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Writer as Witness Colloquium

Book cover: Ashley Shew, Against Technoableism: Rethinking Who Needs Improvement

Dr. Ashley Shew’s Against Technoableism: Rethinking Who Needs Improvement September 4, 2024
8:00-9:30 p.m. in Bender Arena

To set the stage for your first year here at AU, we have chosen a book that we call our “community text” for you to read before you arrive in August. Early in the fall semester, you and your peers from your College Writing class will have the chance to hear the author of this year’s book speak about their experiences with writing and publishing, as well as answer your questions! You’ll discuss the book and the author’s insights from the live interview with your peers in class, and you’ll write from inspiration or more questions that arise from these discussions. The Writing Studies Program and the Campus Store will also sponsor an essay contest to honor student writing inspired by the community text.

We believe the dialogue we develop around the challenging themes that define our community texts unifies our students and faculty in an intellectual experience. When we ask tough questions, consider what’s at stake for all involved, and listen to one another respectfully, we can develop our own positions and ideas about the world and participate in building an academic community. Welcoming our text’s author to discuss their work is an essential part of this shared intellectual experience.

We’re delighted to announce this year’s choice: Dr. Ashley Shew’s Against Technoableism: Rethinking Who Needs Improvement. We will meet with Dr. Shew this fall for the twenty-seventh annual Writer as Witness Colloquium on Wednesday, September 4, from 8 to 9:30 p.m. in Bender Arena. She will address the American University community and meet with students and faculty to discuss the book, as well as the craft, artistry, and research that went into its creation.

Dr. Ashley Shew in a sunlit field holding a prosthesis.

Ashley Shew is an associate professor of Science, Technology, and Society at Virginia Tech. Her current work sits at the intersection of technology studies, biotech ethics, and disability studies. She is recipient of an NSF CAREER Award and a principal investigator of an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation-funded Higher Learning project that supports the creation of a regional Disability Community Technology Center.

Against Technoableism: Rethinking Who Needs Improvement, as well as her forthcoming open textbook, co-edited with Hanna Herdegen, Technology and Disability, focus on the stories disabled people tell about technologies that people do not always expect. Shew is sole author of Technological Knowledge and Animal Constructions. She is a current co-editor-in-chief of Techné, the journal of the Society for Philosophy and Technology, and co-editor of three philosophy of technology volumes: Spaces for the Future, Feedback Loops, and Reimagining Philosophy and Technology, Reinventing Ihde.

Shew believes in cross-disciplinary, cross-disability, and public-facing scholarship: she has written for IEEE Technology & Society, Nursing Clio, Nature, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and Inside Higher Ed. She is a participant with her local advocacy community in the Disability Alliance and Caucus at Virginia Tech and the New River Valley Disability Resource Center.

The American University Campus Store is offering Against Technoableism at a discounted rate. You may order the book directly through the Campus Store Website. Copies will also be available for purchase at the Campus Store over the summer, when you’ll have your first opportunity to talk with classmates about Against Technoableism. (Paperback edition available on or around July 10.)

As you read, think about possible questions for the author to address during the September colloquium. You may email questions or comments to lit@american.edu, or share them through social media on Twitter (@WriterAsWitness) or Facebook (search for Writer as Witness). You also will have the chance to ask your questions directly at the Writer as Witness Colloquium on September 4. We look forward to meeting you there to hear your responses to the provocative questions raised by professor Bailey’s work.

Student Essay Competition

Open to all Writing Studies students. Sponsored by the Writing Studies Program and AU Campus Store.

For more information, please contact Daisy Levy, the Writer as Witness committee chair:
levy@american.edu

Previous Writer as Witness Texts

  • Why Didn’t We Riot? A Black Man In Trumpland, by Issac Bailey.
  • Conditional Citizens: On Belonging in America, by Laila Lalami
  • Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower, by Brittney Cooper
  • Rising Out of Hatred: The Awakening of a Former White Nationalist, by Eli Saslow,
  • The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, by Elizabeth Kolbert
  • Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, by Arlie Russell Hochschild
  • We Gon' Be Alright: Notes on Race and Resegregation, by Jeff Chang
  • Notes from No Man's Land, by Eula Biss
  • The Good Soldiers, by David Finkel
  • The Devil's Highway: A True Story, by Luis Alberto Urrea
  • Savage Inequalities, by Jonathan Kozol
     

How Do We Choose the Writer as Witness Book?

We do have some criteria for our Writer as Witness books. They must be non-fiction, and the author must be alive and available. We look for books that relate to current events and issues and that make an argument using research. Most importantly, we want a book that generates discussions about a writer’s rhetorical choices.

The Writer as Witness faculty committee in the Writing Studies Program starts the process in early October by asking for nominations for the book from people across campus, including current College Writing students. They review the books on that list and narrow it down to about ten books. Then they look at those books more closely, along with reviews of the books and any audio or video appearances by the author. The committee members are then able to narrow the list to four or five choices, and they send that list to the director of the Writing Studies Program, usually in December. In fall 2020, we added a student focus group to this process. The program director spends about a month contacting the authors’ agents to find out if they’re available on our Writer as Witness date and how much they cost. (There are many authors whom we just can’t afford.) Once the director comes to an agreement with an agent, they needs to get approval from the university to proceed with the contract, and the contract process can take one to two months. If all goes well, we have next fall’s book chosen and the contract signed by mid-spring.