newsletter

In This Issue:

• Upcoming Talks, Seminars, and Special Events
• Inaugural Ohio State University Lecture on Literacy Studies
• History of the Book Winter Schedule
• Performance Literacy
• Literacy Studies Launches New Site
• Graduate Student Conference: A Report
• Introducing LiteracyStudies@OSU and Modeling Collaboration at the CCCC’s
• LiteracyStudies@OSU: An Initiative

Upcoming Talks, Seminars, and Special Events

Friday, January 25, 2008 11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. ICRPH Knight House 104 E. 15th Ave
Graduate Student Interdisciplinary Seminar on Literacy Studies: Visual Literacy, with presentations by Mercè Graell-Colas (Industrial, Interior, and Visual Communication Design) and Shari Savage (Art Education). Organized by Kate White (English).

Thursday, January 31, 2008 (Date Tenative) 4:00 P.M. ICRPH Knight House 104 E. 15th Ave
Scientific Literacies, organized by Susan Fisher (Biology).

Friday, February 29, 2008 11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. ICRPH Knight House 104 E. 15th Ave
Graduate Student Interdisciplinary Seminar on Literacy Studies: Cross-Cultural Literacies, a program organized Shawn Casey (English).

Thursday, March 6, 2008 4:00 P.M. ICRPH Knight House 104 E. 15th Ave
The Ohio State University Lecture on Literacy Studies, featuring John Duffy (University of Notre Dame) on Hmong Literacy in Asia and America.

Friday, March 28, 2008 11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. ICRPH Knight House 104 E. 15th Ave
Graduate Student Interdisciplinary Seminar on Literacy Studies: Commonplace, a report on the "networking site and a web space where students perform the roles of author, critic, and editor," organized by Michael Harker (English) and Aaron McKain (English).

Thursday, April 17, 2008 4:00 P.M. ICRPH Knight House 104 E. 15th Ave
Languages and Literacies, with presentations by Fritz Graf (Greek and Latin), Jim Unger (East Asian Languages and Literatures), Leslie Moore (Education and Human Ecology), and Elaine Richardson (Education and Human Ecology). Organized and moderated by Marcia Farr,

Friday, April 25, 2008 11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. ICRPH Knight House 104 E. 15th Ave
Graduate Student Interdisciplinary Seminar on Literacy Studies. African Americans and Literacy, organized by Lindsay Dicuirci (English).

Thursday, May 1, 2008 4:00 p.m. ICRPH Knight House 104 E. 15th Ave
Guest Lecture: Heather Williams (History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) on African American Education in Slavery and Freedom.

January, 2009 Ohio State University
Annual Ohio State University Lecture on Literacy Studies, featuring Lesley Bartlett (Teachers College, Columbia University) on the Cultural Politics of Literacy in Brazil.

April 3-5, 2009 Ohio State University
Expanding Literacy Studies, An International, Interdisciplinary Conference for Graduate Students, sponsored by LiteracyStudies@OSU.

Inaugural Ohio State University Lecture on Literacy Studies

This March will inaugurate of The Ohio State University Lecture on Literacy Studies with a lecture by John Duffy, Associate Professor, Department of English and the Francis O'Malley Director of the University Writing Program at Notre Dame.

The goal of this annual lecture series is to make OSU the place for both well-established and younger scholars to preview major studies and present significant new works. John Duffy's lecture on March 6 will focus on his work with Hmong in U.S. and Asia.

American literature has been shaped from its inception by the diversity of its people, each with a voice resonating from at least two corners of the world. Duffy (English, U. of Notre Dame) takes as his case study of this phenomenon a small community of Laotian Hmong who came to the US in the wake of the Vietnam War. The Hmong literary tradition may seem to be rather short, as it was not set into written form until missionaries did so in the twentieth century, and many did not read or write in any language until they came to the US. Duffy examines how people without formal reading or writing skills attain them, especially when they exist in a new and alien culture and have little or no contact with that from which they came. The result is a fascinating study of the effects of globalization, old and new.

Duffy's area of expertise is the historical development of literacy and rhetoric in cross-cultural contexts. He is the author of Writing from These Roots: The Historical Development of Literacy in a Hmong-American Community (University of Hawaii Press, 2007), which documents the literacy development of the Hmong. Duffy is also the co-editor of The Rhetoric of Everyday Life (University of Wisconsin Press, 2003).

