Diffractive Research on Situated, Historical, Embodied Semiosis in Accounts of Lifespan Becoming-With and Worlding

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

This symposium explores lifespan literacies from flat, feminist-materialist, diffractive perspectives centered around semiotic activity (situated, historical, embodied semiosis) and becoming-with (ongoing co-production of persons and societies amid emergent ecologies). Fusing non-representational epistemologies with a non-representational account of semiosis as worlding, the papers report research on diverse semiotic activities using different methodological strategies: flat tracing of the ontogenesis of inscriptional practices and lifespan becoming-with across rather than within worlds, reflection on becoming-with resonances between a graduate anthropologist and the semiotic genres systems she is researching, and engaged co-research tracing entanglements across texts (dissertations, public websites, union solidarity statements) and embodied worlding (wolf rescue, academic practice, union leadership). Following the discussant’s critical response, the session concludes with open discussion and questions.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Writing and Literacies

Chair

• Paul A. Prior, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Papers

• Tracing semiotic activity as becoming-with and worlding-across - Paul A. Prior, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Kevin Roozen, University of Central Florida

• The intangible in developing literacies: Reflections of an anthropologist becoming-with research on psychosocial immigration reports - Anna Prior, University of Chicago

• Tracing semiotic activity and lifespan becoming with across union activism, academic life, and wolf rescue - Bruce Kovanen, North Dakota State University

Discussant

• Anna Smith, Illinois State University