Refereed Journal Articles
“The Historical In/As the Responsive” Jac, 34.1-2 (2014): 711-718. Print.
This essay responds to the keynote papers of the 2013 Watson Symposium and 2014 Watson Conference on “Responsivity.” In it, I reflect on our own scholarly efforts to define and enact responsivity as historical activities.
The classroom activity described in this webtext is my attempt to think through the ways that the multimodal nature of closed captioning as a language practice could intersect productively with a translingual approach to language. Part of rhetorical awareness for a globalizing citizenry is an acknowledgement of the complexity of language choices—even and especially in contexts where language is seemingly transparent, standard, unquestioned.
This essay responds to Jeanne Gunner’s “Disciplinary Purification: The Writing Program as Institutional Brand” (in the same volume), asserting the physical presence of writing researchers and teachers in writing programs and administrative positions at present as constituting an interest group with the power to resist co-optation of the writing program “brand.”
As the field of Composition pays more attention to the diverse composing practices encouraged by new media, it becomes increasingly incumbent on scholars, researchers and teachers to consider the affordances as well as the limitations or challenges of these practices for students and other composers: both material and ideological, personal and political. In considering writing with sound, then, we must also consider writing and reading of individuals without access to sound. As we consider the translation of meaning across modes, the transformation of material across compositions and recompositions, we might be reminded also of the complexity of translation also within and across languages, such as that from sounds to written symbols in Closed Captioning.
This essay draws on work in composition and translation studies that acknowledges the complexity and importance of cross-language translation in a global economy and values difference and negotiation of meaning—even occasional incomprehension—in language use to consider Closed Captioning (CC) policies and practices in America (Cronin; Horner et al.; Prendergast; Venuti; White).
Book Chapters
“Informal Writing and the Design of Academic Conferences.” Economies of Writing: Revaluations in Rhetoric and Composition. Ed. Bruce Horner, Susan Ryan and Brice Nordquist. Forthcoming. With Megan J. Bardolph.
This chapter explores the ways in which our conference designs often emphasize an idea of individual authorship that is in tension with our understanding of knowledge production as situated and socially constructed. Specifically, we see a need for disciplinary and institutional recognition of the social, active knowledge construction already occurring within the designated space of the academic conference.
To this end, our project focuses on the use of Twitter to make connections between ideas presented over the course of the conference and to shape the dynamic, multilayered conversation. Based on our analysis of data from Twitter, we argue that informal synchronous and asynchronous interactions with the conference theme evidence attendees’ roles as contributors to an ongoing dialogue; such interactions open up new considerations for conference design and institutional documentation.
With Beth Boehm. “Graduate Student Peer Mentoring Programs: Benefitting Students, Faculty and Academic Programs.” The Mentoring Continuum: From Graduate School Through Tenure. Ed. Glenn Wright. Syracuse Graduate School Press. Print. Forthcoming.
In this chapter we argue that formal peer mentoring programs support faculty by relieving the full burden of mentoring from the primary mentor and benefit graduate programs by dispersing the efforts of recruitment, orientation, and acculturation of incoming students. In describing the various forms of peer mentoring we have supported and participated in, then—from one-on-one mentor pairings, to intergenerational writing groups and interdisciplinary support groups—we focus throughout on the specific benefits to faculty and programs as well as students. By demonstrating the varied affordances of formalized peer mentoring programs, we hope to increase the faculty and departmental support that are necessary for the success of such programs.
“’Several Sigourneys’: Circulation, Reprint Culture, and Lydia Sigourney’s Prose.” Reconsidering Sigourney. Eds. Elizabeth Petrino and Mary Lou Kete. Print. Forthcoming.
Nina Baym has argued that Lydia Sigourney’s range “inevitably allows for the construction of several Sigourneys who are unknown to modern criticism” (390). The Sigourney that this essay constructs emerges from the intersection of genres and publishing venues—her periodical prose in popular magazines and book-length autobiographical works. Drawing on the work of Meredith McGill on reprinting and Leon Jackson on literary economies, I demonstrate the importance of attending to the genre and publication venue of Sigourney’s prose. Doing so reveals important tensions among the different “Sigourneys” that the author was constructing across contexts, and highlights the ways her authorial identity and her social and political positions circulated (and morphed) across reprintings.
Other Publications
This paper advocates for increased attention to graduate students in student affairs research and reports on the ways the School of Interdisciplinary and Graduate Studies at the University of Louisville has used technology to support graduate student learning. The technologies reported on here are familiar and accessible to most all student affairs professionals; this report is intended to highlight the presence of these technologies, which may be taken for granted in our practice, and to encourage less tech-savvy practitioners to consider the ways they can build on existing tools to help their students reach their learning outcomes. It encourages an approach to technology integration that is responsive to a particular need or use and considers the affordances and limitations of particular technologies rather than embracing new technologies on account of their “newness.” Although technology trends among college students are a popular topic in higher education, the tangential outcomes related to campus IT infrastructure remain a relatively untouched area of discussion. This article reviews technology trends at one higher education institution in the Southeastern United States. Through the longitudinal tracking of residential student perception surveys, a campus environment continues to evolve its capacity to meet student technology expectations. The use of historical documents and the identified expertise of campus staff provide practical considerations for student affairs professionals.
In this brief creative nonfiction piece (published anonymously as part of the cover feature), I reflect on the challenges of teaching fourth grade in Memphis, Tennessee, as a Teach For America corps member. It is a humorous sketch of the tensions between educational ambitions and the daily realities of life in the classroom for a young new teacher.
Amy J Lueck 