The Ohio State University Lecture on Literacy Studies series is supported with funding from the Colleges of the Arts and Sciences, matched by the College of Dentistry, the College of Art, the College of Biological Sciences, the University Libraries, and the Department of Entomology.

History of the Book Winter Schedule

The History of the Book Reading and Discussion Group has an exciting list of presentations lined up for the winter quarter.

Friday, January 25, 3:30 - 5:30PM Beth Quitslund from Ohio University (our first outside speaker!) will be speaking on The Book of Metrical Psalms by Sternhold and Hopkins, perhaps the biggest best seller in early modern England (there are, I believe, about 482 extant editions printed before 1642). I will be sending out drafts of her paper in the week before our meeting to those who plan to attend.

Friday, February 15, 3:30 - 5:30PM Jonathan Burgoyne, Spanish and Portuguese Department, will be discussing translation and translations of wisdom literature in medieval Castile.

Friday, February 29, 3:30 - 5:30PM We'll have two presenters from the Department of English this day. Lindsay Dicuirci will be discussing her current research on 19th-century editions of Cotton Mather's Magnalia Christi Americana, the Second Great Awakening, and the publication of antiquarian tracts. Shawn Casey will discuss his work on George Fisher's Young Man's Best Companion in the context of mid-eighteenth-century letter writing manuals, practices, and representations.

For more information about the History of the Book Reading and Discussion group, contact group moderator Alan Farmer.
—Alan Farmer

Goldberg Teaching Colloquium

The Goldberg Teaching Colloquium is a monthly meeting in the Department of History for the benefit of our faculty and graduate students. The purpose of our meetings is to discuss ideas and share best practices about "nuts and bolts" issues of teaching.

Starting this quarter we open participation in the colloquium to the wider College community in the hope of stimulating discussion among the various departments. I hope that you or interested colleagues can join us. Graduate students are especially welcome, as they usually make up the majority at most meetings.

Past colloquia have included topics such as how to best conduct a class discussion; how do teachers, students (and parents) view a grade; how might we employ multimedia in our classes. More broadly, the goal of the colloquium is to "publish" (that is, "make public") our teaching (a relatively private act, in that we rarely share teaching ideas and practices with our colleagues).

Please join us on Friday January 18 at 11:30 in 168 Dulles Hall. Our topic will be: How Do Our Students Read? Assuming that our students actually read what we assign to them, what assumptions and practices of reading do our students bring into our classes? How do these compare to the assumptions and expectations we bring as teachers? How has the online world shaped how our students read? How might we best mentor our students in their reading practices? Please come prepared to share experiences and best practices. Pizza will be provided. Please RSVP to David Staley (staley.3@osu.edu) by Thursday January 17 by 12:00 noon.

—David Staley

Language(s) and Literacy/ies

Marcia Farr, a sociolinguist in the College of Education and Human Ecology and Department of English, is organizing a panel on Languages and Literacies, April 17 at 4:00 at the George Wells Knight House. The term "literacy" has been used metaphorically in recent years to refer to realms beyond written language: "visual literacy," "health literacy," "scientific literacy," and so on. While there are some obvious reasons for this trend, it makes literacy sound like a single, uniform ability.

To raise awareness of the differences in histories of literacy in particular speech communities, the four participants on this panel will present and discuss literacies in different parts of the world. They are:

• Fritz Graf, Greek and Latin
• Leslie Moore, Education and Human Ecology
• Elaine Richardson, Education and Human Ecology
• Jim Unger, East Asian Languages and Literatures

For more information, contact Marcia Farr.
—Marcia Farr

Performance Literacy

Two years ago, we put together a panel discussion on Performance Literacy as one of a series of discussions around aspects of literacy studies. I thought that the initial discussion was helpful in framing some of the central questions related to what it means to be a "literate" participant or audience in artistic performance and production.

