Twelfth Annual CASDW-ACR Conference

Visions for Writing Studies

May 30 – June 1, 2020

London, Ontario

CALL FOR PROPOSALS PDF (Bilingual)

The Canadian Association for the Study of Discourse and Writing-l’Association Canadienne de rédactologie welcomes proposals for workshops and research presentations on any current topic/issue in the study and teaching of writing, communication, discourse, and language. We encourage interdisciplinary and inter-organizational collaborations.

This year’s Congress theme calls attention to divisions and exclusions across the academy. Divisions can be viewed in multiple ways in terms of:

• fields, foci, and research methods;
• institutional contexts and Canadian and international sites of scholarship;
• the hierarchies in which administrators, tenured and untenured faculty, instructors, and students are caught up;
• and access, accommodation, inclusion, and equity for scholars, students, professionals, and publics within communities of practice.

Like many disciplines, writing studies has a whiteness problem (Ratcliffe, 2005; Inoue, 2019), including its tacit approval of settler colonial practices of “white, language supremacy” (Inoue, p.16). Grappling with this problem must involve attending to the absences—or absent presences—in the demographics of writing studies’ conferences, special interest groups, teaching, hiring, and citation practices. Doing so can drive both important research about the ways writing reflects and addresses settler colonialism and racial inequality and the development of a more critical writing studies.

This year’s Congress call invites us to pay critical attention to important questions at the heart of writing studies.

• What visions are there for a critical writing studies in Canada? What disciplines operate and intersect within writing studies? What methods are available for addressing troubling theoretical, pedagogical, and methodological practices within writing studies and across institutional approaches to writing instruction?
• In what ways are genres and genre categories being shaped by Indigenous epistemologies and methods?
• What constraints and affordances do language-diverse students and/or teachers experience in writing classrooms (NCTE, 1974)? How is language diversity viewed by teachers across disciplines and hiring committees within writing studies? How might scholarships, awards, position statements, faculty development challenge barriers to language diversity and translanguaging pedagogies?
• How might the concept of bridging be critically examined? How does bridge-building reinforce exclusions or create divides? What can be learned from bridge failure and collapse? System hacking? System hospicing (Andreotti et al.)?
• How can CASDW-ACR become an organization that drives a critical writing studies in Canada and beyond?

Proposals predominantly draw on work in writing studies, rhetorical genre studies, rhetorical theory, rhetorical analysis, writing centre theory and practice, and professional and technical writing research and practice.

In concert with the call, we encourage non-traditional formats and interdisciplinary collaborations. Tell us what you’d like to do and in how much time. Proposals for traditionally formatted papers, panels, and workshops are welcome, of course. Please consult past programs if you would like to learn more about the work presented at CASDW-ACR, and be sure to consider principles of accessibility, inclusivity, and diversity in your proposed session.

New proposal submission deadline: January 20th, 2020

Submission Information

To submit your proposal, please follow this two-step submission procedure:

1. Complete the submission form, which asks you to provide your personal information as well as the title and short description of your session for the conference program. Access the submission form here or via this link: https://forms.gle/Vh6CjGkFrQjGTpoH9.
2. Submit a de-identified version of your proposal as .docx file with your session title as the document title here.
   This anonymized proposal submission must include:

• • Session title
  • Session format
  • Short description (75 words)
  • Keywords, e.g., rhetorical genre studies (to help identify reviewers with appropriate expertise)
  • Detailed proposal (250 words)
  • References

Please direct any questions or comments to the Program Chair, Dana Landry.

Accepted presenters will be asked to pay the CASDW-ACR membership fee in order to be included on the 2020 Conference Program. For more information about CASDW-ACR and to join the association or renew your membership, please visit our website. For more information about the Congress or to register, please visit their website.

References

Andreotti, V., Stein, S., Ahenakew, C., & Hunt, D. (2015). Mapping interpretations of decolonization in the context of higher education.” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 4(1), 21-40.

Inoue, A. (2019). How do we language so people stop killing each other, or what do we do about White Language Supremacy?” CCCC Chair’s Address. Pittsburgh.

Students’ right to their own language. (1974). Conference on College Composition and Communication, 25. Retrieved from https://www2.ncte.org/statement/students-right-to-their-own-language/.

Ratcliffe, K. (2005). Rhetorical listening: Identification, gender, whiteness. Southern Illinois University Press.