Activism and Writing List

Activism and Writing: Community Literacy, Service-Learning, and Community Research

This list has assembled texts that allow me to explore how people participate in activism through different language practices in order to gain representation and resources as well as to struggle against discrimination and prejudice. By gathering texts in community literacy, service learning, and community-based research, I hope to explore how each understands and engages in activism and what is at stake in the different methodological approaches. I imagine these forms of activism occurring in the public sphere and over recognition in it. Simplified conceptions of public sphere theory imagined it as a space where individuals freely came together to identify societal problems and discuss how best to address them through reasoned debate and political action; however, critical theorists have problematized this conception by exploring the mechanisms through which individuals and groups are excluded from participation.

Shifting definitions of literacy has historically been one mechanism through which access to the public sphere has been regulated. Rather than imagining literacy as a set of skills (as in dominant approaches), scholars of community literacy conceive of it as a social practice, often taking place in contested relations of power. Their reliance on ethnography as a methodology also affords insight into how they relate to the community they study. While community literacy explores ongoing language practices, scholarship in service-learning encourages the university to combine writing instruction with community action in a variety of ways. One key aspect of service-learning is problematizing the relationship between the class and community in order to avoid detrimental assumptions, such as the work is charity, and as Janet Eyler argues, one tool through which assumptions can be brought to light and grappled with is through reflective writing before, during, and after the projects. If service-learning brings the classroom to the community, community-based research brings scholarly research outside of academia and its preoccupations. Ellen Cushman urges scholars to participate in “activist research” so that they help the communities in which they serve. Some key concerns for community-based research are how research topics are selected and prioritized, building ethical relationships between the university and community, and ensuring that marginalized voices are heard. Reading these texts will allow me to think about whose literacies are dominant in the public sphere, whose are marginal or resistant, how individuals struggle for representation and material resources, and what relationship exists between community and university. 

In particular, I’m interested in reading the list with the following questions in mind:

·         What is at stake in the different methodological approaches to language practices as activism?

·         What language practices are considered objects of study for each approach?

·         How do scholars theorize and understand their relationship to the community?

·         How do we imagine the space and place of the public sphere?

·         What strategies are used to exclude and gain entrance to the public sphere and other resources?

List:

Ackerman, John and David J. Coogan.. The Public Work of Rhetoric: Civic Scholars and Civic Engagement. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2010. Print.

Adler-Kassner, Linda, Robert Crooks, and Ann Watters, eds. Writing the Community: Concepts and Models for Service-Learning in Composition. Washington, DC: American Association for Higher Education, 1997. Print.

Anderson, Erin. “Global Street Papers and Homeless (Counter) Publics: Rethinking the Technologies of Community Publications.” Reflections 10.1 (2010):76-103. Print.

Anderson, Jim, Maureen Kendrick, Theresa Rogers, and Suzanne Smythe, eds.  Portraits of Literacy Across Families, Communities, and Schools: Intersections and Tensions. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2005. Print.

Ashley, Hannah. "Between Civility and Conflict: Toward a Community Engaged Procedural Rhetoric." Reflections 5.1-2 (Spring 2006): 49-66. Print.

Barton and Hamilton. Local Literacies: Reading and Writing in One Community. New York: Routledge, 1998. Print.

Branch, Kirk. “Eyes on the Ought to Be”: What We Teach When We Teach About Literacy. Cresskill: Hampton P, 2007. Print.

Brandt, Deborah. Literacy in American Lives. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 2001. Print.

Cain, Mary Ann. “Bringing It Home: The Struggle for Public Space in Education.” JAC. 29.4. (2009): 833-842. Print.

Calhoun, Craig. Habermas and the Public Sphere. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1999. Print.

Callahan, Kevin J. Demonstration Culture: European Socialism and the Second International, 1889-1914. Leicester, UK: Troubador Publishing Itd, 2010. Print.

Cintron, Ralph. Angels’ Town: Chero Ways, Gang Life, and Rhetorics of the Everyday. Boston: Beacon P, 1997. Print.

Coogan, David. “Community Literacy as Civic Dialogue.” Community Literacy Journal 1.1 (2006): 96–108. Print.

Coogan, David J. “Counterpublics in Public Housing: Reframing the Politics of Service-Learning.” College English. 67.5 (2005): 461-82. Print.

Coogan, David J. “Service Learning and Social Change: The Case for Materialist Rhetoric.” College Composition and Communication. 57.4 (2006): 667-93. Print.

Croteau, D., Hoynes, W., & Ryan, C., Eds. Rhyming hope and history: activists, academics, and social movement scholarship. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2005. Print.

Crowley, Sharon. Toward a Civil Discourse: Rhetoric and Fundamentalism. Pittsburg: U of Pittsburg P, 2006. Print.

Cushman, Ellen. “The Public Intellectual, Service Learning and Activist Research.” College English. 61.3 (1999): 328-36. Print.