I am excited about convening a second program that can continue to explore what we mean when we refer to performance and literacy; the ways "performance literacy" relates to literacy in the realms of reading and writing; the necessity for context in understanding artistic performance; the relationship between artistic creation and artistic consumption; how conspicuous the artistic creator or author needs to be to inform the audience/observer; the role and understanding of artistic license and interpretation; the role of being literate as an audience or consumer of art, if Hume is right that "beauty is not a quality of the object, but a certain feeling of the spectator"; and the inherent aesthetic sensibilities suggested by the possibility of a (Chomsky-esque) "universal musical grammar."

An initial meeting of colleagues interested in performance and its relationship to literacy centered on the following topics:

• the synergies and tensions between performer and academic
• the necessity for a sense of exclusivity in performance that results in an articulation of insider and outsider as they relate to a performance practice
• artist intention, and whether there is a need to explicate that
• ownership of performance art
• the anthropology of performance

The meeting also resulted in a number of suggestions of material to read and discuss together. It is my hope that the conversation about performance and literacy will initiate a process that will result in a panel discussion in the spring and the ultimate establishment of one or more courses and perhaps (over time) a minor in Performance Literacy.

For more information, contact Ed Adelson.
—Ed Adelson

LiteracyStudies@OSU Launches New Website: www.literacystudies.osu.edu

During Fall Quarter 2007 Literacy Studies staff worked with Humanities Information Systems to develop a new home on the Web at www.literacystudies.osu.edu for the many initiatives associated with LiteracyStudies@OSU. The new site includes a News and Announcements feature, a link to information and courses associated with the new Graduate Interdisciplinary Specialization (GIS), a link to the upcoming International, Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Conference, and an Archive for our many events and activities (this feature will be developed during Winter 2008).

Susan Hanson contributed her design savvy and copywriting skills, and Harvey Graff supported our work to establish and develop the site. I coordinated these efforts with help from Lindsay DiCuirci. We will continue to develop the site, so if there are any features you would like to see represented or any problems, please let us know by contacting: literacystudies@osu.edu.

–- Shawn Casey

Recent Publication in Literacy Studies

Representing three decades of research, Literacy and Historical Development: A Reader presents some of the most important historical scholarship on literacy in Europe and the United States. The approaches, research, and conclusions reflected in this collection of fifteen essays has changed how historians and many others conceptualize literacy and represents a body of scholarship that is transforming both contemporary and historical literacy theories.

In this revised and expanded edition of the groundbreaking volume Literacy and Social Development in the West, editor Harvey J. Graff provides a new introduction and nine new essays by nationally and internationally renowned contributors from a range of disciplines. Replacing an unquestioned certainty that literacy's powers are universal, independent, and determinative, Graff brings together studies that support new concepts, contending that the importance and influences of literacy depend on specific social and historical contexts, the impacts of literacy are mediated and restricted, the effects of literacy are social and particular, and the role of literacy must be understood within the burgeoning array of communication technologies.

Southern Illinois University Press
December 2007
paper, 0-8093-2782-1, $35.00
978-0-8093-2782-9
448 pages, 6 x 9, 17 illus.
Language Arts/Literacy/Education

Graduate Student Conference: A Report

Expanding Literacy Studies, An International, Interdisciplinary Conference for Graduate Students, sponsored by LiteracyStudies@OSU, will take place April 3-5, 2009 at OSU. The 18-month long planning and pedagogical process began last year. Students from nine other universities are participating in the planning efforts with the OSU students, and recruiting is underway to help with the program, publicity, and site arrangements.

The Steering Committee reached consensus on a name and theme for the Conference just before the break at the end of Fall quarter. My Steering Committee co-chairs Vicki Daiello and Michael Harker and I want to thank all who contributed to the process. We couldn't have done it without their participation.

The name for the conference, Expanding Literacy Studies, an international, interdisciplinary conference for graduate students, is rooted in thoughtfully considered statements, questions, and insights, and is informed by the spirit of scholarly generosity demonstrated in conversations, both in the on-line Carmen discussion space and in person at conference planning meetings. This was truly a team endeavor, beginning with the postings submitted and concluding with a name and common vision for the conference.

Vicki Daiello described the process "as one of the most creative and meaningful endeavors" she's undertaken as a graduate student at OSU. She said that "conceptualizing and planning the Graduate Student Literacy Studies Conference has challenged, and even destabilized, [her] perceptions of and assumptions about literacies within my own discipline area. I am learning about (and from) interdisciplinary experiences in ways I could never have imagined."

