The Affective Turn in Literacy Research: Theories, Potentials, Difference

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Language and literacy are among the most humane of all practices; speaking, writing, reading, and imaging are the ways we tell our human stories, forge relationships, and make sense of our identities as humans. However, the direction of education in language and literacy has suffered under the weight of dehumanizing influences, including the increasing regulation and commodification of compulsory schooling. This session brings together an international group of researchers currently leading the affective turn in literacy studies in order to affirm a more fully embodied and felt response to the literacies in our own lives and in the lives of those with whom we research. Presentations work toward developing a coherent and far-reaching theory of affect for literacy research.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Writing and Literacies

Chairs

• Christian Ehret, McGill University

• Kevin M Leander, Vanderbilt University

Papers

• Affective Flows in the Clinic and the Classroom - Gail M. Boldt, The Pennsylvania State University

• Visceral Literacies, Political Intensities: Affect as Critical Potential in Literacy Research and Practice - Elizabeth M. Dutro, University of Colorado Boulder

• Assembling Desire, Love, and Affect in an Art Museum School - Jonathan Eakle, George Washington University

• Coded to Smithereens and Danced to Abstraction: Forms of Affect in the Industry of Research - Mia Perry, University of Glasgow

• Charlene's Puppies: Embarrassing Obsessions? Or Happy Objects Deeply Connected to Living Literacies? - Kimberly Lenters, University of Calgary

• Telling Stories out of Class: Three Movements in a Reach for Affect - Cathy Burnett, Sheffield Hallam University