Digital Bibliography

(Specialized Research Exam Proposal)

Committee: Drs. Journet (chair), Wolfe, Horner

Renegotiating Composition: Digital Technologies, New Literacies, and the Material Conditions of Composing

Definitions of literacy are culturally negotiated and bound to technology. Student writing practices, our pedagogical approaches to composition, and our disciplinary scholarship are all constituted through various material technologies. Those technologies are imbued with cultural values, and those same values are reinforced by the very technologies they shape. These cultural and material resources are variously referred to within the scope of literacy. Practices of reading and writing, information storage and distribution, methods of investigation and scholarship are all directly related to “literacy.” But this term is often contested. It is sometimes understood as a tool for cultural differentiation and control of resources and sometimes as a concept essential to equal access for all people. Regardless of the term’s connotations, cultural notions of literacy are necessarily tied to changes in technologies and how people understand those technologies.

Emerging technologies have always challenged existing definitions of literacy. The advent of digital technologies has certainly done so, but the pace at which these changes are taking place makes these issues especially important. One of the most powerful approaches to understanding the relationships between technology and literacy comes from cultural materialist critiques of existing scholarship in Rhetoric and Composition that discuss technologies in terms of pedagogy. Cultural materialist scholarship responds to factors such as physical space and access to material resources such as time, research materials, and technology. I envision a dissertation which concretely situates and rhetorically constructs Composition technologies at the confluence of contested literacy definitions, cultural notions of technology, and localized material conditions.

To complete this project, I will need to read in four areas of scholarship: a) the changing definitions of literacy in response to technology; b) philosophies of technology; c) cultural materialism and related theories; d) existing scholarship in Rhetoric and Composition focusing on the relationships between literacy and digital technology. I expect that this project will demonstrate the need for pedagogies that more explicitly respond to and foreground the cultural and material dimensions of incorporating new technologies into composition pedagogies.

Primary Scholarship Areas

Changing definitions of literacy in response to technology

I will survey past discussions of literacy, especially as it relates to changing cultural technologies. These readings will allow me to situate current scholarship on emergent writing technologies and literacies in a larger historical context. Questions:

• In what ways have the emergence of recent digital technologies impacted cultural and disciplinary notions of writing and literacy?
• In what ways might past and recent redefinitions of literacy be understood in the context of cultural power relationships?
• How have specific changes in technologies of literacy affected shifting cultural definitions of literacy?

Philosophies of Technology

I will explore various theoretical discussions of technology and culture with an emphasis on those theories most influential to rhetorical constructions of technologies in recent Rhetoric and Composition scholarship. Questions:

• What do specific theories of technology and culture suggest about writing as a technology, and how is that theoretical understanding changing in light of emerging communicative technologies?
• In what ways do specific theories of technology and culture operate within arguments for pedagogies that are more responsive to and inclusive of emerging technologies?

Cultural Materialism and Related Social Theories

I will investigate scholarship central to discussions of technology in composition classrooms, focusing especially on the foundations of cultural material analyses. Additionally, I will draw on several scholars whose work offers theoretical frames which might productively inflect cultural material critiques already operating in our discipline. Questions:

• In what ways have scholars employed cultural materialist critiques within the scope of Rhetoric and Composition?
• How might alternative strategies of cultural and social analyses inform or reshape recent cultural materialist analyses of Composition?

Existing Scholarship in Rhetoric and Composition on Digital Technology and Pedagogy

I will read widely within a body of Rhetoric and Composition scholarship that focuses on the relationships between literacy, digital technologies, and pedagogy. Questions:

• How do specific theories of technology and definitions of literacy inform the orientation of these studies to the cultural material conditions of writing classrooms?
• On what grounds and for what purposes do these studies explicitly invoke or call into question theories of technology and definitions of literacy?

Bibliography

Changing definitions of literacy in response to technology

Baron, D. (1999). From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy Technologies. Passions, Pedagogies, and 21st Century Technologies. G. E. Hawisher and C. L. Selfe. Logan, UT, Utah State UP: 15-33.

Bolter, J. D. (2001). Writing Space: Computers, Hypertext, and the Remediation of Print. Mahwah, NJ and London, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Bolter, J. D. and R. Grusin (2000). Remediation: Understanding New Media. Cambridge, MA, MIT.

Callow, J. (2006). “Images, politics and multiliteracies: Using a visual metalanguage.” Journal of Language and Literacy 29(1): 7-23.

