https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/education/research/literacies-and-language/forging-hopeful-literacies
Sheffield Literacies and Language Conference: Forging Hopeful Literacies
Sheffield Literacies Conference 16th-17th June
CALL FOR PROPOSALS FOR THE SHEFFIELD LITERACIES CONFERENCE 2023
Forging Hopeful Literacies
Friday June 16th – Saturday June 17th, 2023
For over a decade, the University of Sheffield hosted an international literacies conference.
After an unforgettable pandemic, we are returning to the tradition this June with the theme of Forging Hopeful Literacies, in partnership with Sheffield Hallam University.
Sheffield is a city of makers and forgers, a city strongly linked with material culture of an industrial past. As a conference theme, we play on this reputation and perspectives from the past, present, and future of craft, material ways of knowing and doing, and how craft might inform our understandings of literacies, language, and communication.
The hopeful dimension of the conference invites a look ahead at literacies destinations: where we are and where we might like to be as a literacy community? Attending to the moment and speculating on the future, what kinds of literacies can we possibly hope for to meet tomorrow’s communicational demands and desires? There is an openness to this call because hopeful literacies must by their very nature be expansive and inclusive of different types of research in a wide range of contexts.
The conference offers keynote talks that explore hopeful methods, hopeful innovations, disruptive hopes, and theories that invite hope. With interactive workshops that leverage hope as a proposition for thinking, being, and imagining differently, and panels that give us small islands of hope taken together, this promises to be an unforgettable event.
Taking seriously the concept of hopeful literacies, we invite international researchers to submit 250-word abstracts of papers on a wide range of topics, theories, approaches, and provocations. This call for papers offers a space for you to share research, theory, and methods and come together to forge thoughts and exchange ideas on hopeful literacies destinations.
PROGRAMME
Conference Opening: Dr. Roberta Taylor, Dr. Karen Daniels & Professor Jennifer Rowsell
8:30 – 9 AM – Coffee and pastries
9 AM – 10:30 AM
Opening Panel: What are ‘Hopeful Literacies’?
Professor Kate Pahl, Manchester Metropolitan University (Chair)
Panel: Dr. Fiona Scott (University of Sheffield), Dr. Chris Bailey (Sheffield Hallam University), Deborah Bullivant (Grimm & Co, UK), Dr. Jessica Bradley (University of Sheffield), and Professor Abigail Hackett (Manchester Metropolitan University)
11 AM – Noon – Parallel Sessions
Noon – 1 PM LUNCH
Keynote #1: Professor Michael Dezuanni, Queensland University of Technology
2 PM – 2:30 PM Coffee Break
2:30 – 3:30 PM
Arts & Research-Creation Time
Steve Pool, Manchester Metropolitan University and Harriet Hand, University of Bristol & Mark Shillitoe, Delft International School
3:30 PM – 4:30 PM
Keynote #2: (Dr. Jennifer Farrar, University of Glasgow)
CONFERENCE DINNER: Lokanta
Saturday June 17th
9 AM – Coffee and Pastries
9:30 – 10:30 AM
Keynote #3: Dr. Khawla Badwan, Manchester Metropolitan University
10:30 – 11:30 – Parallel Sessions
11:30 – 12:30 – Graduate Student Presentations with Respondent: Dr. Cheryl McLean, Rutgers Graduate School of Education
LUNCH (12:30-1:30)
Afternoon: Digital-Material Sensorium with Dr. Hugh Escott, Sheffield Hallam University
Conference Details:
You do not have to present, you can come and take part in presentations, interactive workshops, research creation events, and conversations with friend and colleagues.
Fees for PGR students are 25 pounds and for everyone else 50 pounds. The fees include breakfasts, lunches, and the Friday evening dinner (food only). In addition, we have reserved a number of rooms at the Rutland Hotel, close to the conference venue, for those delegates who require accommodation.
April 21st, 2023: 250-word abstracts submitted to Prof Jennifer Rowsell: J.Rowsell@sheffield.ac.uk
April 21st, 2023: 500-word abstracts on PhD research for the USheff-SHU Literacies PhD Award to be given at a special PGR Research Session submitted to Dr. Roberta Taylor: r.e.taylor@shu.ac.uk
May 5th, 2023: Notification of Abstract Decisions
Abi Hackett
Abigail Hackett & Pauliina Rautio (2019) Answering the world: young children’s running and rolling as more-than-human multimodal meaning making, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 32:8, 1019-1031, DOI: 10.1080/09518398.2019.1635282
Abstract
This paper makes a case for a view of young children’s meaning-making in which human actants are not separate from, but deeply entwined in, a more-than-human world. In order to interrogate the more-than-human processes through which multimodal meaning-making emerges, we focus on meaning-making through running and rolling that we have observed in early childhood settings in Finland and the UK. In doing so, we rethink the process of bringing-into-relation that underpin multimodal literacy practices. Ingold’s notion of correspondence is offered as a generative way to conceptualize the interplay between human and nonhuman elements as they ‘make themselves intelligible to each other’ (p.97). We show how posthuman theory offers the possibility for reconceptualising emergence and intentionality, within young children’s meaning-making.
