Programs and Areas
Digital Resources in the Department of English
Visiting Scholars in Digital Media and Composition
Jonathan Alexander (University of California-Irvine)
Project: As a Visiting Scholar in Digital Media and Composition at OSU, I plan to create a dense Web site with sound clips, video clips, a rich mix of text and images, and an accompanying blog—exploring intersections between literacy and sexuality. My most recent book, Writing Sex: Sexuality, Literacy, Pedagogy (due out from Utah State UP in late 2007), argues that any understanding of literacy in contemporary Western culture is somewhat hamstrung if insufficient attention is paid to discourses of sex and sexuality, which are often central to individual, collective, and ideological identity construction. I would like to extend the arguments in that book by using a variety of new media tools to trace, auto-ethnographically, my own coming into awareness of how intertwined sexuality and literacy are in my life, in my collective identifications, and in my sense of political agency. While initially conceived of as a "personal" site, I intend this project to be broadly instructive, and I want to use the blog component to engage ongoing debate about literacy, sexuality, and their interconnection.
Biography: Jonathan Alexander is Associate Professor of English at the University of California, Irvine, where he also serves as Campus Writing Coorindator. Jonathan's work focuses primarily on the use of emerging communications technologies in the teaching of writing and in shifting conceptions of what writing, composing, and authoring mean. Jonathan also works at the intersection of the fields of writing studies and sexuality studies, where he explores what it means to "compose queerly" as well as what theories of sexuality, particularly queer theory, have to teach us about literacy and literate practice in pluralistic democracies.
He is the co-editor of two collections, Bisexuality and Transgenderism: InterSEXions of the Others (Harrington Park Press, 2004), and Role Play: Distance Learning and the Teaching of Writing (Hampton Press, 2005); the co-author of a textbook about teaching writing with computer technologies, Argument Now (Longman, 2005); and the author of Digital Youth: Emerging Literacies on the World Wide Web (Hampton Press, 2005), which examines how tech-savvy youth represent themselves and their electronic literacy practices on the Web. Jonathan is twice the recipient of the Ellen Nold Award (2003, 2005) for the best articles in the field of Computers and Composition Studies. Forthcoming work includes the following books: Literacy, Sexuality, Pedagogy (Utah State University Press, March 2008); and Finding Out: An Introduction to LGBT Studies (Sage), co-written with Deborah Meem and Michelle Gibson.
Cheryl Ball (Illinois State University)
Project: As a Visiting Scholar in Digital Media and C0omposition at OSU, I will interview participants from a range of backgrounds and institutions about their reading/meaning-making abilities when it comes to new media scholarship. plan on using one or two sample texts, which I will ask participants to read in advance of our interview, and I will have a set list of interview questions to ask them regarding how they interpret the text’s argument(s) through multiple modes. I plan to follow-up these questions by asking them to reflect on their reading process so that they can discuss the resources they used (theory, practice, etc.) to make sense of the text under examination; for suggestions regarding what they believe they would need in order to better/further interpret such texts; and what their department heads or tenure committees might need to read the same texts.
Biography: Professor Ball teaches and researches new media texts from efferent and aesthetic perpsectives and across a range of theoretical frameworks. She’s published in Computers and Composition, Composition Studies, and Convergence. It is her goal to only publish in journals that start with the letter C. However, sponsored by the letter K, she co-edits, Kairos: Rhetoric, Technology, Pedagogy.
Adam Banks (Syracuse University)
Project: As a Visiting Scholar in Digital Media and Composition at OSU, I will work on a journal article, "From Representation to Liberation: Black Theology and Digital Ethics." This article will explore this connection further than King's speech by presenting a rhetorical analysis of the Black Theology movement as one possible theoretical framework for conversations at the nexus of race, culture, and technology. The piece that results from my residency at Ohio State will examine the aims, audiences, arguments and appeals of Black Theology during its 40 year history, and ways that it can inform practice in and thinking about Digital Media in academic environments. Such environments have at times worked diligently toward greater inclusion but still face great challenges in making that academic and digital inclusion real.