Cushman, Ellen. The Struggle and the Tools: Oral and Literate Strategies in an Inner City Community. New York: SUNY P, 1998. Print.

de Certeau, Michel. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley, CA: U of California P, 1984. Print.

Deans, Thomas. Writing Partnerships: Service-Learning in Composition. New York: NCTE, 2000. Print.

Deans, Thomas, Barbara Roswell, Adrian J. Wurr. Writing and Community Engagement: A Critical Sourcebook. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2010. Print.

DeGenaro, William. Who Says?: Working-Class Rhetoric, Class Consciousness, and Community. Pittsburgh, PA: U of Pittsburgh P, 2007. Print.

Del Gandio, Jason. Rhetoric for Radicals. New Society Publishers, 2008.  Print.

Elspeth, Stuckey. The Violence of Literacy. Heineman, 1990. Print.

Ervin, Elizabeth.  "Encouraging Civic Participation among First-Year Writing Students;  or, Why Composition Class Should Be More Like a Bowling Team." Rhetoric Review 15.2 (Spring 1997):  382-399. Print.

Ervin, Elizabeth. "Rhetorical Situations and the Straits of Inappropriateness: Teaching Feminist Activism." Rhetoric Review 25.3 (2006): 316-333. Print.

Ervin, Elizabeth. "Teaching Public Literacy: The Partisanship Problem." College English 68.4 (Mar. 2006): 407-421. Print.

Euben, J. Peter.  "Taking It to the Streets:  Radical Democracy and Radicalizing Theory."  Radical Democracy:  Identity, Citizenship, and the State.  Ed. David Trend.  New York:  Routledge, 1996.  62-80. Print.

Flacks, Richard.  "Reviving Democratic Activism:  Thoughts about Strategy in a Dark Time."  Radical Democracy:  Identity, Citizenship, and the State.  Ed. David Trend.  New York:  Routledge, 1996.  102-116. Print.

Fleming, David. City of Rhetoric: Revitalizing the Public Sphere in Metropolitan America. Albany, NY: SUNY P, 2008. Print.

Flower, Linda. Community Literacy and the Rhetoric of Engagement. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 2008. Print.

Flower, Linda “Talking Across Difference: Intercultural Rhetoric and the Search for Situated Knowledge.” College Composition and Communication 55.1 (2003): 38–68. Print.

Fraser, Nancy. Unruly Practices: Power, Discourse, and Gender in Contemporary Social Theory. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1989. Print.

George, Diana.  "Changing the Face of Poverty:  Nonprofits and the Problem of Representation."  Popular Literacy:  Studies in Cultural Practices and Poetics. Ed. John Trimbur.  U Pittsburgh P, 2001.  209-228. Print.

George, Diana. “The Word on the Street: Public Discourse in a Culture of Disconnect.” Reflections: A Journal of Writing, Community Literacy 2.2 (2002): 5–18. Print.

Goldblatt, Eli. “Alinsky’s Reveille: A Community-Organizing Model for Neighborhood-Based Literacy Projects.” College English 67.3 (2005): 274–94. Print.

Grabill, Jeffery T.  Community Literacy Programs and the Politics of Change. Albany: SUNY P, 2001. Print.

Greene, Ronald Walter. “Rhetorical Pedagogy as a Postal System: Circulating Subjects through Michael Warner’s ‘Publics and Counterpublics.’” Quarterly Journal of Speech 88.1 (2002): 434–43. Print.

Habermas, Jurgen. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Trans. Thomas Berger. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991. Print.

Hale, C. R., Ed. Engaging contradictions: Theory, politics, and methods of activist scholarship. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2008. Print.

Harris, Joseph.  "Reclaiming the Public Sphere."  College English 59.3 (March 1997):  324-31. Print.

Harter, Lynn M., Edwards, Autumn, McClanahan, Andrea, Hopson, Mark C.  and Evelyn Carson-Stern. “Organizing for Survival and Social Change: The Case of StreetWise.” Communication Studies.55.2 (2004):407-424. Print.

Hauser, Gerard A., and Amy Grim. Rhetorical Democracy: Discursive Practices in Civic Engagement. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2004. Print.

Hiduke, James J. “Public Writing: The Aggressive Dimension.” College Composition and Communication. 25.4 (1974): 303-305. Print.

Higgins, Lorraine, and Lisa D. Brush. “Personal Experience Narrative and Public Debate: Writing the Wrongs of Welfare.” College Composition and Communication. 57.4 (2006): 694–729. Print.

Higgins, Lorraine, Elenore Long, and Linda Flower. “A Rhetorical Model of Community Literacy.” Community Literacy Journal 1.1 (2006): 9–42. Print.

Horner, Bruce. Terms of Work for Composition: A Materialist Critique. Albany, NY: U of New York P, 2000. Print.

Howard, Ursula. “History of Writing in the Community.” Handbook of Research on Writing: History, Society, School, Individual, Text. Ed. Charles Bazerman. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2008. 237-54. Print.

Isaacs, Emily and Phoebe Jackson. Public Works: Student Writing as Public Text. Boynton/Cook, 2001. Print.

