Congratulations Kris!

Here is a link to the Charles Moran Award description.

I had the pleasure of presenting in the CC this year in Louisville, and I am happy to say that it was one the best Cs experiences I have had so far.  My panel was well attended, and audience members asked lots of questions.  The moderator actually had to ask us to end Q and A because we ran out over our allotted time.  Here are a few details about how the CC works.  There are only two presenters per panel, each person getting 25 minutes to speak, which leaves lots of time for discussion.  Also, given the technological topics of these presentations, all presenters have access to computer projector equipment, which is not the case for regular Cs presentations.  The CFP deadline is usually well after the official Cs deadline.  In fact, the deadline comes after most people hear whether or not their Cs proposal was accepted or not.  Additionally, the CC is not part of the 1 presentation/1 speaking role rule at Cs, which means that it can be done in addition to any other speaking role you might have.

For budgetary reasons, this under-recognized component of the Cs is unfortunately not well publicized.  You won’t find any mention of it on the Cs website, and it is not mentioned in the conference program, though there usually are paper flyers available at the conference near where the official programs are given out.  If you are interested in giving a presentation on any topic related to the intersection of computers and composition/rhetoric, I hope that you’ll consider sending in a proposal for next year’s Computer Connection and that you’ll spread the word to others who might be interested as well.  Alternatively, if you don’t end up presenting at CC, look for the CC flyer at the conference when you register so you can come by to watch some of the presentations.

Here is the link to the Computers and Writing Clearinghouse website for more info on what the Computer Connection is all about and how you can submit a proposal.

http://computersandwriting.org/CCcall07

The site offer some great, downloadable lesson plans and exercises for engaging students in this porcess. According to Pflugfelder and Elder, their site may soon become part of Purdue’s famous OWL. For now, though, you can access the site here.

Lev Manovich:

Manavich offers several compelling examples of how software – at some level – mediates almost everything we experience on a day-to-day basis.  Everything from Missiles to the food we eat to the environments we live in is influenced by software at some basic level.  He even claims that software is to the information society like the internal combustion engine was to the industrial society.

Toward the end of his talk, Manovich made some interesting connections to composition studies, claiming that we no longer have static, already there texts.  Rather we have immediate calculations, or “software performances.”  When we compose a document in Microsoft Word, for example, we actually using software to perform a new calculation with each keystroke.  The output we see and manipulate on the screen is the product of multiple and continuous calculations performed by the software in concert with our input as well as other software – like an operating system, for example.

Manovich argues that this offers us a new perspective to think about how we think about compose “texts” or even how we think about cultural work in general.  If software is now as expansive as all culture, how does that change the way that we think about, analyze, or value cultural experiences – like reading and writing?

Anne Wysocki: Beginning her talk with a video clip of animated Chicken McNuggets feeding from a tub of dipping sauce, and fish sticks swimming in a fish bowl, Wysocki asks her audience to consider a new relationship with “stuff.”  She argues that we have a reduced relationship with the stuff of our lives, which partly results in wasteful, disengaged consumption of stuff.  For example, we have cars, so we can go to work.  We go to work, so we can earn money to buy gas.  We need gas so we can go to work.  In other words, or relationships with stuff is trapped in a kind of closed circuit that isolates us and our stuff from a larger meaningful context.  

Wysocki moves from this discussion to the crafting of stuff, making an analogy between this craft and the craft of writing. Citing Philosophers from Socrates up through the ages, she explains that the craft of producing stuff should be valued beyond the goods that are produced. When we craft, we make decisions about how the stuff we work with will be shaped in order to work well in the world.  In making these decisions as we craft, we are situating our selves, our craft, and the object within the context of the world.  As such, when we craft we act on and influence the world, and we also learn something about ourselves and our roles in the world.

She concludes her talk by offering this understanding of craft as a way of thinking about and appreciating writing. Arguing that pages of writing are designed to encourage readers to lose sight of them as they focus on the abstract ideas, Wysocki argues that considering the craft of writing keeps the ideas from becoming disembodied. By thinking about the craft of writing, and the crafters behind writing, we sustain the link between the ideas and the body that produced those ideas.  When we put bodies back into writing, the page resonates with the body.  For example, in graphic design we know that angles invoke a sense of movement from viewers because it resonates with their bodies’ sense of falling.  A page of writing can function in similar ways, and, according to Wysocki, which could potentially to think about and discover unique ways of using the page to connect the author and the audience.