Keynote Conversation Starter Statements

"Computers & Writing—A Discipline?"
with Cynthia Selfe, Fred Kemp, James Inman, and Cheryl Ball.

Included in this document are statements prepared by our keynote speakers on this common topic:

What defines Computers & Writing as a discipline? Is it a discipline? What distinguishes it from the discipline of Composition and Rhetoric, for example, or Technical Communication? What research and what theory inform its pedagogy and practice? How are we defined on the job market and then what roles do we play within our academic departments?

The following responses by our keynote speakers serve as beginning points for the discussion in the Symposium on February 18th from 1:15-2:30 PM (CST) within the Conference Center Auditorium in TTU English MOO.
--also viewable at http://english.ttu.edu/cw/CWO2006/keystart.pdf
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Opening Statement
Cynthia L. Selfe

For me, some of the most interesting intellectual work in computers and composition studies touches on one of the following themes:

• A grounding not only in semiotic theory and language theory, but also in social theories. Given the fact that technology serves as a nexus of power, money, ideology, and political influence, it is not surprising that many scholars in this field feel that the particular theoretical narratives of rhetoric, Marxism and cultural studies, ideology, and feminism possess great explanatory power. In addition, many scholars in the field remain fascinated by the ways in which technological systems have both shaped, and been shaped by, the conditions of globalism and postmodernity.

• A belief in social justice and the ability and responsibility of teachers to enact productive social change—even if only temporary, partial, and, fragmentary—that will make the lives of certain groups of people (particularly people of color, people labeled “illiterate,” “under prepared,” or “basic writers”; under-represented groups or groups who may hold positions counter to the dominant systems of power, particularly women, the lesbigay community, speakers of English as a foreign language; and people who are poor) and, thus, the lives of people at large, better more just, more equitable. Associated with this belief is an emerging understanding of the many difficulties associated with achieving social justice and enacting change and the tendential forces associated with stasis.

• A commitment to educational settings as potential venues for enacting productive social change. Paradoxically, this commitment is shaped by a sense of hope and optimistic pragmatism, even while it is tempered by skepticism. Influencing the latter is the work of critical pedagogists who understand the contributory role that educational systems and settings play in reproducing of inequities along the related axes of race, class, gender, and orientation.

• An understanding of technology and technological systems as both a possible vector for enacting productive change, and a powerful force for resisting such change and continuing inequity. This belief rests on two understandings: first, that technology consists not only of machines—of computers, for instance—but also of a complexly articulated set of social formations and, second, that, given these formations, technology and power and literacy practices are linked at fundamental levels.

Dr. Cheryl E. Ball

Compared to rhetoric, we’re babies; to composition, we’re teenagers; and to technical communication, fraternal twins. What, then, distinguishes us from these fields? People.

That is, the willingness of people in computers and composition to change, to explore new areas, to experiment, and to share with others (especially those still learning about the field). This “kindness of strangers” embrace is what drew me to computers and composition a mere six years ago. And it is what allows me to stand alongside Cindy, Fred, and James in this keynote, as a relative newbie.

In1999, it was the kindness of a few C&W members at my first, overwhelming CCCC who brought me into the fold. Literally, there were open arms. As I’ve wandered through the field, deciding what to study—and settling, for now, on new media—the diversity in C&W conference session topics points to our willingness to embrace change. In searching C&W programs for the terms “multimedia,” multimodal,” and “new media,” the results confirmed my suspicions:

Year # of sessions about multimodality/new media
2002 5
2003 13
2004 7
2005 25

Our field’s interest in this area has grown exponentially. This is great news for new media scholars but it’s also great news for the other areas in the field—we are open to change; we morph and undertake new kinds of scholarship and teaching as its needed (in comparison, the term “hypertext” has nearly disappeared). We wouldn’t be able to change courses so quickly if we weren’t kind, understanding people.

While it might have been necessary to say, “Our field defines itself through [fill in expertise here]” if I were addressing a CCCC audience or a CPTSC audience, I know that C&W Online attendees will appreciate what I consider the defining element of our field: YOU.

Dr. James Inman

Alas computers and writing is neither a discipline nor a field. I say "alas" because I know that there is great hope it will become one or the other. Unfortunately that hope is destined to be dashed.

We have some scholarship that everyone should know, but we certainly do not have a body of work specifically marked as computers and writing that merits independent categorization from established disciplines and fields. Much computers and writing scholarship could just as easily be considered composition scholarship or technical communication scholarship.

That we are not a discipline or field does not mean we do not have something of note, though. Indeed we are a dynamic, close-knit, and productive community.

Critics will suggest that we do not have enough shared resources or geographic cohesiveness to merit categorization as a community, but I believe that they are wrong. One need only look at journals like Computers and Composition and Kairos or at the annual Computers and Writing conferences (on-site and online).

Indeed, at the end of every fiscal year, when money and time are quite scarce, we find each other still. That is worthy of great celebration.

Years ago, a group of colleagues came together and began this computers and writing community that now stretches around the world. Let's honor that beginning and all of the colleagues who have since joined by thinking about computers and writing in human terms, rather than as the sum of work completed or the existence of specialized academic programs.

When we remember the human, we are well positioned for the future.

Dr. Fred Kemp

I am most interested in how people learn. A lot of educators think and have long thought that people learn by being handed information. But of course people don’t learn much that way. They learn by solving problems, and whatever information they acquire they get in their attempt to solve problems. So some 85% of education (lectures and textbooks) is ineffectual at doing anything other than giving some obnoxious people relatively easy lives.

The basis of problem-solving is interaction, negotiation, working through something by trial and error, attempt and feedback, revision, and try, try again. Computers used as communication devices let us do that, big time. The internet and the ability for everyday people to program on the internet gives all of us the ability to frame problems in a highly interactive digital space.

And that’s just fine for the individual teachers who get it, the Marcy Bauman’s and Nick Carbone’s and Eric Crump’s who roam freely and expressively across the wide digital plains. But is this understanding, this appropriation of digital spaces for learning, to exist only in the individual efforts of a few scattered digeratti? Or can we bring to bear on this issue all those ugly, ugly words we love to hate: institutionalization; systemization; standardization; organization?

Do we want to remain like so many of our literature friends, comfortably perched on our stylites, proud in what we can individually do and unconcerned that, without us, what we do can’t be done? I want to take the power of computers and digital learning spaces and inject them into systems and structures so that, compromised as they might therefore be, so many good ideas don’t live and die by individual careers.