Michael Harker added that he's "very pleased" with the concept, but is "even more excited by the way we worked together to include the insightful contributions of both internal and external participants in the process of coming up with a name. The culture of our planning group is shaping into a supportive and inclusive one." According to Daiello, "We are working together to define and problematize literacy from a diversity of perspectives.

The Process
The process of choosing the conference title occurred over the course of several weeks, during multiple Steering Committee meetings. We began with a call to all the conference planning committee members here at The Ohio State University and the participating universities to post their title ideas and visions for the conference on the OSU Carmen Web site. Committee members were encouraged to be creative, reflective, and visionary in conceptualizing their ideas for this interdisciplinary literacy studies conference. Twenty-nine messages were posted, providing a rich base of words, images, ideas, and a diversity of perspectives and insights.

The second step in the process involved close readings of the postings and culminated in the creation of note cards which summarized the narratives and identified main points of each posting. I facilitated two brainstorming sessions where Committee Chairs, working together in small groups, arranged the note cards on several tables to locate connections among themes and to identify emergent ideas though associative thinking. The emphasis on teamwork, inclusiveness, and respect promoted an active, engaged discussion wherein expression and creativity flourished.

The discussions were transformed into visible maps of our thinking as I charted the development of ideas with words and images written on chart paper to create a record of our thinking. Slowly and steadily, relationships among words, phases, and questions began to point to broad, organizational concepts which suggested the actions or qualities of connecting, locating, and exploring. These concepts were evocative and generative, leading us to metaphors such as bridges, mushrooms, networks, hubs, webs, umbrellas, landscapes, weavings, and Venn diagrams.

We discovered that expanding was a key abstraction, a recurrent, connective theme running through our conceptualizations of title metaphors, actions, and purposes. We were attracted to the word expanding because of its potential for performing the dual actions of acknowledging the proliferating myths and manifestations of literacy and literacy studies, as well as creating an expansive, inviting space for critical inquiry into the growing territories of literacy and literacy studies.

In short, the name Expanding Literacy Studies 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 aim of the conference is to extend the dialogue, explore the landscape, and map the intersections of Literacy Studies as a framework for critical investigation. This approach is meant to do the double work of expanding the field and critiquing the expansion.

The Vision
As our definitions of literacy grow to include concepts and practices that exceed the binaries of alphabetic reading and writing, more and more disciplines and fields are adopting a discourse of literacy to describe the practices and expertise that define their concerns. Complicating this situation are the historically isolating factors of disciplinarity. Recognizing the need for an expanded conversation about literacy that exceeds disciplinary boundaries, the Graduate Students Interdisciplinary Seminar of Literacy Studies @ The Ohio State University announces a conference for graduate students from all disciplines to meet as Literacy Studies scholars to share questions, research, approaches, and findings.

The expansion of Literacy Studies in this manner, as a framework for investigation, is meant not only to bring perspectives together, but also to do the double work of developing a critical perspective on the proliferation of literacy and literacy-based concepts as they appear in more and more fields of inquiry. As we have seen in historical investigations of literacy, the term is often made to carry the myths, hopes and dreams of a culture. Yet literacy, by itself, has seldom been able to meet those aspirations. Literacy's expansion calls for the expansion of our critical understanding. This critical understanding must integrate [interrogate] the approaches developed in many fields if we are to observe and acknowledge the work of literacy beyond the myth of reading and writing.

This conference seeks to create a space that will encourage [promote] conversations about literacy from a set of broad international, interdisciplinary perspectives. The conference invites conversation, even as it draws our attention to the fact that we work in the midst of an expansion that simultaneously will shape our own disciplinary careers and pursuits. With unprecedented support from The Ohio State University, Literacy Studies @ OSU has sought to do more than establish and extend the reach of Literacy Studies. Instead, like our conference title, we seek, on the one hand, to expand our own perspectives by speaking to disciplines and practitioners that are "outside the comfort zone" of traditional Literacy Studies. On the other hand, at the same time, we turn our new perspectives to the critical analysis of the expansion that has provided the context to make new connections.

