introduction
i'm writing in response to chapters (should we be calling these hyperlinked, multiply-mediated digital hybrids chapters—i'm writing the word in italics to keep that question open) that have been categorized as, among other things, being about 'new scholarly genres.' they are:
| no theory but for practice: born, multi-media and the avant-garde | anmarie trimble and jennifer grotz |
| where ya at? composing identity through hyperlocal narratives | devon fitzgerald ralston |
| talking back to teachers: undergraduate research in multimodal composition | the normal group: cheryl ball, kenton cody, amy determan, ariana haze, jessica huang, steve lagioia, tom raehl, amos reim, katie rockwell, vince scannell, nick walker, matthew wendling and julie zei |
| experience, embodiment, excess: multimedia(ted) (e)visceration and installation rhetoric | jacqueline rhodes and jonathan alexander |
| not your mother's argument: the second shift and the new work of composing in a digital world | morgan gresham and roxanne kirkwood aftanes |
| scholarship on the move: a rhetorical analysis of scholarly activity in digital spaces | james purdy and joyce walker |
what does it mean to collect these chapters under this theme?
some raise issues of whether digital scholarly genres make the same kind of moves as their print-genre cousins, of whether digital texts are (and should be) valued as print texts, of whether the affordances of digital texts for making meaning and knowledge exceed those of print-paper texts (see purdy & walker).
but some chapters are more oriented to other questions. like the question of bodies and sexuality in composition studies and rhetoric (rhodes & alexander). like the question of what kind of rhetoric—other than print-argumentative-citational—the field might want to promote, perhaps invitational (gresham & aftanes) or installational (rhodes & alexander) or playfully enacting and speculative (purdy & walker). like new models of involving students in digital learning/scholarship (the normal group). like the digital re-media-tion of cultural practices such as those of place (ralston) and poetry (trimble & grotz). like issues of academic labor in an age of digital darwinian capitalism (gresham & aftanes).
i enjoyed going through the chapters, often spinning out at their invitation to the web—to read another text, to surf another prezi®, to dip into records of the composing process, to hear or view a media file.
yet the heterogeneity and abundance (that purdy and walker note is a feature of digital scholarship) of themes and of hyperlinked materials has made it challenging to articulate a response. that the chapters play variously with voice, genre, and media also makes an essayist response seem off the mark.
so
i have settled on playing with style—writing with no caps and often informally, a choice partially intended to ask how such play might relate to the print-digital divide—and i have settled on offering a multi-focused response—hyper-tied by links and musings that consider how different dimensions of constantly emerging newness in scholarly genres might be understood in relation to constantly emerging changes in digital literacy practices. these reflections unfold in the links below:
genre
art & alt
blt's
digital(only)ity
coda: scholarship and the digital
references etc.