Cathy Birkenstein-Graff
Cathy Birkenstein-Graff, born and raised in Winnetka, Illinois, received her undergraduate degree from Columbia College in Chicago, her MA from Northwestern University, and her Ph.D. in English and American Literature from Loyola University of Chicago. Her dissertation focuses on overlooked contradictions in the American rags-to-riches story. In extended analyses of the work of Horatio Alger, Booker T. Washington, and Willa Cather, she shows that this supposedly simplistic and politically uncritical genre can contain unexpected critiques of American culture. In an essay in progress, “The Other Booker T. Washington,” which is based on a dissertation chapter, Cathy shows that in both his life and his autobiography, Up From Slavery, Washington was far from being the simple apologist he is still often seen as for accommodation to white economic self-reliance.
Cathy has taught literature and composition at Columbia College, De Paul University, and Loyola University, and has been a Lecturer at the University of Illinois at Chicago since 2003. Cathy has been appointed with Gerald to the newly established position of Co-director of Upper Division Writing Programs, which involves working to improve the many Writing in the Disciplines courses required by each departmental major in the College of Arts and Sciences.
In February, 2006 Cathy published a textbook, co-authored with Gerald Graff, entitled “They Say/I Say”: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing, with W. W. Norton. A distinctive feature of the book, which grew out of Cathy and Gerald’s co-taught composition courses at UIC, is the "argument templates" that Cathy had earlier invented and developed for to demystify and clarify public argument for students. This book, which has been praised as “the Strunk and White of academic writing” and has sold some 70,000 copies in its first year, is widely used in college composition programs and in disciplinary courses across the country.
With Gerald, Cathy has given numerous talks and workshops on writing and the teaching of writin, including appearances at Columbia University, University of Rochester, Brandeis University, the University of South Florida, Duke University, the University of Notre Dame, the University of Mississippi, Northern Michigan University, the University of Illinois at both Urbana and Chicago, the University of Missouri, the University of Memphis, Oregon State University, the University of Portland, Union College, Drew University, Augustana College, the Lawrenceville and St. Andrews Prep Schools, and other schools and colleges.
In December 2006, Cathy was elected to a three-year term representing adjunct faculty in the Delegate Assembly of the Modern Language Association of America.
Cathy lives with Gerald and their son, Aaron, in Chicago, Illinois.
Contact: cbgraff[at]uic.edu