The OSU Literacy Studies Working Group and

The Institute for Collaborative Research and Public Humanities

invite you to join us for

Morris Young

Associate Professor of English, Miami University (Ohio)

Literacy and Transformation: The Consequences of Conversion for Henry Obookiah and Contemporary Hawai’i

Tuesday, October 25, 2005, 4:00 p.m.

George Wells Knight House, 105 East 15^th Avenue

REFRESHMENTS WILL BE SERVED.

Please let us know if you plan to attend at 688-0265 or lantz.38@osu.edu

Henry Obookiah’s religious conversion inspired the first Christian mission to Hawai’i. His conversion from illiterate to literate or, to use Sylvia Scribner’s term, his literacy as a state of grace set in motion a cascade of events which changed Hawai‘i and its people forever. Young examines the implications of Obookiah’s literacy, charting his transformation from student to citizen to advocate for education and the consequences of his literacy for modern day Hawai'i. Young is the author of the prize-winning Minor Re/Visions: Asian American Literacy Narratives as a Rhetoric of Citizenship (2004).

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.

Harvey J. Graff, English & History; Mollie Blackburn, Language, Literacy and Culture, Education; Marcia Farr, Language, Literacy and Culture, Education & English; Kay Bea Jones, Architecture; Beverly Moss, Center for the Study & Teaching of Writing & English; Amy Shuman, Folklore & English; Steve Acker, TELR & Communications/Journalism; Anne Fields, University Library; Henry Fields, Dentistry; Susan Fisher, Biology; Alan Kalish, Teaching & Learning Center;

Lewis Ulman, English & Humanities; Mindy Wright, Writing Workshop, Terry Barrett, Art; Amy Pope-Harman, Medicine; Carolina Gill, Art & Design; Susan Hanson, doctoral candidate, Folkore & English.

If you would like your name added to the Literacy Studies Working Group listserv,

contact Susan Hanson at hanson.94@osu.edu