Searching for Literacy : The Social and Intellectual Origins of Literacy Studies

This book provides a critical account of the development of questions, approaches, methods, and understandings of literacy within and across disciplines and interdisciplines. It provides a critique of literacy studies, including the New Literacy Studies. This book completes a series that the author began in the 1970s. It criticizes and revises the New Literacy Studies and how we think about literacy generally. It is a revisionist study which argues that literacy and literacy studies are historical developments and must be understood in those terms to comprehend their profound impact on our traditions of thinking about and understanding literacy, and how we study it. Graff argues that literacy studies in its academic, institutional, and policy forums, but also in popular parlance, has lost its critical foundations, and this hinders efforts to promote literacy. He examines literacy over time and across linguistics; anthropology; psychology; reading and writing across modes of communication and comprehension; "new" literacies across digital, visual, performance, numerical, and scientific domains; and history. He underscores the value of new directions of negotiation and translation. This book will interest scholars and students in the many fields that constitute literacy studies across the humanities, social sciences, education, and beyond. Harvey J. Graff is Professor Emeritus of English and History at The Ohio State University, USA. He was inaugural Ohio Eminent Scholar in Literacy Studies and founded the university-wide interdisciplinary initiative LiteracyStudies@OSU. One of the worlds authorities, his books are recognized landmarks, from The Literacy Myth to The Legacies of Literacy and The Labyrinths of Literacy, among others on children and youth, cities, and interdisciplinarity Preface Acknowledgements Contents Part I: Searching for Literacy Studies 1: Back to Basics From Sales to Performance Literacy Now Searching for Literacy Literacy Studies Past and Future Historicizing Literacy Studies Disciplining and Undisciplining Literacy Studies References 2: Linguistics: Between Orality and Writing The Biases of Linguistics From Literacy to Orality From Speech to Script and Back Again Singers of Tales, Speakers of Words Alphabets and their Legacies Formulating Divides Between the Oral and the Written In the Americas Rethinking the Relationships between Orality and Literacy References 3: Anthropology: Reading and Writing from Pictographs to Ethnography Traditions of Difference Anthropological Legacies of Literacy Goody and Beyond Theories and Practices Local Literacies and Limits Renaissance and Recovery? Traditions of Ethnographies Toward Anthropologies of Literacy? References 4: Psychology: Between Mind and Culture Whose World on Paper? Toward New Psychologies of Literacy A Cultural and Social Psychology of Literacy A Case Study of Literacy in Cultural Context Literacy in Theory and Practice, Again? References 5: Literature and Composition: Reading and Writing Revised Many Literacies, from Reading to Writing and All Things Digital Images of Writing and Reading Reading Reviewed and Renewed Rereading Toward a New Future for Reading Studies Writing over Reading Revisited and Revised Writing and Reading Reading in the Rise of Writing Reading, Writing, and Renewing Literacy Studies References 6: Many Literacies, Other Visions: Digital, Visual, Science, Numbers, Performance Digital Literacy or Digital Media? Digital Literacy to Save the World? Digital Divides or Cultural Integration? Digital Culture, Literacy, and Ideology New or Old Literacies? Visual Education Science and Numeracy Performance and Dance References 7: Historicizing Literacy and Literacy Studies: Axioms and Lessons Literacy, History, and Myths From Myths to Histories of Literacy Themes in the History of Literacy Historicity and Complexity Contexts, Expectations, and Consequences for Learning and Practice Paths to Literacy and Paths of Development A Future for the History of Literacy and for Literacy Studies References 8: Epilogue: Many Pasts, Many Futures Literacy and Literacies Are Relational and Dialectical Historical Awareness Is Fundamental Context Gives Meaning to Literacy and Creates the Ground for Its Study and Practice Translation Is Inseparably Intertwined with Matters of Literacy Negotiation Provides an Especially Human Approach to the Study and Practice of Literacy and Literacies References Part II: 2021: Looking Forward and Backward 9: The New Literacy Studies and the Resurgent Literacy Myth 10: Literacy, Politics, Culture, and Society: The New Illiteracy and the Banning of Books, Past and Present 11: The Economic Debasement of Literacy: The Misrepresentation and Marketing of “Financial Literacy” References Correction to: Searching for Literacy Index