graduate student programs

Interdisciplinary Seminar for Graduate Students

On Friday, April 25th at 11:30 A.M. in the George Wells Knight House graduate students will meet in anticipation of the Spring Lecture on Literacy Studies by Heather Williams on May 1, we will discuss three related works at this month's meeting of the grad sem.

• Janet Cornelius's "We Slipped and Learned to Read: Slave Accounts of the Literacy Process, 1830-1860." Phylon 44 (1983) 171-186. [PDF]
• Heather Williams's " 'Clothing Themselves in Intelligence': The Freedpeople, Schooling, and Northern Teachers, 1861-1871." Journal of African American History 87 (Fall 2002): 372-90. [PDF]
• E. Jennifer Monaghan's "Reading for the Enslaved, Writing for the Free: Reflections on Liberty and Literacy," Proceedings, American Antiquarian Society, 108 (1998), 308-341. [PDF]

Graduate students from more than twenty disciplinary departments participate in the Graduate Student Interdisciplinary Seminar in Literacy Studies. Their goal is to extend the conversation campus-wide. The group meets monthly, usually on the final Friday, for lunch and a student-organized program or presentation and discussion. We encourage graduate students interested in literacy to attend these informal seminars. The group includes students at every stage of study. For information, contact the Chair, Kate White, at white.1142@osu.edu.

Graduate Interdisciplinary Specialization in Literacy Studies

The Graduate Interdisciplinary Specialization in Literacy Studies is designed to help prepare students to produce new knowledge and participate in the greater conversation about literacy and literacy studies.

This interdisciplinary specialization in literacy studies extends the educational and research experiences of any graduate student who wants to explore the role and relevance of reading and writing, no matter how broadly defined.

International Conference for Graduate Students

OSU graduate students are hosting Expanding Literacy Studies, an international, interdisciplinary conference for graduate students, on April 3-5, 2009 on the OSU campus. Students from nine major universities are joining OSU students in the planning. The theme takes its cues from the larger conversation on literacy and literacy studies: the persisting questions about definitions and domains, the continuities and discontinuities between various disciplinary perspectives, the many myths, modes, and measures of literacy, together with the growing number of new and emergent literacies. The conference aims to extend the dialogue, explore the landscape, and map the intersections of Literacy Studies as a framework for critical investigation.

For more information, contact the conference co-chairs:

Graduate Student Organization

Graduate students who participate in the Interdisciplinary Seminar formed the Graduate Interdisciplinary Literacy Studies Organization (GILSO), registered in 2007, to help raise awareness at OSU about literacy and literacy studies. For more information, contact the president, Kelly Bradbury, at bradbury.18@osu.edu.