Biography: Cerebral and silly, outgoing and a homebody, a little melancholy and a lot of joy, more slow jam than hiphop, but some blues and some jazz too. A committed teacher, in love and hate with writing and enjoying the struggle. Vernacular and grouded like Langston and Jook Joints, but academic, idealistic, and abstract too. Convinced that Donny Hathaway is the most compelling artist of the entire soul era, and that we still don't give Stevie Wonder and Etta James enough love.
Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, and educated in the Cleveland Public Schools, Adam Banks received his B.A. in English from Cleveland State University, and spent several years working in education and non-profit agencies before earning a Master of Arts and PhD in English, both with distinction, from Penn State University. Dr. Banks is in his fourth year as an Assistant Professor of Writing and Rhetoric in Syracuse University's writing program, where he teaches courses in African American Rhetoric, technical writing, and rhetoric and composition theory. He is currently working on his second book, Beyond The Building Fund: Liberation At Work In The Black Sermon, and is the author of Race, Rhetoric, and Technology: Searching for Higher Ground, a book challenging teachers and scholars in writing and technology fields to explore the depths of Black traditions more thoroughly and calling African Americans to make technology a central area for struggle. He has taught a free community course for Syracuse's African American community every semester for the last 3 years bringing campus and community members together in spaces focused on developing broader, critical literacies and engaging both in exploring Black histories and futures and forging action right here and now.
Gary Bays (University of Akron, Wayne College)
Project: As a Visiting Scholar in Digital Media and Composition at OSU, I will identify outstanding instructional practices in multimodal courses by observing and speaking with students and faculty in those classrooms. In particular, I plan to discuss digital media and composition with OSU branch campus faculty and examine multimodal teaching in the two-year college. Finally, I will learn video and audio teaching methods during my stay at OSU that I can transfer to my classes at The University of Akron Wayne College.
Biography: Gary Bays has taught English composition and technical communication at The University of Akron Wayne College campus in Orrville, Ohio, for the past 21 years. He serves as editor of the Ohio Association of Two-Year Colleges (OATYC) Journal and has served on the editorial board of The Journal of the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCC). Most recently, his chapter on workplace research appeared in Innovative Approaches to Teaching Technical Communication (Utah State University Press, 2003) and his chapter on public speaking appears in the forthcoming Resources in Technical Communication: Outcomes and Approaches (Baywood Publishing, 2007). Bays has worked as an executive speechwriter for a variety of clients, including Daimler Chrysler Corporation, Diamond Star Motors, and Volvo GM Heavy Truck Corporation. Outside the classroom, Bays desperately seeks a slap shot and patiently awaits the premiere of singer-songwriter Erin Smith’s new CD.
Debra Journet (University of Louisville)
Project: "Why English?" For my project as a Visiting Scholar in Digital Media and Composition at OSU, I plan to explore why English departments should be one the places in the university where students learn to compose with digital media. That is, what perspectives on rhetoric, communication, textuality, or related concepts can English faculty offer as students learn to engage with new forms of meaning-making? And how are the literacy practices that are traditionally valued in print-based English curricula extended, modified or transformed when students begin to work with multimodal texts? To consider these questions, I will observe and film the 2007 DMAC. I plan to interview teachers who are both experienced and novice users of technology; to document the kinds--and pleasures--of learning and teaching that occur when English faculty move toward multimodal composition; and to begin considering what is the relation between these practices and the work of English studies.
Biography: Debra Journet is Professor and former Chair of English at the University of Louisville, where she teaches rhetoric and composition and modern British literature. Her research in the rhetoric of science has appeared in such journals as Written Communication, Social Epistemology, Technical Communication Quarterly, and Mosaic; new work in gaming and in digital media appears in Gaming Lives in the Twenty-First Century (ed. Selfe and Hawisher) and in Computers and Composition. Once a complete technological novice, Debra attended DMAC in 2006 and had a life-altering experience. She now regularly incorporates digital media into her teaching, has on-going multimodal research projects, and in 2008 will direct the Thomas R. Watson Conference focusing on digital media and "The New Work of Composing."
Contact
Dr. Cynthia L. Selfe, Humanities Distinguished ProfessorDepartment of English, 421 Denney Hall
164 W. 17th Ave., The Ohio State University
614-688-3779, selfe.2@osu.edu
