News & Events

Clay Spinuzzi, associate professor and outgoing CWRL director, has been honored with a 2008 Alumni Recognition Award by the Iowa State University Department of English.

Spinuzzi received his Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Professional Communication from Iowa State in 1999. Since then, he has received four NCTE awards for his scholarship. His first book, Tracing Genres through Organizations (MIT Press, 2003), was named NCTE's 2004 Best Book in Technical or Scientific Communication. His second book, Network, is currently in press at Cambridge University Press.

Spinuzzi was also named Honored Alumnus in Spring 2006 by the University of North Texas Department of English, where he received his MA in English with emphasis in technical writing.

An article by Assistant Instructor John Jones has recently appeared in the March 2008 issue of Written Communication (volume 25, pages 262-289). The article, entitled "Patterns of Revision in Online Writing: A Study of Wikipedia's Featured Articles" appears in a special issue on digital media. Here is the article's abstract:

This study examines the revision histories of 10 Wikipedia articles nominated for the site’s Featured Article Class (FAC), its highest quality rating, 5 of which achieved FAC and 5 of which did not. The revisions to each article were coded, and the coding results were combined with a descriptive analysis of two representative articles in order to determine revision patterns. All articles in both groups showed a higher percentage of additions of new material compared to deletions and revisions that rearranged the text. Although the FAC articles had roughly equal numbers of content and surface revisions, the non- FAC articles had fewer surface revisions and were dominated by content revisions. Although the unique features of the Wikipedia environment inhibit strict comparisons between these results and those of earlier revision studies, these results suggest revision in this environment places unique structural demands on writers, possibly leading to unique revision patterns.

The Department of Rhetoric and Writing mourns the loss of our beloved friend and colleague, John Slatin, who passed away March 24, 2008.

John served UT as a professor of rhetoric and writing, a professor of English, and as director of the Accessibility Institute. Our thoughts are with his devoted wife, Anna, children Ledia and Mason and grandson Wolf, his father Miles and brother Peter, as well as their families and the many close friends who have had the privilege of knowing John.

Luis Alberto Urrea will speak about his book, The Devil's Highway, at 7:00 pm, Tuesday, April 1, 2008, in the Texas Union Ballroom. The book was selected by Rhetoric and Writing as the 2007-08 First-Year Forum text, which all students in first-year writing courses read. It follows 26 men who, in May 2001, attempted to cross the Mexican border into the desert of southern Arizona, through the deadly region known as the Devil's Highway. Only twelve of the men survived.

This event is sponsored by Rhetoric and Writing, The University Co-op, and the SEC Distinguished Speakers Committee. Passes are available on the 4th floor of the Texas Union, at the Events and Info Desk, UNB 4.300, M-F, 8-5.

The Department of Rhetoric and Writing hosted Thank You For Smoking, a film that parodies and celebrates the rhetorical nature of our lives, in PAR 203 at 6:00 p.m. on November 28th.

The Undergraduate Writing Center's upcoming After Hours panel will feature writers whose work transcends boundaries of genre, media, form, and audience. Panelists will discuss their approaches to verbal, written, and online communication, on subjects which are especially difficult to capture in language, such as the occult, religion, music, and sound.

The event will be held at Follett's Intellectual Property Bookstore (2402 Guadalupe) on Friday, November 9, at 4:00 PM.

Featured Speakers:

• Joshua G. Gunn
• Russell Cobb
• Doug Freeman
• Melanie Haupt

The 2007 Computer Writing and Research Lab Lecture Series continued Thursday, October 11, with a lecture by Victor J. Vitanza. Dr. Vitanza is Professor and Director of Rhetorics, Communication, and Information Design at Clemson University. His talk, entitled "Scars," was an exploratory piece for his current project Design as Dasein. This text is the third in a trilogy, following Negation, Subjectivity, and The History of Rhetoric (SUNY 1997) and Chaste Rape (under consideration for publication).

This visit to UT-Austin marked Dr. Vitanza's second since 1986, when he delivered a paper entitled "Critical Sub/Versions of the History of Philosophical Rhetoric," a landmark essay that caused quite a stir when it appeared in Rhetoric Review. He returned to campus in 1991 to present a paper on Jean-François Lyotard's Differend.

The Department of Rhetoric & Writing (DRW) at The University of Texas at Austin seeks to hire an entry-level assistant professor in one of the following areas:

Cultural Rhetorical Studies
We seek candidates who have demonstrated strong scholarly promise at the intersections of rhetoric, ethnicity, identity, culture, and the public sphere.

Emerging Communication Technologies and Digital Media
We seek candidates who have demonstrated scholarly promise in the area of rhetoric and technology studies.

As a member of the DRW, the successful candidate will have the opportunity to design and teach a wide variety of courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels all with the support of our nationally renowned Computer Writing and Research Lab (CWRL), which includes state-of-the-art computer classrooms, multimedia labs, independent servers, and instructor prep labs.

