User experience (UX) as both a vocation and a skillset is currently in the center of a wicked knot: emerging technologies such as generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) and large language models (LLMs) are (for the moment) widely accessible in unprecedented ways and are already heavily integrated into modern workplace practices and educational spaces. Further, workplace demands have led to a change in perception of the function and value of UX, and the field is facing new obstacles to hiring and research funding. Our article argues that a resituation of UX is needed: we-as instructors and administrators-need to focus on UX as an act of slow, embodied, and multimodal UX composition. To do this work, we offer the strategy of détournement as central to UX curriculum and preparing students for design work in a variety of rhetorical situations, expressed through our example assignments for instructors to implement within the college classroom.

This article weaves narrative, tweets, relevant literature, and conference session summaries from the 2021 ATTW Virtual Conference. Topics include discussion of power, language, and a short guide for graduate students (predominantly first-generation) to assist with navigating virtual conferences. The article includes questions and ideas that scholars in technical communication may be interested in further exploring, and urges such scholars/instructors in positions of privilege to support graduate students. The reflections center a graduate student’s position as a white cisgender woman and first-generation college student exploring the uncertainties involved with attending and navigating power relations at a virtual conference. This positionality informs a reflection of sessions from panels such as the DBLAC Anti-Racist Writing Workshop, Responsive Technical Communication Pedagogies and Institutional Practices, Critical Technical Communication Practices and Pedagogies, User-Generated Content and its Effects on the Technical Communication Profession, Technologies and Pedagogies, and more.