past newsletters

The OSU Literacy Studies Working Group of
The Institute for Collaborative Research and Public Humanities

Winter 2007 Newsletter

Welcome!

As I write, we await final approval for the Graduate Interdisciplinary Specialization (GIS) in Literacy Studies by the Graduate Council and the Council on Academic Affairs. The process has been delayed by impending changes in the governing structures and processes of the Graduate School in the wake of the Freeman and especially the Beck Committee Recommendations. We are told that action will come soon and quickly, allowing us to prepare for the start of the program in Autumn, 2007.

Following a final planning meeting in early December, the newly authorized University Council on Literacy Studies (UCLS) is scheduled to begin its efforts to foster communication, coordination, and cooperation on issues relating to literacy and literacy studies across programs, colleges, schools, and across the OSU campus. Associate Provost Randy Smith is the founding chair, with representatives from Education, English, and other active sectors of the university community.

We are actively engaged in planning for Winter and Spring Quarter programs as the contents and previews of this installment of the newsletter indicate. We host two distinguished and exciting visitors in April and May with Scott McCloud and Deborah Brandt.

Our successful activities--public programs, graduate student interdisciplinary seminar on literacy studies (in numbers and spirit perhaps the most successful)--and the history of the book group all continue into 2007.

In 2007-2008, we expect the GIS to have its formal beginning and take in its first class. We are considering programs on Literacy and Language and Performance Literacies (Part II), a visit from the noted historian of science, women, and reading, Barbara Sicherman, among other activities, established and novel. Join us!

Harvey J. Graff
December, 2007

A Snapshot of Upcoming Events

Thursday, January 25, 4:00 Literacy and Writing Across Space and Place
Organized and moderated by Mindy Wright and Beverly Moss, with presentations on "Writing Ourselves into a Culture," "The Metro School, A Science Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics High School," and "Eco-Writing."
4:00 – 5:30 p.m. Institute for Collaborative Research and Public Humanities at the George Wells Knight House 104 E. 15th Avenue. Refreshments Will Be Served. RSVP to Elizabeth Lantz at lantz.38@osu.edu.

Friday, January 26, 11:30 a.m.
For Graduate Students: Interdisciplinary Seminar on Literacy Studies.
Literacy Representations of Trauma, with Alana Kumbier and Wendy Wolters Hinshaw 11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. Institute for Collaborative Research and Public Humanities at the George Wells Knight House 104 E. 15th Avenue. Lunch is provided. For more information, contact Kate White at white.1142@osu.edu.

Friday, February 23, 11:30
For Graduate Students: Interdisciplinary Seminar on Literacy Studies.
A Literacy Studies Miscellany: Recent work and Work in Progress
11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. Institute for Collaborative Research and Public Humanities at the George Wells Knight House 104 E. 15th Avenue. Lunch is provided. For more information, contact Kate White at white.1142@osu.edu.

Thursday, March 1, 4:00 The Book as an Object of Historical Inquiry with Cynthia Brokaw (History), Alan Farmer (English), Stephen Hall (History), Richard Torrance (East Asian Languages and Literatures), David Staley (History; The Goldberg Center)
4:00 – 5:30 p.m. Institute for Collaborative Research and Public Humanities at the George Wells Knight House 104 E. 15th Avenue. Refreshments will be served. RSVP to Elizabeth Lantz at lantz.38@osu.edu.

History of the Book Study Group, dates TBA. For information, contact Cynthia Brokow (Department of History) brokaw.22@osu.edu.

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Literacy and Writing Across Space and Place Thursday, January 25, 4:00 p.m.

Writing in academic spaces follows conventions that we are all used to: faculty and student research papers that are meant to be read, faculty lectures that are intended to be spoken, student class assignments intended to demonstrate mastery of content, etc. In this panel presentation, we will hear about written literacy practices that happen in spaces between and community and the academy.

Coordinators: Mindy Wright and Beverly Moss

"Writing Ourselves into a Culture"
"The Metro School, A Science Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics High School"
"Eco-Writing"
4:00 – 5:30 p.m. Institute for Collaborative Research and Public Humanities at the George Wells Knight House 104 E. 15th Avenue. Refeshments will be served. RSVP to Elizabeth Lantz at lantz.38@osu.edu.

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The Book as an Object of Historical Inquiry Thursday, March 1, 4:00 p.m.