Charney, D. (1994). The Effect of Hypertext on Processes of Reading and Writing. Literacy and Computers: The Complications of Teaching and Learning with Technology. C. L. Selfe and S. Hilligoss. New York, Modern Language Association of America: 238-263.

Cope, B. and M. Kalantzis (2000). Designs for Social Futures. Multiliteracies: Literacy learning and the design of social futures. B. Cope and M. Kalantzis. New York, Routledge: 203-234.

Costanzo, W. (1994). Reading, Writing, and Thinking in an Age of Electronic Literacy. Literacy and Computers: The Complications of Teaching and Learning with Technology. C. L. Selfe and S. Hilligoss. New York, Modern Language Association: 11-21.

Eisenstein, E. L. (2005). The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe. New York, Cambridge UP.

Faigley, L. (1997). “Literacy After the Revolution.” College Composition and Communication 48(1): 30-43.

Graff, H. J. (1991). The Literacy Myth: Cultural Integration and Social Structure in the Nineteenth Century. New Brunswick and London, Transaction Publishers.

Haas, C. (1996). Writing Technology: Studies on the Materiality of Literacy. Mahwah, NJ, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Haas, C. and C. M. Neuwirth (1994). Writing the Technology That Writes Us: Research on Literacy and the Shape of Technology. Literacy and Computers: The Complications of Teaching and Learning with Technology. C. L. Selfe and S. Hilligoss. New York, MLA: 319-35.

Hawisher, G. E. and C. L. Selfe (1997). Reflections on Computers and Composition Studies at the Century’s End. Page to Screen: Taking Literacy Into the Electronic Era. I. Snyder. London, Routledge: 3-19.

Inman, J. (2004). Computers and Writing: The Cyborg Era. Mahwah, NJ, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Jewitt, C. (2005). “Multimodality, ‘Reading’, and ‘Writing’ for the 21st Century.” Discourse: studies in the cultural politics of education 26(3): 315-331.

Kellner, D. M. (1998). Technological Revolution, Multiple Literacies, and the Restructuring of Education. Silicon Literacies: Communication, Innovation and Education in the Electronic Age. I. Snyder. New York, Routledge: 154-169.

Kleinman, N. (2003). The Digital Revolution Ain’t So Bad. TNT: Texts and Technology. J. R. Walker and O. O. Oviedo. Cresskill, NJ, Hampton Press, Inc.: 283-307.

Kress, G. (2003). Literacy in the New Media Age. New York, Routledge.

Kress, G. (2000). Multimodality. Multiliteracies: Literacy learning and the design of social futures. B. Cope and M. Kalantzis. New York, Routledge: 182-202.

Lanham, R. A. (1993). The Electronic Word: Democracy, Technology, and the Arts. Chicago, U of Chicago Press.

Myers, M. (1996). Changing Our Minds: Negotiating English and Literacy. Urbana, IL, NCTE.

Ong, W. J. (1988). Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. New York, Routledge.

Ong, W. J. (1971). Rhetoric, Romance, and Technology: Studies in the Interaction of Expression and Culture. Ithaca and London, Cornell UP.

Selber, S. A. (2004). Multiliteracies for a Digital Age. Carbondale, Southern Illinois UP.

Selfe, C. L. (1999). Technology and Literacy in the Twenty-First Century: The Importance of Paying Attention. Carbondale, IL, Southern Illinois UP.

Snyder, I. (1997). Beyond the Hype: Reassessing Hypertext. Page to Screen: Taking Literacy Into the Electronic Era. I. Snyder. London, Routledge: 125-143.

Snyder, I. (1996). Hypertext: The Electronic Labyrinth. Melbourne and New York, New York UP.

Snyder, I. (1997). Page to Screen. Page to Screen: Taking Literacy Into the Electronic Era. I. Snyder. London, Routledge: xx-xxxvi.

Tuman, M. C. (1983). “Words, Tools, and Technology.” College English 45(8): 769-779.

Philosophies of Technology

Bowers, C. A. (1988). The Cultural Dimensions of Educational Computing. New York, Teachers College Press.

Craig, L. R. and A. Flood (1998). “Selling Possibilities.” Journal of Business and Technical Communication 12(4): 455-471.

Douglas, J. Y. (1993). “Social Impacts of Computing: The Framing of Hypertext-Revolutionary for Whom?” Social Sciences Computer Review 11(4): 417-428.

Ellul, J. (2003). On the Aims of a Philosophy of Technology. Philosophy of Technology. R. C. Scharff and V. Dusek. Malden, MA, Blackwell: 182-186.

