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English 5443: Intro To Tech Studies in CRL: Dr. Will Kurlinkus The University of Oklahoma

This document provides an overview of an introductory course on technology studies in composition, rhetoric, and literacy that will cover philosophies of technology, definitions of rhetoric, composition, and literacy, and how technology is studied within those fields, highlighting key terms, concepts, and journals related to technology. The course will examine how technologies can be viewed as tools, determinants of social change, or socially constructed, and will discuss rhetorical design and the rhetorical nature of technologies.

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Will Kurlinkus
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211 views

English 5443: Intro To Tech Studies in CRL: Dr. Will Kurlinkus The University of Oklahoma

This document provides an overview of an introductory course on technology studies in composition, rhetoric, and literacy that will cover philosophies of technology, definitions of rhetoric, composition, and literacy, and how technology is studied within those fields, highlighting key terms, concepts, and journals related to technology. The course will examine how technologies can be viewed as tools, determinants of social change, or socially constructed, and will discuss rhetorical design and the rhetorical nature of technologies.

Uploaded by

Will Kurlinkus
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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English 5443: Intro to Tech Studies in CRL

Dr. Will Kurlinkus


The University of Oklahoma
1. What is technology?
“What appear to be nothing more than useful instruments
are, from another point of view, enduring frameworks of
social and political action” (x).
—Langdon Winner
Philosophies of Technology

¤  Instrumentalism (somnambulism): a technology is a tool.

¤  Determinism: “some computer enthusiasts believe that


the coming of an information age will inevitably produce
a more democratic, egalitarian society and that it will
achieve this wonderful condition without the least bit of
struggle” (Winner x).

¤  Social Consructionism (the social determination of


technology): “What matters is not technology, itself, but
the social or economic system in which it is
embedded” (Winner 20-21).
Chan Zuckerberg Initiative

https://www.fastcompany.com/3054120/read-mark-
zuckerbergs-letter-to-his-newborn-daughter
2. What is rhetoric?
The Rhetorical Situation
¤  “Rhetoric may be defined as ¤  “Rhetoric forms enthymemes
the faculty of observing in any from things that seem true to
people already accustomed to
given case the available deliberate among themselves”
means of persuasion” (160).
—Aristotle ¤  “[A] speaker persuades an
audience by the use of stylistic
¤  “A symbolic means of inducing identifications; his act of
cooperation in beings that by persuasion may be for the
nature respond to symbols” purpose of causing the
audience to identify with the
—Kenneth Burke speaker’s interests” (Rhetoric 46).
¤  “A mode of altering reality, ¤  “In any term we can posit a
not by the direct application world, in the sense that we can
of energy to objects, but by treat the world in terms of it,
the creation of discourse seeing all as emanations, near or
far, of its light. Such reduction to
which changes reality through a simplicity being technically
the mediation of thought and reduction to a summarizing title
action” —Lloyd Bitzer of ‘God term,’ . . . we must
forthwith ask ourselves what
¤  “The economics of attention” complexities are subsumed
—Richard Lanham beneath it” (Grammar 105).
Richard Buchanan: Rhetorical Design

“All products—digital and analog, tangible and intangible—


are vivid arguments about how we should lead our
lives” (“Design and the New Rhetoric” 194).

“If technology is in some fundamental sense concerned


with the probable rather than the necessary—with the
contingencies of practical use and action, rather than the
certainties of scientific principle—then it becomes rhetorical
in a startling fashion. It becomes an art of deliberation
about the issues of practical action, and its scientific aspect
is, in a sense, only incidental” (“Declaration By Design”6-7).
“Faced with any proposal for a new technological system,
citizens or their representatives would examine the social
contract implied by building the system in a particular
form” (55).—Langdon Winner
3. What is composition?
Breeds of Composition
¤  Current traditionalism: Late 19th century. Emphasis on the “clarity” of the final
project (usually essay). Not thinking about process, audience, authorial
identity, etc. (almost instrumentalism)

¤  Expressivism: 1960s. Writing as a tool for personal expression and identity


development. Not audience analysis and adaptation. Process is more
important than pure final product. Non-prescriptive—everyone writes
uniquely. Authentic self. Voice. (Donald Murray and Peter Elbow)

¤  Cognitivism: 1970s+80s. Experimental and psychological approaches to


studying writing process and development. How do people write. (Sondra
Perl, Linda Flower)

¤  Social constructionism: 1980s. Examining the cultural embedness of definitions


of good writing. Varying across contexts. We write in discourse communities
each with its own power structures and rules. Critiques cognitivism and
expressivism for their focus on individual writers out of context.