Graduate students interested in literacy who would want to gain experience helping to plan and host a major interdisciplinary conference should contact the co-chairs: Vicki Daiello, Art Education; Michael Harker, English; Caitlin Ryan, Teaching and Learning.

—Caitlin Ryan

Spring Course Announcements

ENGLISH 883 [anticipated cross-listing as ASC 883]
SPECIAL TOPICS IN LITERACY: PROFESSIONAL LITERACY
Harvey J. Graff

Within the developing general framework of LiteracyStudies@OSU, ENG 883 [ASC 883] is an unusual practicum/workshop course that complements planning for the April 2009 international interdisciplinary graduate student literacy studies conference and the development of the new Graduate Interdisciplinary Specialization in Literacy Studies (GIS-LS). The making of the conference itself involves traditional and new literacies, and multiple opportunities for their use and sometimes their abuse. At the same time, it also provides an environment in which to reflect critically and collectively on those endeavors and to reflect on their multiple contexts, meanings, and uses.

The course also goes beyond both of those projects to examine critically a number of the fundamentals of professional scholarly practices that shed light on our understanding of literacy and literacies and in turn provide opportunities to practice and hone those abilities and their critical uses. Together, they provide a special and unusual approach to professional learning and preparation for scholarly life. More specifically, our foci and objectives address:

• interdisciplinary conferences for graduate students, organized, developed, and managed by graduate students
• paths to professional preparation and professional practice
• different varieties of literacies paralleled by the conference themes

This course meets the GIS in Literacy Studies requirement for an elective core course. Our activities include oral and written reports:

• locating and comparing graduate student conferences; sketching the history of graduate student conferences; careful examination and
• critiques of previous conferences, comparison of student and other academic conferences.
• brief synthetic, comparative, and critical papers that develop some of these areas
• brief sketches of alternative conference formats and practices
• group and individual projects that link the planning for our April 2009 conference to these approaches and understandings
• inquiring into and probing critically the varieties of literacies that we encounter or bring to bear in these pursuits

Readings may include:
David Lodge, Small World (Penguin 1995)
Andrew L. Johns and Kenneth A. Osgood, "Planning a Graduate Student Conference,"
American Historical Association Perspectives, Mar., 1999
Chris W Golde and George E. Walker, eds., Envisioning the Future of Doctoral Education. Carnegie Essays on the Doctorate. Jossey-Bass, 2006
Optional: Susan Friedmann, Meeting & Event Planning for Dummies. 2003

ENG 884 [crosslisted as HIS 775]
LITERACY PAST AND PRESENT
History of Literacy; Historical and Comparative Perspectives
Harvey J. Graff
In recent years our understanding of literacy and its relationships to ongoing societies and social change has been challenged and revised. The challenge came from many directions. The "new literacy studies," as they are often called, together attest to transformations of approaches and knowledge and a search for new understandings. Many traditional notions about literacy and its presumed importance no longer influence scholarly and critical conceptions. The gap that too often exists between scholarly and more popular and applied conceptions is one of the topics we will consider.

Among a number of important currents, historical scholarship and critical theories stand out, both by themselves and together. Historical research on literacy has been unusually important in encouraging a reconstruction of the fields that contribute to literacy studies, the design and conduct of research, the role of theory and generalization in efforts to comprehend literacy and, as we say increasingly, literacies (plural). It has insisted on new understandings of "literacy in context," including historical context, as a requirement for making general statements about literacy, and for testing them, and carries great implications for new critical theories relating to literacy.

This seminar investigates these and related changes. Taking a historical approach, we will seek a general understanding of the history of literacy primarily but not exclusively in the West since classical antiquity but with an emphasis on the early modern and modern eras. At the same time, we examine critically literacy's contributions to the shaping of the modern world and the impacts on literacy from fundamental historical social changes. Among many topics, we will explore communications, language, family and demographic behavior, economic development, urbanization, institutions, literacy campaigns, both political and personal changes, and the uses of reading and writing. A new understanding of the place of literacy and literacies in social development is our overarching goal.

This course meets a core course requirement for the GIS in Literacy Studies. Assignments: Regular reading, attendance, and preparation for each class meeting; brief commentary papers; leadership of one or more seminar sessions, two brief essays. There may also be opportunities to work on Graff's Literacy Studies at OSU "initiative" and the 2009 Interdisciplinary Conference for Graduate Students.