In 1958 the French scholars Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin published The Coming of the Book, a call for serious study of the "social and cultural history of communication" by the written word, hand-written or printed. This challenge was the first step in the creation of what has now become a distinct field of study: "the history of the book." In the half century since the publication of their work, scholars of Europe, America, and Asia have responded with a flood of monographs on a wide range of "book history" topics: claims for print as a vehicle for scientific revolution and religious reformation, studies of changing literacy levels and the interaction between oral and written traditions, efforts to identify the social constitution of different reading publics, and analyses of changing reading practices and responses, to name just a few. Book history is necessarily interdisciplinary, and book historians draw on the methods of a variety of disciplines—analytical bibliography, textual criticism and reader response analysis, art history, economics, history of science and technology, statistics, and social history.

"The Book as an Object of Historical Inquiry" is designed to suggest, in the time available, something of the range of methods used and topics and cultures studied by historians of the book:

Cynthia Brokaw (History), moderator Alan Farmer (English): Drama Publishing in the Renaissance Stephen Hall (History): From Oration to Narrative: African American Engagement with Print Culture in 19th Century America. Richard Torrance (East Asian Languages and Literatures): Calculating Literacy in Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Japan David Staley (The Goldberg Center, History): The Future of the Book in the Age of the Internet

4:00 – 5:30 p.m. Institute for Collaborative Research and Public Humanities at the George Wells Knight House 104 E. 15th Avenue. Refreshments will be served. RSVP to Elizabeth Lantz at lantz.38@osu.edu.

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Graduate Student Interdisciplinary Seminar on Literacy Studies

Friday, January 26, 11:30 a.m. Literacy and Representations of Trauma

Alana Kumbier (Department of Comparative Studies) I will present my preliminary analysis of a set of "files" from the Atlas Group Archive. I examine how the Atlas Group uses the form of the archival artifact (and its attendant practices: descriptive, organizational, interpretive, and representational) to produce knowledge about the contemporary history of Lebanon. I am interested in how the Atlas Group uses a familiar form (the archival artifact) to investigate the experiences of subjects during the Lebanese Civil War.

Wendy Wolters Hinshaw (Department of English) My work involves a study of art programs directed by a local foundation, ArtSafe, that are offered to youth offenders in youth and adult prisons in central Ohio. My current project involves an analysis of the critical literacies about themselves and their relationships to the prison institutions in which they live that the prisoners/artists develop and express through the rhetorical choices they make in their written and visual art.

11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. Institute for Collaborative Research and Public Humanities at the George Wells Knight House 104 E. 15th Avenue. Lunch is provided. For more information, contact Kate White at white.1142@osu.edu.

Fri., Feb. 23 11:30 a.m. A Literacy Studies Miscellany: Recent Work and Work in Progress 11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. Institute for Collaborative Research and Public Humanities at the George Wells Knight House 104 E. 15th Avenue. Lunch is provided. For more information, contact Kate White at white.1142@osu.edu.

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History of the Book Reading Group
The History of the Book Reading Group has been meeting monthly since last year. If you are interested in participating, contact Cynthia Brokaw, Department of History, brokaw.22@osu.edu.

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Interdiscinplinary Seminar on Literacy Studies
Graduate students from two universities, ten colleges, and twenty-odd departmental disciplines have been meeting monthly since 2005 to talk about literacy from a range of perspectives. The Graduate Student Interdisciplinary Seminar on Literacy Studies is supported by the Literacy Studies Working Group of the Institute for Collaborative Research and Public Humanities and the College of the Humanities.

An Invitation to all Graduate Students…
If you are interested in literacy, from virtually any perspective, you are invited to take advantage of the opportunity to discuss research, exchange ideas, and develop connections with your peers at the Graduate Student Interdisciplinary Seminar on Literacy Studies. Lunch is provided. For more information or to express interest, contact Kate White at white.1142@osu.edu.

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Other News

A preview of upcoming events…

Spring Quarter 2007

Scott McCloud, "Comics and Storytelling," Wednesday, April 4, 2007: Wexner Center auditorium.
Scott McCloud is a comic artist who has an unusual talent for explaining the magic of comics as narratives that marry words and images. His best known book is Understanding Comics, a book about the theory of comics informed by a heavy dose of narrative theory, theories of graphic interfaces. Understanding Comics was a Harvey and Eisner winner, was praised in The New York Times, Publishers Weekly and Wired, and published in over 13 languages.

