to teaching and writing, Spry directs and performs on social justice issues. She co-advises the Performance Studies Club, a St. Cloud State student group that explores social issues and diverse communication strategies through theatrical performance on campus and nationally.
“NCA’s annual awards honor communication scholars’ teaching, scholarship and service,” NCA Executive Director Trevor Parry-Giles said. “Dr. Spry’s contributions to the communication discipline are noteworthy, and NCA is proud to recognize them with this award.”
The National Communication Association advances communication as the discipline that studies all forms, modes, media and consequences of communication through humanistic, social scientific, and aesthetic inquiry. NCA serves the scholars, teachers, and practitioners who are its members by enabling and supporting their professional interests in research and teaching.