The successful candidate also will demonstrate a commitment to excellent teaching and undergraduate writing instruction, as well as an ability to contribute to the undergraduate major in Rhetoric & Writing and to the doctoral programs in Rhetoric and/or in Computers and English Studies.

The DRW boasts a dynamic, collegial, nationally and internationally recognized faculty with interests in the history, theory, and criticism of rhetoric; composition theory and pedagogy; technologies of writing; visual rhetoric; empirical research; writing in the disciplines and professions; rhetoric and poetics; and language and literacy studies. Sub-units of the DRW include the Undergraduate Writing Center; the Computer Writing and Research Lab; and the College of Liberal Arts Writing Across the Curriculum Initiative. Teaching load is 2/2; salary is competitive.

Application Deadline is November 1, 2007. Submit a letter of application, a curriculum vita, three letters of recommendation, a dissertation abstract, and a statement of teaching philosophy (no longer than one page) to...

Linda Ferreira-Buckley, Chair
Department of Rhetoric & Writing
The University of Texas at Austin
1 University Station B5500
Austin TX 78712-0200

The University of Texas at Austin is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer.

Scott Blackwood has been awarded the prestigious 2007 Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) Prize for his novel, We Agreed to Meet Just Here, which is set in Austin's Deep Eddy Neighborhood. The AWP Award competition is open to all authors writing original works in English regardless of nationality or residence, and receives approximately 500 submissions each year. As part of the AWP Prize, Blackwood's novel will be published by New Issues Press in January, 2009. An excerpt from the novel was published in spring 2007 in the Gettsyburg Review. Blackwood has won two Texas Commission on the Arts Fellowships and been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize. He is the Program Coordinator of the Undergraduate Writing Center at The University of Texas at Austin and teaches fiction writing in UT's University Extension Program.

Mark Longaker has just been appointed managing editor of Currents in Electronic Literacy, an MLA- and EBSCO-indexed e-journal dedicated to reviewing and assessing the state of electronic literacy, including: literature, rhetoric and writing, languages, communication, and education.

Clay Spinuzzi's article "Lost in the translation: Shifting claims in the migration of a research technique" has been named the 2006 NCTE Best Article on Philosophy or Theory of Technical and Scientific Communication.

Spinuzzi, C. (2005). Lost in the translation: Shifting claims in the migration of a research technique. Technical Communication Quarterly, 14(4):411–446.

Wednesday, March 7, 5pm
Intellectual Property, 2nd Floor
2402 Guadalupe Street

Mark Longaker, Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Writing, will discuss, answer questions about, and sign copies of his new book: Rhetoric and the Republic: Politics, Civic Discourse, and Education in Early America. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2007.

Refreshments will be provided.

What’s the Book About?

Contemporary efforts to revitalize the civic mission of higher education in America have revived the age-old republican tradition of teaching students to be responsible citizens. Rhetoric and the Republic examines the political, cultural, economic, and religious agendas that drove the various—and often conflicting—curricula and contrasting visions of what good citizenship entails.

What are People Saying?

James Arnt Aune, author of Rhetoric and Marxism says, “Longaker’s work is extraordinarily well written, displays solid primary research, and substantially advances both our understanding of antebellum American rhetorical theory/pedagogy and our understanding of civic republicanism.”

Where Can I Get a Copy?

The book will be on sale at Intellectual Property and can also be purchased directly from the University of Alabama Press, Amazon.com, and Barnes & Noble.com.

Two developers involved in CWRL's workgroups will share recent accomplishments with the Austin community at Explore UT.

Anthony Matteo, a developer for the CWRL's Multimedia/Game Design workgroup, will demonstrate "Rhetorical Peaks," a video game in which students practice some of the rhetorical skills taught in first-year rhetoric courses.

Nate Kreuter, a developer for the Visual Rhetoric workgroup, will give a crash course in "reading" images for argumentative or persuasive content, primarily using images drawn from popular culture such as magazine advertisements and photojournalism.

Explore UT is Saturday, March 3rd, 2007. The CWRL presentations will be held in PARLIN 6 from 10:30 am to noon.

In Free Culture, Professor of Law Lawrence Lessig compellingly argues that strict interpretation of copyright law stifles creativity. Join us in Hogg Auditorium (7PM on February 20th) to hear the chair of Creative Commons project further discuss his ideas about the implications of copyright in the Age of the Internet. (Free and open to the public.)

Jeff Walker has been awarded an NEH Fellowship for 2007-2008, to work on a book-length project titled "The Genuine Teachers of This Art: Rhetorical Education in Antiquity." Congratulations, Jeff!

Clay Spinuzzi won the Nell Ann Pickett Award for his article, "Lost in translation: Shifting claims in the migration of a research technique," which appeared in the March 2005 edition of Technical Communication Quarterly. The award for Best Article is given annually by the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing.

In accordance with university guidelines, the CWRL has been working to ensure the accessibility of all its web pages. According to UT's latest accessibility scan, we're within 1% of our acceptable problem threshold! Congratulations to CWRL Assistant Director Mariela Gunn for updating the templates and modules for accessibility, and to Hampton Finger for installing the new template and book module.