Deborah Brandt on Writing Today, May 2-4, 2007: Public lecture and meetings with graduate students, faculty, staff. Deborah Brandt, Professor of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and author most recently of Literacy in American Lives (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001)—Winner of 2003 Grawemeyer Award in Education, Conference on College Composition and Communication Outstanding Book Award, 2003, Modern Language Association Mina P. Shaughnessy Outstanding Book Prize, 2002 Current research: Writing Now: New Developments in Mass Literacy. This study explores the ascendancy of writing as a second stage of mass literacy, focusing on the political, cultural and personal impact of writing as a means of production and economic competition in the American economy since about 1960. Drawing on interviews with 75 information workers in the Midwest, the study explores troublesome relationships between literacy as an economic asset and as an instrument of citizenship.

Friday, March 30
For Graduate Students: Interdisciplinary Seminar on Literacy Studies "Civic Literacy," with Michael Harker (Department of English) & Aaron McCain

Friday, April 27
For Graduate Students: Interdisciplinary Seminar on Literacy Studies "Copyrights and Classrooms," with Shawn Casey, Envera Dukaj, and Cormac Slevin, (Department of English) "Teaching Critical Literacies: Technology, Copyright, and Academic Writing," with Shawn Casey, Envera Dukaj, Cormac Slevin (Department of English) Changing technologies both in and out of the classroom offer instructors the opportunity to challenge and deepen the academic literacies students typically encounter in the disciplinary classroom. This presentation explores how engaging with "new" technologies can help students develop critical literacies in the areas of copyright and academic writing.

May 25 TBA

Literacy Studies at OSU: A New Initiative
We are developing a Literacy Studies Working Group, with the aim of fostering a sense of collaboration among different disciplinary clusters and their constituents, from the social and natural sciences to the arts and humanities, education, medicine, and law. The Literacy Studies Working Group intends to foster a critical, cross-campus conversation and investigation into the nature of literacy, bringing historical, contextual, comparative, and critical perspectives and modes of understanding together to stimulate new institutional and intellectual relationships.

LSWG Executive Committee
Harvey J. Graff, English & History graff.40@osu.edu
Steve Acker, TELR & Communications/Journalism acker.1@osu.edu
Mollie Blackburn, Education blackburn.99@osu.edu
Marcia Farr, Education & English farr.18@osu.edu
Anne Fields, Library fields.179@osu.edu
Henry Fields, Dentistry & prof. schools liaison fields.31@osu.edu
Susan Fisher, Biology fisher.14@osu.edu
Carolina Gill, Ind., Intr., & Visual Comm. Design gill.175@osu.edu
Kay Halasek, English halasek.1@osu.edu
Kay Bea Jones, Architecture jones.76@osu.edu
Alan Kalish, Teaching & Learning Center kalish.3@osu.edu
Beverly Moss, English & CSTW moss.1@osu.edu
Leslie Moore, Educationles moore@ucsc.edu
Amy Pope-Harman, Pulmonary & Critical Care harman-1@medctr.osu.edu
Cindy Selfe, English selfe.2@osu.edu
Amy Shuman, English & Folklore shuman.1@osu.edu
Kevin Tavin, Art Education tavin.1@osu.edu
Lewis Ulman, English & College of Humanities ulman.1@osu.edu

Mindy Wright, Director, Writing Workshop wright.7@osu.edu
Susan Hanson, PhD Candidate, English hanson.94@osu.edu
Lindsay DiCuirci, Doctoral Student, English dicuirci.2@osu.edu
Edward Adelson, Colleges of the Arts and Sciences adelson.3@osu.edu
Susan Metros, Design and CIO Office metros.1@osu.edu
Randy Smith, Vice Provost smith.70@osu.edu
Chris Zacher, Institute for Collaborative Research and Public Humanities zacher.1@osu.edu

Please visit: http://icrph.osu.edu/literacystudies/

The Literacy Studies Working Group is supported by the Institute for Collaborative Research and Public Humanities, the College of Humanities, the Department of English, and the Arts and Science Colleges at The Ohio State University

If you would like to subscribe to the LSWG listserv, contact Lindsay DiCuirci at dicuirci.2@osu.edu