Ellul, J. (2003). The ‘Autonomy’ of the Technological Phenomenon. Philosophy of Technology. R. C. Scharff and V. Dusek. Malden, MA, Blackwell: 386-397.

Feenberg, A. (1999). Questioning Technology. New York, Routledge.

Feenberg, A. (2002). Transforming Technology: A Critical Theory Revisited. New York, Oxford UP.

Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and Punish. New York, Vintage.

Habermas, J. (2003). Technical Progress and the Social Life-World. Philosophy of Technology. R. C. Scharff and V. Dusek. Malden, MA, Blackwell: 530-535.

Haraway, D. (2003). A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist -Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century. Philosophy of Technology. R. C. Scharff and V. Dusek. Malden, MA, Blackwell: 429-450.

Hayles, N. K. (1999). How We Became Posthuman – Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. Chicago, U of Chicago P.

Heidegger, M. (2003). The Question Concerning Technology. Philosophy of Technology. R. C. Scharff and V. Dusek. Malden, MA, Blackwell: 252-264.

Ihde, D. (2003). Heidegger’s Philosophy of Technology. Philosophy of Technology. R. C. Scharff and V. Dusek. Malden, MA, Blackwell: 277-291.

Johnson-Eilola, J. and A. C. K. Hea (2003). “After Hypertext: Other Ideas.” Computers and Composition 20(4): 415-425.

Kaplan, S. M. a. N. (1994). They Became What They Beheld: The Futility of Resistance in the Space of Electronic Writing. Literacy and Computers: The Complications of Teaching and Learning with Technology. C. L. Selfe and S. Hilligoss. New York, Modern Language Association: 220-237.

Marcuse, H. (2003). The New Forms of Control. Philosophy of Technology. R. C. Scharff and V. Dusek. Malden, MA, Blackwell: 405-412.

Ohman, R. (2008). Literacy, Technology, and Monopoly Capital. Computers in the Composition Classroom. M. Sidler, R. Morris and E. O. Smith. Boston, Bedford/St. Martin’s: 20-34.

Porter, J. (2003). “Why Technology Matters to Writing: A Cyberwriter’s tale.” Computers and Composition 20(3): 375-394.

Cultural materialism and related social theories

Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge, MA, Harvard UP.

Bruce, B. C. and M. P. Hogan (1998). The Disappearance of Technology: Toward an Ecological Model of Literacy. Handbook of Literacy and Technology: Transformations in a Post-Typographic World. D. Reinking, M. C. McKenna, L. D. Labbo and R. D. Kieffer. Mahwah, NJ and London, Lawrence Earlbaum Associates: 269-282.

Canagarajah, A. S. (1996). “‘Nondiscursive’ Requirements in Academic Publishing, Material Resources of Periphery Scholars, and the Politics of Knowledge Production.” Written Communication 13: 435-472.

Giddens, A. (1979). Central Problems in Social Theory. Berkely and Los Angeles, U of California Press.

Horner, B. (2000). Terms of Work for Composition. Albany, SUNY Press.

Hult, C. A. (2008). The Computer and the Inexperienced Writer. Computers in the Composition Classroom. M. Sidler, R. Morris and E. O. Smith. Boston, Bedford/St. Martin’s: 326-332.

Kirschenbaum, M. G. (2008). Introduction: ‘‘Awareness of the Mechanism’’. Mechanisms. Cambridge, MA and London, MIT Press: 1-23.

Popken, R. (2004). “Edwin Hopkins and the Costly Labor of Composition Teaching.” College Composition and Communication 55(4): 618-641.

Purves, A. (1998). Flies in the Web of Hypertext. Handbook of Literacy and Technology: Transformations in a Post-Typographic World. D. Reinking, M. C. McKenna, L. D. Labbo and R. D. Kieffer. Mahwah, NJ and London, Lawrence Earlbaum Associates: 235-252.

Selfe, C. L. (1999). Lest We Think the Revolution is a Revolution: Images of Technology and the Nature of Change. Passions, Pedagogies, and 21st Century Technologies. G. E. Hawisher and C. L. Selfe. Logan, UT, Utah State UP: 292-322.

Selfe, C. L. and G. E. Hawisher (2004). Literate Lives in the Information Age. Mahwah, NJ, Lawrence Erlbaum.

Selfe, C. L. and R. J. Selfe (2002). Intellectual Work of Computers and Composition Studies. Rhetoric and Composition as Intellectual Work. G. A. Olson, Southern Illinois UP: 203-220.

