Welcome to the Literacy
Studies Working Group! This is our listserv’s inaugural posting.
As you may now be aware, we
are developing a Literacy Studies Working Group with the aim of promoting a
sense of collaboration among different disciplinary clusters and their
constituents, from the social and natural sciences to the arts and humanities,
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.
We included you among the
initial subscribers to our listserv because you participated in one of our fall
quarter programs, you were in communication with us, or your name has come to
our attention as a colleague with an interest in literacy studies.
To
add additional subscribers (or request removal), please contact Susan Hanson at
hanson.94@osu.edu.
Because our current
subscribers include faculty, administrators, and students, as well as
colleagues from other institutions, our hope is that this forum will be used primarily for
brief announcements and informational messages. In other words, since the
messages will not be screened for content (this is not a managed list), we need
to depend on each other for collegial participation.
Post
messages to literacystudies@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
We
will set up “blogs” soon for longer and more complicated postings, as well as resources
and discussion boards.
I’m
very excited to preview our winter and spring quarter initiatives.
First,
we are planning two public programs (at the Knight Humanities House): “Health Literacies”
is tentatively scheduled for Thurs., Feb. 3 (or 10),
In spring quarter, we will host a
visit to OSU by Mike Rose from UCLA whose most recent book is The Mind at Work: The Intelligence of American Workers (Viking, 2004). Rose has also
written Possible Lives: The Promise of Public
Education in America and
Lives
on the Boundary: The Struggles and Achievements of
America’s Underprepared.
In
addition, we are in the process of establishing a number of smaller,
shared-interest groups that will explore themes ranging from “evolution of
literacies” to “economies of literacies,” “domains of literacy,” “methodologies
for studying literacy,” “literacy and learning,” and “literacy processes.” These interest groups were developed from the
information provided by participants in the fall quarter events. We anticipate that these smaller gatherings
will focus on discussion, readings, pedagogy, or other literacy-related
matters. More information on the groups and their founding, as well as how to
get in touch with organizers, is coming soon.
More soon!
Harvey J. Graff, on behalf of the Literacy Studies
Working Group Executive Committee:
Harvey J. Graff, English & History graff.40@osu.edu
Steve Acker, School of Communication & TELR acker.1@osu.edu
Mollie Blackburn, Teaching & Learning,
Marcia Farr, Teaching & Learning,
Anne Fields, University Libraries fields.179@osu.edu
Henry Fields,
Susan Fisher,
Kay Bea Jones,
Alan Kalish, Faculty and TA Development,
Beverly Moss, English, Center for the Study and
Teaching of Writing moss.1@osu.edu
Stephen Pentak, College of the Arts pentak.1@osu.edu
Amy Shuman, English & Center for Folklore
Studies shuman.1@osu.edu
Lewis Ulman,
Mindy Wright, Writing Workshop,
Susan Hanson, Folklore, Graduate Assistant, hanson.94@osu.edu.
We gratefully acknowledge the
support of the Institute for Collaborative Research and Public
Humanities, the