Literacy in Composition Studies 3.2 Released
Literacy in Composition Studies, an open-acesss journal co-edited by Chris Warnick (with editorial assistance provided by CofC M.A. student Colleen Etman), recently released a bonus summer issue featuring the following articles:
- In “Composing Agency: Theorizing the Readiness Potentials of Literacy Practices,” Clay Walker draws on research in embodied cognition and neuroscience to theorize how previous literate experiences emerge as potentials for action, a phenomenon he names “discursive readiness potential.”
- In “‘Get Excited People!’: Gendered Acts of Literacy in a Social Sorority,” Faith Kurtyka answers the call for “broader, deeper” research on women’s rhetoric by studying writing acts within a sorority as a pre-professional, leadership activity.
- Kirk Branch’s “‘A Mockery in the Name of a Barrier’: Literacy Test Debates in the Reconstruction-Era Congress, 1864-1869” examines nineteenth-century Congressional discourse about literacy as a prerequisite for voting rights. Through his analysis of the congressional debates that eventually led to the Fifteenth Amendment, Branch demonstrates that by exploiting the “beneficent glow” associated with literacy, enemies of African-American male suffrage were able to obscure their racist intentions with the positive connotations of literacy.
The issue closes with a continuation of the journal’s ongoing symposium and a book review. Rebecca Kling’s Symposium contribution “Ante Up: Econocide and the Literacy Game in U.S. Prisons” draws on the author’s personal experience as a prison research assistant to demonstrate how collaboration, reflection, and resource allocation are of central concern to composition in both the university and the penal system. Drawing on Wilkey and Cleary’s LiCS article, “(Un)rigging the Literacy Game: Political Literacies that Challenge Econocide,” Kling challenges teachers and students alike to move “beyond one’s own narrative as a means of empowerment.” And, finally, Stephanie Rae Larson reviews Kyle Jensen’s Reimagining Process: Online Writing Archives and the Future of Writing Studies.