Jensen, Robert. Writing Dissent. Peter Lang Publishing, 2005. Print.

Kahn, Seth and Jong Hwa Lee. Activism and Rhetoric: Theories and Contexts for Political Engagement. New York: Routledge, 2011. Print.

Kroll, Barry.  "Arguing about Public Issues:  What Can We Gain from Practical Ethics?"  Rhetoric Review 16.1 (Fall 1997):  105-119. Print.

Lazere, Donald. "Postmodern Pluralism and the Retreat from Political Literacy." JAC 25.2 (2005): 257-293. Print.

Mathieu, Paula and Diana George. “Not Going It Alone: Public Writing, Independent Media, and the Circulation of Homeless Advocacy.” College Composition and Communication. 61.1 (2009):130-150. Print.

Mathieu, Paula. Tactics of Hope: The Public Turn in English Composition. Portsmouth: Boynton/Cook, 2005. Print.

Mathieu, Paula, Steve Parks, and Tiffany Rousculp. Circulating Communities: Tactics and Strategies of Community Publishing. New York: Lexington Books, 2012. Print.

McComisky, Bruce, and Cynthia Ryan, eds.  City Comp: Identities, Spaces, Practices. Albany: SUNY P, 2003. Print.

Mentzell Ryder, Phyllis. Rhetorics for Community Action: Public Writing and Writing Publics. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2010. Print.

Miller, Thomas P.  "Rhetoric Within and Without Composition:  Reimagining the Civic."  Coming of Age: The Advanced Writing Curriculum.  Ed. Linda K. Shamoon, Rebecca Moore Howard, Sandra Jamieson, and Robert A. Schwegler.  Portsmouth, NH:  Heinemann Boynton/Cook, 2000.  32-41. Print.

Mortenson, Peter. “Going Public.” College Composition and Communication. 50.2 (1998): 182-205. Print.

Moss, Beverly J. A Community Text Arises: A Literate Text and a Literacy Tradition in African-American Churches. Cresskill: Hampton P, 2002. Print.

Negt, Oskar, and Alexander Kluge.  The Public Sphere and Experience:  Toward an Analysis of the Bourgeois and the Proletarian Public Sphere.  Minneapolis:  U Minnesota P, 1993. Print.

Nystrand, Martin, and John Duffy, eds. Towards a Rhetoric of Everyday Life: New Directions in Research on Writing, Text, and Discourse. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 2003. Print.

Parks, Steve. Gravyland: Writing Beyond the Curriculum in the City of Brotherly Love. Syracuse: Syracuse UP, 2010. Print.

Parks, Steve and Eli Goldblatt. “Writing Beyond the Curriculum: Fostering New Collaborations in Literacy.” College English. 46.2 (2000): 584-606. Print.

Peck, Wayne, Linda Flower, and Lorraine Higgins. “Community Literacy.” College Composition and Communication 46.2 (1995): 199–222. Print.

Reynolds, Nedra. Geographies of Writing. Carbondale: Southern Illinois Press, 2004. Print.

Rose, Gillian.  "Spatialities of 'Community', Power and Change:  The Imagined Geographies of Community Projects."  Cultural Studies11.1 (1997). Print.

Simmons, W. Michele, and Jeffery T. Grabill. “Toward a Civic Rhetoric for Technologically and Scientifically Complex Places: Invention, Performance, and Participation.”  College Composition and Communication 58.3 (2007): 419–48. Print.

Squires, Catherine. “Rethinking the Black Public Sphere: An Alternative Vocabulary for Multiple Public Spheres.” Communication Theory 12.4 (2002): 446–68. Print.

Stevens, Sharon McKenzie. "Activist Rhetorics and the Struggle for Meaning: the Case of 'Sustainability' in the Reticulate Public Sphere." Rhetoric Review 25.3 (2006): 297-315. Print.

Swan, Susan. “Rhetoric, Service, and Social Justice.” Written Communication 19.1 (2002): 76–108. Print.

Trimbur, John. “Composition and the Circulation of Writing.” College Composition and Communication. 52.2 (2000): 188-219. Print.

Ward, Irene.  "How Democratic Can We Get?:  The Internet, the Public Sphere, and Public Discourse." JAC:  A Journal of Composition Theory 17.3 (1997):  365-380. Print.

Warner, Michael. Publics and Counterpublics. New York: Zone Books, 2005. Print.

Weisser, Christian. Moving Beyond Academic Discourse: Composition Studies and the Public Sphere. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 2002. Print.

Welch, Nancy. Living Room: Teaching Public Writing in a Privatized World. Portsmouth: Boynton/Cook, 2008. Print.

Welch, Nancy. “We’re Here and We’re not Going Anywhere: Why Working Class Rhetorical Traditions Still Matter” College English 73.3 (2011): 221-242. Print.

Wells, Susan. “Rogue Cops and Health Care: What Do We Want From Public Writing?” College Composition and Communication. 47.3 (1996): 325-41. Print.