¤  Critical pedagogy: 80s+90s. Empowering students to resist and take action


through writing
Can you identify the type?
1.  “This scene convinces me that what we need in a pressing way in this country and in our
very own field is to articulate codes of behavior that can sustain more concretely notions
of honor, respect…across boundaries, with cultural boundaries embodying the need most
vividly...How do we listen? How do we demonstrate that we honor and respect the person
talking and what the person is saying, or what the person might say if we valued someone
other tan ourselves having a turn to speak?”

2.  “We wanted to answer three questions: What aspects of a rhetorical problem do people
actively represent to themselves? If writers do spend time developing a full representation
of their problem, does it help them generate new ideas?....In order to describe the problem
definition process itself, we collected thinking-aloud protocols.”

3.  “Thus we have seen that to the efficiency of communication by language four things are
necessary: Grammatical purity (or correctness)…Clearness (or perspicuity)...force...and
elegance.”

4.  “The real problem is writers’ refusal to take full and open responsibility for what they are
saying. If a writer is willing to say, in effect, ‘I’m me, I’m saying this, and I’m saying it to you,’
his words will not just have more life in them, they will also be clearer and more coherent.”
Multimodal Composition

Should we stop teaching essays and


arguments and start teaching Twitter?
4. What is literacy?
Definitions
¤  Literacy: What it takes to be considered expert in a particular
situation.*
¤  Skills-based/banking model (outdated): literacy is a thing to be
learned, given, and received.
¤  Social account: Literacy can only be understood in the contexts in
which it is acquired and used.
¤  Critical literacy (Paulo Freire): The ability to actively analyze the
power structures and ideologies of texts and to choose to accept or
resist. Learning to denaturalize expertise.
¤  Multi-literacies: “[B]ecause the push for technological literacy
focuses on one officially sanctioned form of literacy, it encourages
citizens to discount the complexities of literacy education and the
importance of multiple literacies within our culture” (Selfe xx).

*Note the similarities to our philosophies of technology


Key Terms

¤  Literacy myth

¤  Violence of ¤  Vernacular
literacy literacies

¤  Literacy events ¤  Discourse


+ Literacy Community
practices
¤  Gatekeeping
¤  Literacy mechanisms
sponsors
“People are bereft of information, information is knowledge,
knowledge is power, and increasing access to information
enhances democracy and equalizes social power. Alas, the
idea is entirely faulty. It mistakes sheer supply of information
with an educated ability to gain knowledge and act
effectively based on that knowledge. At times knowledge
brings merely an enlightened impotence. One may know
exactly what to do but lack the wherewithal to act” (Winner
109).
How is technology studied in CRL?

¤  Computers and ¤  Media studies


composition (multimodal ¤  Digital media studies
comp)
¤  Digital humanities
¤  Rhetoric of science,
technology, and ¤  Environmental studies
medicine ¤  History of science and
technology
¤  Technical writing
¤  Philosophy of science and
technology
¤  Technology and literacy
¤  Sociology of science and tech
¤  Rhetorical design
Key Journals of Technology in CRL

¤  Computers and Composition ¤  Technical Communication


Quarterly
¤  Kairos
¤  Technoculture
¤  Harlot
¤  Enculturation

¤  CCC: College Composition ¤  Rhetoric Review ¤  https://


and Communication undergrad.stanford.edu/
programs/pwr/teaching/
¤  Written Communication
¤  College English
¤  JAC: Journal of Advanced
¤  Present Tense Composition

¤  Composition Forum ¤  resources-pwr-instructors/


journals-rhetoric
¤  Rhetoric Society Quarterly
Introduce yourself and explain a quote
from the reading
Facts vs. Values: “All empirical research rests upon value
judgments about which facts are the important ones and
how they ought to be studied. Values themselves, similarly,
are factual matters rooted in empirical conditions of human
living. Given this, the supposed distinction between facts
and values falls apart” (157).
This American Life

Give me a rhetoric, composition, and literacy research topic


for this episode.
Being successful in this course

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