CW 2007: Session 7.7: Orality and Literacy: The Next 25 Years
Computers and Writing 2007 ends my series of conference sessions marking the 25th anniversary of the publication of Orality and Literacy. Here’s the program information, slightly edited, for Orality and Literacy: The Next 25 Years (session 7.7):
Orality and Literacy: The Next 25 Years
Saturday, May 19: 2:15 – 3:30 PM, Room M
First published in 1982 as part of Methuen’s “New Accents” series, Walter J. Ong’s Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word was written to be both “an objective exposition of significant developments in its field up to the present as well as an account of its authors own views on the matter” (General Editors Preface). Arguably Ong’s best known and most influential work, Orality and Literacy still serves as one of the principle introductions its field as well as an introduction to Ong’s own work on orality-literacy contrasts. This round table discussion, “Orality and Literacy: The Next 25 Years,” seeks to mark the 25th anniversary of the publication of Orality and Literacy by bringing together six members of the computers and writing community to discuss issues they believe will be important for orality-literacy studies over the next twenty-five years.
Douglas Eyman (Michigan State University) will argue that if we are living, as Ong suggests, in an ecological age, then circulation (in the sense of the movement of resources within and through particular ecologies) is one metaphor for understanding the interconnected networks of people, systems, and texts. Based on work identifying the circulation patterns of digital texts (and what that might tell us about digital ecologies and digital economies), Eyman will suggest that orality-literacy studies provides one lens on the motivation (economics) of circulation as well as providing a methodologically-useful set of boundary markers that delineate specific textual ecologies.
Aaron Barlow (New York City College of Technology) will argue that the teaching of writing can no longer be based on the assumption that operation within the literacy tradition is sufficient because as technologies become increasingly pliable, the “page” evolves from the printed word (with the possibility of static illustrations) to something far more flexible. The ability to combine image, sound, and text means that a new medium for classroom assignments will grow. Already, Barlow notes, students are turning in papers electronically and are using expansive possibility to imbed material that cannot exist on the printed page. Rather than risk finding ourselves stuck promoting an antiquated mode of communication, Barlow will suggest that it is time we teachers of writing seriously discuss just how we best react to the changing realities of communication around us.
Michael Day (Northern Illinois University) will argue that as we become more accustomed to inventing and sharing knowledge, as well as collaborating with others, on listservs, blogs, and wikis, the old, unsettled debates over the oral-like features of email that made it seem more like oral conversation or some sort of hybrid of oral and written, will continue to preoccupy us as well as raise new possibilities for discussion and investigation.
Rich Rice (Texas Tech University) will argue that while first-year composition has us teaching traditional literacy genres such as the essay, visual tools, have us exploring the use of the visual in composition instruction. Therefore, Rice will suggest, the use of the visual has use in ongoing professional development as well as embedded assessment.
Anne Wysocki (Michigan Tech University) will play off the expression “empire of the senses” to consider some ethical undercurrents of the hierarchicizing of the senses in the current configurations of screened digitality. Using current aesthetic theory, Wysocki asks after the possibilities, for writing instruction, of art that takes advantage of technological openings for addressing senses other than or in addition to sight and hearing.
Cross posted to Notes from the Walter J. Ong Collection.
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I am the niece of Dr. L.J. Rather who translated “The Therapy of the Word in Classical Antiquity. Walter Ong wrote the preface for this book. I would like to be in contact with you.
Best wishes, Jane Rather Thiebaud