Readings may include: William V. Harris, Ancient Literacy; Michael T Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record: England, 1066-1307; Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms; Donald McKenzie, Bibliography and the Sociology of Texts; Harvey J. Graff, The Literacy Myth; Carl Kaestle, et al, Literacy in the United States: Readers and Reading Since 1880; Mike Rose, The Mind at Work: The Intelligence of American Workers; Deborah Brandt, Literacy in American Lives.

Introducing LiteracyStudies@OSU and Modeling Collaboration at the CCCC's

A session on Literacy Studies @ OSU will take place at the annual meeting of the Conference on College Composition and Communication, New Orleans, April, 2008. "Creating a Cross-Disciplinary Model for Collaboration: Literacy Studies @ Ohio State University" was organized by Harvey J. Graff, Kelly Bradbury, Michael Harker, and Kate White.

The CCCC's 2008 Call for Papers challenges the profession to move explicitly in the direction of "Writing Realities, Changing Realities." The Call makes the high stakes and the needs for collective responsibility and joint action clear. There is much to appreciate in its spare terms. And there is much to debate and refashion constructively. Ranking high is the need to prepare ourselves and our students for critically important roles today and tomorrow, and root those responsibilities in a clear sense of our past and our imperatives for understanding that is critical and comparative.

But how to take action? Among the many dimensions are the implications for university curricular and more general program development in rhetoric, composition, and literacy programs and in campus-wide literacy studies initiatives. All three raise crucial questions about conceptualization, organization, scope, and especially critical today, interdisciplinarity.

Developing since 2004, Literacy Studies @ OSU has been working to foster a critical, cross-campus conversation and collaborative investigation into the nature of literacy. The mission has been to bring together historical, contextual, comparative, and critical perspectives and modes of understanding, from the social and natural sciences to the arts and humanities, education, medicine, and law. Our goal has been to stimulate new institutional and intellectual relationships between different disciplinary clusters and their constituents. Literacy Studies @ OSU has grown in scope and scale of programs and activities. Literacy Studies has become a real cross-campus presence and is recognized broadly, not only across the Ohio State main campus but also nationally and even internationally.

With the guiding hand of a moderator from another university, we propose to discuss Literacy Studies @ OSU as an experiment in university-wide interdisciplinary program development. The four presentations will highlight and explore the particulars of Literacy Studies @ OSU and situate this experiment within a wider discussion of disciplinary relationships and politics. The successes of the current program and the problems that it continues to encounter help to set the agenda for a very relevant and useful exploration. We expect to receive critical feedback, spark conversations with colleagues and students at other institutions, and hear about other new programs at the session.

Widely recognized for its cutting edge scholarship and lasting contributions to the field, OSU Department of English's of Rhetoric and Composition faculty has embraced Literacy Studies, revising its program to include Literacy as a third component of inquiry. This shift is important symbolically and substantively. It carries significant potential for interdisciplinary learning and teaching and for inquiry into the fields of composition and rhetoric more generally.

Moderator, Deborah Brandt, The University of Wisconsin-Madison

Harvey J. Graff, Ohio State University
"Literacy Studies @ Ohio State University: An Overview and Orientation." This presentation will provide an overview of the history, development, and theoretical underpinnings of Literacy Studies @ OSU. Literacy Studies began its work in autumn 2004, and in the summer of 2005, Literacy Studies @ OSU was recognized as a university-wide initiative. Over the next year, the group fostered interest and enhanced participation through focused public programs and discussion groups, like the History of the Book Group. Starting in 2007, a University Council on Literacy Studies began to promote literacy studies and enhanced communication and coordination. In addition, the group launched a campus-wide Graduate Student Interdisciplinary Seminar in Literacy Studies and proposed a Graduate Interdisciplinary Specialization in Literacy Studies. With these new programs, the range of exciting new courses and related opportunities for learning, discussion, and various activities are expected to increase.

