Semioclast

I just got back from presenting a the 20th Penn State Conference on Rhetoric and Composition. This year’s theme was “Rhetorics and Technologies” and there was a lot of talk about computers and composition, technorhetorics, the promise of online communities, etc. etc. Everyone there was energetic and genuinely excited about what was going on. With the lakeside barbecue and rhetoric camp T-shirts it was all quite fun and summer camp-like. I have to say that it was one of the nicest conferences I’ve been to.

There was a lot of talk about the promise of computers to provide a netowrked multimodal education and how we can work Myspace into the classroom. (Who knew composition studies people were so excited about Myspace?) Nearly everyone cited the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

I was on a panel called “Pop Culture and Participatory Technologies” with Heather Urbanski from Lehigh and Matt Mroz from the University of Connecticut. Heather talked about the increasingly ambiguous line between author and audience in participatory technologies and Matt discussed Livejournal and the particular rhetorical practices found there. My paper was about rethinking the relationship between serious play and rhetorical pedagogy. The Q&A was great and lead to some interesting discussions that spanned the rest of the conference.

Things to think about:

• Mashups in the Comp Classroom
• Mixtapes in the Comp Classroom
• Blogging assignments in my class this Fall
• I still have a lot of theory to read
• …a LOT of theory
• There’s not enough talk about IP issues at these things
• There’s a lot of talk about “play” but not a lot of talk about games.
• I expected more WoW and less Myspace, for some reason; it was the other way around.

On a completely personal note: the drive across PA was (almost) the best part. I took my time meandering back from State College listening to Neil Young the whole way. The Appalachians are beautiful and, after living in Buffalo for so long, it’s nice to see mountains again. And, boy is it easy to steer with your knees with a harp in your mouth.

I almost feel bad making Pitt pay for the trip (almost).

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