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2009

LiteracyStudies@OSU Spring Lecture: Ira Shor Asks "Can Critical Literacy Change the World?"

LiteracyStudies@OSU Spring Lecture: Ira Shor Asks "Can Critical Literacy Change the World?" At the May Literacy Studies lecture, noted critical literacy scholar Ira Shor put literacy in the context of the Culture Wars of the 1970s and 80s. He described critical literacy as related to the democratizing social changes that dramatically altered American society during the 1960s and 70s. Shor is best known for his work on critical pedagogy with long-time colleague Paulo Friere and for several of his books-Empowering Education, When Students Have Power, and Critical Teaching and Everyday Life-which have shaped education in America.
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Literacy Narratives: Building an Archive

At a recent Rhetoric, Composition, and Literacy Studies meeting, Humanities Distinguished Professor Cindy Selfe announced a project that she and Louie Ulman are undertaking for the Digital Archives of Literacy Narratives (DALN). They're asking colleagues from colleges and institutions around the country to hold their own "Everybody has a literacy story...Tell us yours!" event on their own campuses. So far, they have heard from more than 30 institutions that want to host such an event, and are hoping for even more. For more information, write Cindy Selfe at selfe.2@osu.edu.

Goldberg Speaker Series: Technology and Teaching

Edward A. Hill, Jr., MATRIX Learning Program Manager, will talk about "Mobile Computing and NextGen Learning" on Tuesday, April 7, 11:30-1:00, in 168 Dulles Hall. MATRIX partners are educators and researchers, software and game developers, and curriculum designers who are concerned about the lack of interest and ability in mathematics by many middle school students. They share a belief that new strategies and techniques can be borrowed from electronic games and simulations and small pocket-sized technologies that have already captured the interest and time of that same group of students. Please RSVP to David Staley at staley.3@osu.edu by Monday, April 6.

History of the Book: Thinking through Connections

Recent work in the humanities regarding the relations between persons and objects has proceeded along three surprisingly non-intersecting lines: book history, "thing theory," and the social anthropology of art. On May 22nd, David Brewer will lead a discussion of the latter two in order to help us think through the potential utility of bringing these modes of inquiry into closer contact with one another. 311 Denney Hall 3:30- 5:00 p.m. If you have a project you'd like to present to the group or if you have ideas for readings that the group might enjoy, contact me at farmer.109@osu.edu.

Literacy Studies Gradsem: Expanding Interdisciplinarity

During Spring Quarter the GradSem will host a discussion of the work of the LiteracyStudies@OSU guest speaker Ira Shor. The session will be held April 24th. Contact Shawn at casey.169@osu.edu. GradSem participant Karin Hooks is organizing a session for May 29th on career opportunities in Literacy Studies. Contact Karin at hooks.28@osu.edu.

SusanJacoby: Where did America’s Rationality Go?

Bestselling author of The Age of American Unreason, Susan Jacoby offers an unsparing indictment of the American addiction to infotainment-from television to the Web-and cites this toxic dependency as the major element distinguishing our current age of unreason from earlier outbreaks of American anti-intellectualism and anti-rationalism. Sparing neither the right nor the left, Jacoby asserts that Americans today have embraced a universe of "junk thought" that makes almost no effort to separate fact from opinion.
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Literacy Scholars Podcast

In anticipation of the Expanding Literacy Studies graduate student conference, literacy scholars Shirley Brice Heath and Harvey J Graff were interviewed for the Web and radio broadcast show, Writers Talk. Listen to the interview [mp3]. Writers Talk and other podcast writing discussions are hosted by the Center for the Study of Teaching and Writing at http://cstw.osu.edu/podcasts/.

New Speaker Series: African and African American Diaspora Literacies

The Martha L. King Center for Language & Literacies and the School of Teaching and Learning in the College of Education and Human Ecology announce a new speaker series in the field of African and African American Diaspora Literacies. Scholarship in this area pays attention to ways that historical and contemporary cultural and social practices, processes, and places shape how people of African descent in the Americas and the African Diaspora create literacy. Another important focus of research in this area is language and literacy education.
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History of the Book: Winter Quarter Schedule

Literacy Studies Gradsem: Expanding Interdisciplinarity

On Friday, January 23rd, the Literacy Studies GradSem will host a discussion of Leslie Bartlett's ethnography of literacy in Brazil in anticipation of the Annual Lecture in Literacy Studies on Thursday, January 29th. Links to Bartlett's articles and a list of those that will be discussed during the GradSem are available. If you would like to lead the discussion of one of the readings, contact Shawn Casey at casey.169@osu.edu.
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Expanding Literacy Studies: Conference Update

This autumn the conference Call for Proposals yielded more than 180 proposals from 66 institutions and 6 countries. The proposals include creative performances, workshops, roundtable, organized panels, individual papers, and poster presentations.
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Graduate Interdisciplinary Specialization: Revisited and Revised

Revisions to the curriculum for the Graduate Interdisciplinary Specialization in Literacy Studies were approved in December. The changes reflect feedback and suggestions from administrators, faculty, and students, as well as new course offerings from across campus. According to Harvey J. Graff, the specialization's principal advisor, the revisions should make it easy for students and their advisors to understand the opportunities and plan an approach that extends the student's primary course of study.
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Annual OSU Lecture on Literacy Studies

The Word and the World: The Cultural Politics of Literacy in Brazil

The Ohio State University Lecture on Literacy Studies established OSU as the place for both well-established and younger scholars to preview major studies and present significant new works. This year's lecture will be presented by LESLEY BARTLETT.
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2008

Expanding Literacy Studies: Conference Update

The graduate student organizers of Expanding Literacy Studies, an international, interdisciplinary conference for graduate students, continue the planning at full tilt. The Call for Proposals, launched in April, has generated interest from around the globe. Many proposals have already been submitted and the program committee looks forward to perhaps hundreds more before the October 15 deadline.
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PROPOSAL DEADLINE

The proposal deadline for Expanding Literacy Studies is October 15, 2008. There are lots of ways to participate in this first-ever international, interdisciplinary conference for graduate students. For more information, visit the conference Web site.

HISTORY OF THE BOOK group will meet three times during fall

Sexuality Studies presents MICHAEL L. WILSON, University of Texas at Dallas Quelle Horreur!' Sex between Men in Belle Époque France.

Literacy Studies GradSem: Expanding Interdisciplinarity

The Graduate Interdisciplinary Seminar in Literacy Studies, or GradSem, has come to play an important role in the interdisciplinary experiences of graduate students across the Ohio State campus...
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Autumn Lecture: Literacy as a Labyrinthine and Protean Concept

JERRY ZASLOVE, Simon Fraser University

What Can Walter Benjamin's "Work of Art in the Age of Technical Reproducibility" Teach Us about Literacy as a Labyrinthine and Protean Concept?

According to Zaslove, Benjamin views language as duplicitous: a medium of instrumentality or force that invades the integrity of the person through writing, reading and language...
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LiteracyStudies@OSU: Critical Time for Critical Literacy/ies

Autumn 2008 marks the beginning of LiteracyStudies@OSU’s fifth year. We’ve traveled an incredible distance-locally, nationally, even internationally...
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