Kate White, Ohio State University
"We Make the Road by Walking: Interdisciplinary Conversations about Literacy @ OSU." Monthly meetings sponsored by the Graduate Literacy Studies Interdisciplinary Seminar have provided a space for students from across campus to discuss definitions of literacy, share resources, and develop intellectual relationships and friendships. This presentation will explore the leadership role of graduate students in the formation and growth of Literacy Studies @ OSU. This Seminar has fostered increasing collaboration among the Rhetoric, Composition, and Literacy (RCL) students, as well as formed new partnerships with many literature students. For example, the graduate steering committee for the Seminar includes students from literature, Art Education, Slavic Studies and Linguistics, Teaching and Learning in Education, as well as RCL. The implication of the continuing discussion points toward the increasing interdisciplinarity of the RCL program at OSU.

Kelly Bradbury, Ohio State University
"Cross-Discipline Research: Sponsoring Conversations Between Literacy Studies and Rhetoric and Composition." This presentation will examine the relationship between literacy studies and the fields of rhetoric and composition. Engaging in more connected conversations and collaborative research across the fields of rhetoric, composition, and literacy can create both opportunities and challenges. This presentation will draw on research in progress that interrogates the relationship between intellectualism and anti-intellectualism in American culture with attention to literacy, composition, and rhetoric. This speaker will address the concerns of both fields and explore the different perspectives and assumed knowledge of scholars in these areas.

Michael Harker, Ohio State University
"The Lure of Literacy: Coping with Commitments to Practice and Unity in Composition." Literacy Studies has emerged, in part, as a means for composition and rhetoric to obtain a unified theory of practice as well as disciplinary unity. This presentation will investigate the recurrent tendency of teacher-researchers to draw on literacy studies as a means of interpreting and enacting these complementary and, at times, contradictory commitments. In this vein, Speaker Four also asserts that the Literacy Studies @ Ohio State initiative – with its interdisciplinary vision – offers a viable perspective from which to interpret and perhaps reconcile seemingly incompatible commitments that have helped to delineate the discipline.

The Conference on College Composition and Communication is April 2-5, 2008, in New Orleans.

—Harvey J. Graff

Literacy Studies
Literacy Studies @ OSU
George Wells Knight House
104 E. 15th Ave
Columbus, OH 43201
PH: (614) 247-6539
FAX: (614) 247-6336
literacystudies@osu.edu

If you would like to subscribe to the Literacy Studies @ OSU listserv, contact Lindsay Dicuirci.

LiteracyStudies@OSU: An Initiative

We are developing LiteracyStudies@OSU with the aim of fostering 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 and 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.

Executive Group
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
Sandy Cornett, Health Sciences cornett.3@osu.edu
Marcia Farr, Education; English farr.18@osu.edu
Anne Fields, University Libraries fields.179@osu.edu
Henry Fields, Dentistry cornett.3@osu.edu
Susan Fisher, Biology fisher.14@osu.edu
Carolina Gill, Industrial, Interior, & Visual Comm. Design gill.175@osu.edu
Terry Gustafson, Chemistry gustafson@chemistry.ohio-state.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
Jeffery K. McKee, Anthropology mckee.95@osu.edu
Beverly Moss, English moss.1@osu.edu
Leslie Moore, Education moore.1817@osu.edu
Amy Pope-Harman, Pulmonary & Critical Care harman-1@medctr.osu.edu
Doug Post, Medicine doug.post@osumc.edu
Marcy Raymond, Principal, Metro High School raymond@themetroschool.com
Cindy Selfe, English selfe.2@osu.edu
Peter Shane, Law shane.29@osu.edu
Amy Shuman, English; Folklore shuman.1@osu.edu
David Staley, History; Goldberg Center staley.3@osu.edu
Kevin Tavin, Art Education tavin.1@osu.edu
Andy Thomas, Medicine thomas@osumc.edu
Lewis Ulman, Humanities; English ulman.1@osu.edu
Mindy Wright, Director, Community Partnerships in ASC wright.7@osu.edu

Shawn Casey, Doctoral Student, English casey.169@osu.edu
Lindsay Dicuirci, Doctoral Student, English dicuirci.2@osu.edu
Susan Hanson, Academic Program Coordinator, LiteracyStudies@OSU hanson.94@osu.edu
Edward Adelson, Executive Dean, ASC adelson.3@osu.edu
Randy Smith, Vice Provost smith.70@osu.edu
Chris Zacher, Director, ICRPH zacher.1@osu.edu