Keywords: Literacy early childhood running more-than-human posthuman correspondence
Karen Daniels
Karen Daniels (2021) Movement, meaning and affect and young children’s early literacy practices International Journal Early Childhood Education 29/1 p41-55
https://doi.org/10.1080/09669760.2019.1701998
ABSTRACT
This paper reports on an analysis of patterns of children’s bodily movements in an Early Years classroom. I illustrate two prevalent patterns identified during close observations of children’s walking movements as they as they followed their interests while accessing continuous provision in an Early Years setting in England. I termed the patterned pathways movement/ interest formations and draw a relationship between these formations and affective atmospheres, suggesting that these atmospheres were created by the dynamics and flows of children’s ongoing bodily movements. I propose that affective atmospheres and movement/interest formations are intricately connected to child-produced meanings as children re-imagine, re-shape and re-purpose classroom spaces and materials. In this way I contribute to conceptual understandings role of children’s whole bodily movements and the accompanying affective atmospheres in the emergence of young children’s literacy practices. My findings substantiate viewpoints that children should be provided with the opportunity to engage in exploratory play and move freely in education settings. Furthermore, I suggest that practitioners be attuned to the the affective dimensions of young children’s emerging literacy practices in Early Years classrooms.
KEYWORDS: Early Years classrooms literacy practices movement embodied meaning making
Hugh Escott
Hugh Escott & Kate Pahl (2019) Learning from Ninjas: young people’s films as a lens for an expanded view of literacy and language, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 40:6, 803-815, DOI: 10.1080/01596306.2017.1405911
ABSTRACT
This article examines young people’s films to provide insights about language and literacy practices. It offers a heuristic for thinking about how to approach data that is collectively produced. It tries to make sense of new ways of knowing that locate the research in the field rather than in the academic domain. The authors develop a lens for looking at films made by young people that acknowledge multiple modes and materiality within their meaning-making practices. We make an argument about the cultural politics of research, to consider how the language and literacy practices of young people are positioned. We argue for more consideration of how language and literacy appear entangled within objects and other stuff within young people’s media productions, so as to trouble disciplinary boundaries within and beyond literacy and language studies.
Seminar: Professor Jennifer Rowsell
Wednesday 23rd November 4.30 – 6pm
Sheffield Institute of Education, Charles Street, room 12-05-08
The Comfort of Screens: Moving into post-digital times
In the wake of the pandemic, screens occupy a Janus-faced presence in our lives. On one side, screens resurrect images of craning necks watching small boxes in zoom meetings and on the other side they rekindle memories of binge-watching our favourite series. A post-digital perspective allows researchers to consider ways that the digital shape our lives, encouraging a greater appreciation and understanding of the ways that technologies pervade everyday lives. Post-digital ways of being and thinking are the lived practices that people engage in all of the time that are often taken-for-granted. In this presentation, I will feature an interview study with 17 people who live on the same crescent who generously shared their thoughts about their screen lives. Applying post-digital theory (Burnett & Merchant, 2020; Macgilchrist, 2021), I will share my initial findings from the interview conversations and invite audience reflections, provocations, and wisdom for their implications.
Biography: Jennifer Rowsell is a Professor of Digital Literacy at the University of Sheffield. Her research interests include multimodal, makerspace and arts-based research with young people; digital literacies research; digital divide work; and, applying posthumanist and affect approaches to literacy research. She has worked and conducted research in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Her most recent co-authored books are: Unsettling Literacies: Directions for literacy research in precarious times (with C. Lee, C. Bailey, and C. Burnett) and Living Literacies (with Kate Pahl).
Roberta Taylor
Dr Roberta Taylor is a Senior Lecturer and Researcher in the Institute of Education, Sheffield Hallam University.
Taylor, R (2019), Negotiating Voices through Embodied Semiosis: The co-construction of a science text. Linguistics and Education
Abstract
This article presents a rich description of an everyday, paired learner interaction in class. In contributing to debates on collaborative classroom interaction, this article presents a micro-analysis of the work of embodied modes employed in face-to-face interaction. Through ethnographically-contextualised Multimodal Discourse Analysis (EC-MDA), a partial understanding of the ways in which two learners interact through embodied semiosis is reached. The originality of this article lies with the insights gained from multimodal discourse analysis which show how (in textual terms), even in a less creative space, learners negotiate personal, individual ‘ownness’ alongside academic genres in the co-construction of a science text. Three key aspects to paired classroom interaction are identified, namely: multiple voices, multimodal inference and modal synchrony. Through exploring the intricacies of social interaction, we can recognise the detailed multimodal contributions of individuals engaged in collaborative construction of text.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0898589818302341
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0898589818302341/pdfft?md5=23bc1e0b8f0d64603707f5069d8000be&pid=1-s2.0-S0898589818302341-main.pdf
Chris Bailey
Dr Chris Bailey is a Senior Lecturer and Researcher in the Institute of Eduction, Sheffield Hallam University.