Abigail Orenstein Ash, PhD

• https://merliterary.com/2022/07/06/easy-beauty-by-chloe-cooper-jones/
• https://merliterary.com/2022/04/01/the-nine-lives-of-rose-napolitano-by-donna-freitas/
• https://chestnuthilllocal.com/stories/a-wissahickon-of-the-mind-valley-green-key-to-sanity-in-2020,16040
• https://chestnuthilllocal.com/stories/parents-of-the-northwest-greg-and-whitney-grant,22969
• https://chestnuthilllocal.com/stories/parents-of-the-northwest-music-with-gina,23100
• https://chestnuthilllocal.com/stories/parents-of-the-northwest-neva-givnish,23510

500 Hour Yoga Teacher Training, Kripalu Yoga Center, Yoga on Main

• Outstanding Instructor Award, Temple University - 2011
• Dissertation Completion Grant, Temple University - 2017

I focus on the rhetoric of the mind/body, the emotional/affective consequences of education, the language and voice of mental illness, and chronic pain narratives. Because of my perspective and passion for conceiving of teaching and learning as a location of personal struggle and personal healing, my dissertation, defended in 2017, unearths and defines the yogic undercurrent of the discipline of rhetorical studies and writing pedagogy. I define this yogic undercurrent within a vocabulary I term yogic agency. Yogic agency is a perspective of writing pedagogy and practice for the writing classroom. Within the theory and practice of yogic agency is revised understanding of the writing classroom, or what I term, “tenderness toward groundlessness.” Prior to my Doctorate, I completed intensive training in yoga and meditation, theatre and improvisation. My passion and preoccupation with yoga as both a physical and mental perspective undergirds all of my research, teaching and pedagogy. The inevitable physical and mental struggles of life I thus conceive not as separate from, but as integral to, teaching and learning. Ultimately, using my background in acting, dance and yoga, I aim to integrate a philosophy of improvisation (saying “yes, and—”) in each classroom that I lead. My goal each day is to mobilize student agency insofar as I lay the groundwork for students to trust their own rhetorical choices and eventually, their clinical language and actions. 

rhetoric, writing pedagogy, disability studies, yogic perspective, the language of mental illness.