Strenski, E. (2001). Fa(c)ulty Wiring? Energy, Power, Work and Resistance. Insurrections: Approaches to Resistance in Composition Studies. A. Greenbaum. Albany, SUNY UP: 89-117.

Trimbur, J. (2000). “Composition and the Circulation of Writing.” College Composition and Communication 52(2): 188-219.

White, D. R. (1998). Postmodern Ecology: Communication, Evolution, and Play. Albany, SUNY Press.

Williams, R. (1977). Marxism and Literature. New York, Oxford UP.

Williams, R. (1980). Problems in Materialism and Culture. London, Verso.

Technology and Composition Pedagogy

Albers, P. (2006). “Imagining the Possibilities in Multimodal Curriculum Design.” English Education 38(2): 75-101.

Andrews, R., A. Robinson, et al. (2004). Introduction. The Impact of ICT on Literacy Education. R. Andrews. London, Routledge: 1-33.

Andrews, R. (2004). Conclusion. The Impact of ICT on Literacy Education. R. Andrews. London, Routledge: 202-214.

Anson, C. M. (1999). “Distant Voices: Teaching and Writing in a Culture of Technology.” College English 61(3): 261-80.

Barton, E. L. (1994). Interpreting the Discourses of Technology. Literacy and Computers: The Complications of Teaching and Learning with Technology. C. L. Selfe and S. Hilligoss. New York, Modern Language Association: 56-75.

Davis, R. and M. Shadle (2000). “”Building a Mystery”: Alternative Research Writing and the Academic Act of Seeking.” College Composition and Communication 51(3): 417-446.

DeVoss, D. N., E. Cushman, et al. (2005). “Infrastructure and Composing: The When of New-Media Writing.” College Composition and Communication 57(1): 14-44.

George, D. (2002). “From Analysis to Design: Visual Communication in the Teaching of Writing.” College Composition and Communication 54(1): 11-39.

Hawisher, G. E. and C. L. Selfe (1991). “The Rhetoric of Technology and the Electronic Writing Class.” College Composition and Communication 42(1): 55-65.

Journet, D. (2007). “Inventing myself in multimodality: Encouraging senior faculty to use digital media.” Computers and Composition 24(1): 107-120.

Kamil, M. L. and D. M. Lane (1998). Researching the Relation Between Technology and Literacy: An Agenda for the 21st Century. Handbook of Literacy and Technology: Transformations in a Post-Typographic World. D. Reinking, M. C. McKenna, L. D. Labbo and R. D. Kieffer. Mahwah, NJ and London, Lawrence Earlbaum Associates: 323-342.

Kress, G. (1999). ‘English’ at the Crossroads: Rethinking Curricula of Communication in the Context of the Turn to the Visual. Passions, Pedagogies, and 21st Century Technologies. G. E. Hawisher and C. L. Selfe. Logan, UT, Utah State UP: 66-88.

Kress, G. (2005). “Gains and losses: New forms of texts, knowledge, and learning.” Computers and Composition 55(1): 5-22.

Neilsen, L. (1998). Coding the Light: Rethinking Generational Authority in a Rural High School Telecommunications Project. Handbook of Literacy and Technology: Transformations in a Post-Typographic World. D. Reinking, M. C. McKenna, L. D. Labbo and R. D. Kieffer. Mahwah, NJ and London, Lawrence Earlbaum Associates: 129-144.

New London Group (1996). “A Pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures.” Harvard Educational Review 66(1): 60-92.

Rice, J. (2007). The Rhetoric of Cool: Composition Studies and New Media. Carbondale, IL, Southern Illinois UP.

Shipka, J. (2005). “A Multimodal Task-Based Framework for Composing.” College Composition and Communication 57(2): 277-306.

Snyder, I. (1998). Silicon Literacies. Silicon Literacies: Communication, Innovation and Education in the Electronic Age. I. Snyder. London, Routledge: 3-12.

Wysocki, A. F. (2001). “Impossibly Distinct.” Computers and Composition 18: 209-234.

Yancey, K. B., Ed. (2006). Delivering College Composition. Portsmouth, NH, Boynton/Cook.

Yancey, K. B. (2004). “Made Not Only in Words: Composition in a New Key.” College Composition and Communication 56(2): 297-328.

Yancey, K. B., A. Lunsford, et al. (2004). “CCCC Position Statement on Teaching, Learning, and Assessing Writing in Digital Environments.” Retrieved April 13, 2008, from http://www.ncte.org/cccc/resources/positions/123773.htm.