Following on the groundbreaking contributions of Deborah Brandt’s Literacy in American Lives—a literacy ethnography exploring how ordinary Americans have been affected by changes in literacy, public education, and structures of power—Literacy, Economy, and Power expands Brandt’s vision, exploring the relevance of her theoretical framework as it relates to literacy practices in a variety of current and historical contexts, as well as in literacy’s expanding and global future. Bringing together scholars from rhetoric, composition, and literacy studies, the book offers thirteen engrossing essays that extend and challenge Brandt’s commentary on the dynamics between literacy and power.
The essays cover many topics, including the editor of the first Native American newspaper, the role of a native Hawaiian in bringing literacy to his home islands, the influence of convents and academies on nineteenth-century literacy, and the future of globalized digital literacies. Contributors include Julie Nelson Christoph, Ellen Cushman, Kim Donehower, Anne Ruggles Gere, Eli Goldblatt, Harvey J. Graff, Gail E. Hawisher, Bruce Horner, David A. Jolliffe, Rhea Estelle Lathan, Min-Zhan Lu, Robyn Lyons-Robinson, Carol Mattingly, Beverly J. Moss, Paul Prior, Cynthia L. Selfe, Michael W. Smith, and Morris Young. Literacy, Economy, and Power also features an introduction exploring the scholarly impact of Brandt’s work, written by editors John Duffy, Julie Nelson Christoph, Eli Goldblatt, Nelson Graff, Rebecca Nowacek, and Bryan Trabold. An invaluable tool for literacy studies at the graduate or professional level, Literacy, Economy, and Power provides readers with a wide-ranging view of the work being done in literacy studies today and points to ways researchers might approach the study of literacy in the future.
John Duffy is an associate professor of English and the Joseph Morahan Director of the College Seminar at the University of Notre Dame. He studies literacy and rhetoric in minority communities and has published essays in College Composition and Communication, Written Communication, and elsewhere. His book, Writing from These Roots: The Historical Development of Literacy in a Hmong American Community won the 2009 College Composition and Communication Book of the Year Award.
Julie Nelson Christoph is an associate professor of English at the University of Puget Sound. She has published work on ethos and on literacy and culture in College English, Research in the Teaching of English, and Written Communication. Her article in this collection grows out of research conducted during a year-long Fulbright Fellowship in Tanzania.
Eli Goldblatt is a professor of English at Temple University. His 2007 Hampton Press book, Because We Live Here: Sponsoring Literacy Beyond the College Curriculum, won the Best Book award from the Council of Writing Program Administrators. Goldblatt is the author of Writing Home: A Literacy Autobiography (SIU Press, 2012). He directs a university-wide initiative called the Community Learning Network, and has published three books of poetry and two books for children.
Nelson Graff is an assistant professor of English at San Francisco State University. He has published on secondary teaching and literacy teaching strategies in English Journal, Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, and Educational Research.
Rebecca S. Nowacek is an associate professor of English at Marquette University. Her research focuses on academic literacy and has appeared in College Composition and Communication, College English, JGE: The Journal of General Education, and Research in the Teaching of English.
Bryan Trabold is an associate professor of English at Suffolk University. He has published on the strategies of resistance used by South African antiapartheid journalists in College English and also has an article forthcoming in College Composition and Communication.
