University of Minnesota
Department of Writing Studies
612-624-3445
writ@umn.edu


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News & Events

Events

    • The Erosion of Writing Skills
    • 12/04/2009 9:00 AM
    • Location: 125 Nolte Center for Continuing Education Teachers frequently make the claim that each generation of students gets progressively worse at writing.

News

  • Professor Christina Haas to Join the Faculty

    We are very pleased to announce that Chris Haas will join the Writing Studies department in fall, 2010. Her articles have appeared in the prominent journals in composition and writing studies--Journal of Business and Technical Communication, College Composition and Communication, Research in the Teaching of English, and Written Communication. Her work also includes studies of writing in the workplace and classroom. One focus of Professor Haas's research has been, to cite the title of her book, Writing Technology: Studies in the Materiality of Literacy. She has charted the path of digital technologies from word processing, digital writing, hypertext, web environments, new media language, and most recently to instant messaging.

    She has also been the editor of the internationally recognized journal, Written Communication, since 2004. That journal will be re-located to the University of Minnesota next year.

    In spring semester, 2011, Professor Haas will teach a graduate seminar on Literacy: Theory, History, Practice.

    We welcome her to the University of Minnesota!

     November 23rd, 2009

  • Kim Thomas-Pollei to Serve on RSA Board

    Ph.D. candidate Kim Thomas-Pollei was elected to serve on the RSA board. Congratulations Kim!

     November 18th, 2009

  • Prof. Richard Graff to Present at CNES Colloquium

    'Vocal Stylings: The Orator's Voice in Classical Typologies of Prose Style'
    presented by Professor Richard Graff
    Department of Writing Studies

    ***Friday, November 20th, 3:30pm***
    110 Nicholson Hall

    Abstract: In this presentation, Professor Graff will discuss the close linkage between (verbal) style and voice in Greek and Roman treatises on rhetoric and literary criticism. This linkage takes two main forms. First, several authors (e.g., Aristotle, "Demetrius", Dionysius of Halicarnassus) remark on how certain stylistic features of the written oratorical text compel an animated (or monotonous) vocal presentation in reading or recitation; here, the text's style controls its manner of vocal delivery (speaking rate, intonation, etc.). Second, the style of individual orators was regularly characterized in terms of its fullness or weakness of "voice". Although this is a metaphorical use of the term, often such characterizations appear to project known (or presumed) qualities of a given speaker's actual, physical voice back onto the style of his texts. This latter procedure, though suspect on several levels, contributed both to the hardening of a traditional evaluation of the styles of Isocrates, Demosthenes, and other Attic orators, and to the evolution of the theory of style-types (kharakteres lexeôs, genera dicendi).

    This event is free and open to the public.

    Sponsored by:

    Classical and Near Eastern Studies
    University of Minnesota
    245 Nicholson Hall
    216 Pillsbury Dr SE
    Minneapolis, MN 55455

    P: 612-625-5353
    F: 612-624-4894

    cnes@umn.edu
    http://cnes.cla.umn.edu

     November 18th, 2009

  • Writing Studies Parlor: November 23rd

    Speaking Across the Disciplines:
    What Speech Pedagogy Can Teach Us About Writing

    Presented by Timothy Oleksiak

    A Department of Writing Studies Parlor Event
    Monday, November 23, 2009
    12.30 Nicholson Hall 345

    Please join us for discussion and refreshments

    November 17th, 2009

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