Guest Lecture from Renowned Social Linguistics and Literacy Scholar in Conjunction with Global Accessibility Awareness Day
The Office of Writing and Learning is pleased to host Dr. Suresh Canagarajah on Thursday, May 18, from 3:30 to 4:30 pm in the Advanced Technologies Laboratory (Building 07, Room 02). Please join us for this special event!
Crip Writing:
Communication through a Disability and Decolonial Lens
Pedagogies for teaching language and writing often impose the language and rhetorical norms of privileged social groups onto minoritized and multilingual students and treat deviations from those norms as linguistic or cognitive deficiency. This talk will propose an alternate way of thinking about language and ability by drawing on how the speaker’s cancer diagnosis and resulting impairments transformed his writing practice, as well as on his research on the writing and communication practices of international STEM scholars. The talk will argue that diverse languages and proficiencies motivate people to cultivate the dispositions needed to practice relational ethics and vulnerability when interacting with each other, and that these practices are crucial for successful communication.
Dr. Suresh Canagarajah is the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Applied Linguistics, English, and Asian Studies at Penn State University and author of multiple award-winning publications on World Englishes, multilingual writing, decolonization, and disability studies. He formerly served as president of the American Association for Applied Linguistics and editor of TESOL Quarterly.
Recommended Resources
Cal Poly's first-year composition program coordinator, Dr. Jay Peters, has compiled an interactive annotated bibliography of recommended publications, video lectures and interviews that provide a basic synopsis of Canagarajah's career trajectory of the past twenty-five years. Visit the Recommended Resources webpage to learn more about Canagarajah's work.
Accessibility and Accommodations
This event is accessibly designed, featuring an ASL interpreter and CART real-time captioning. Attendees may contact John Lee (jlee245@calpoly.edu) with questions about event accessibility or requests for disability-related accommodations such as wheelchair access, large print materials, assistive listening device, or remote attendance via Zoom.
Global Accessibility Awareness Day
Thursday, May 18, 2023, marks the 12th Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD). The purpose of GAAD is to get everyone talking, thinking and learning about digital access and inclusion, and the more than one billion people with disabilities/impairments. We invite you to learn more about this important annual event by visiting the GAAD webpage.
Thank You to Our Contributors
The Office of Writing and Learning would like to thank the following campus partners for their co-sponsorship of this event:
