LLAS sponsored session at BAAS Annual Conference 2011

The fifty-sixth British Association for American Studies Conference will be held at the School of Journalism, Media and Communication, incorporating American Studies, at the University of Central Lancashire from 14 - 17 April 2011. There is no overarching theme for the conference, and papers and panel proposals are welcomed on any subject related to the United States of America and early America. The conference will feature papers from a wide range of disciplines and play host to an international collection of scholars from across the spectrum of the research community, from postgraduates to senior scholars. Interdisciplinarity is very welcome, and we are also happy to accept proposals for roundtable discussions, poster sessions, or other innovative panel ideas that we can incorporate into the conference schedule.

LLAS are sponsoring the following session

Thursday 14 April
Preston: UCLan
3.15pm-4.45pm - Library Session
Chair: R. J. Ellis (Birmingham)

Robert O’Toole (Warwick) reporting on research into how an individual's preferred "mode of reflexivity" (as described by the sociologist Margaret Archer) effects how they use new technologies. Historians of various ages are a big part of the study.

Anouk Lang (QMUL) on Cultural Interfaces: a report on using social network sites to support students on a year abroad detailing the results of a project at Queen Mary University of London which used social network sites to support students on their year abroad. Survey and focus group data were used to analyse how students were using technology while abroad, and to determine the areas in which support could be provided. Following this, a group was set up on Facebook and a mentoring system established so that students who had returned from abroad could pass on help and advice to students who were already abroad or who were in the process of planning their year away. A central aim of the project was to explore the extent to which the social network site could promote deeper learning about intercultural communication, by offering students a forum for conversations about the unsettling experiences they were undergoing while away from their home institution and their habitual cultural contexts. In this paper, I report on how successful the social network site was in achieving this aim, and I outline some of the advantages and challenges encountered along the way. I also suggest some of the benefits to students’ employability that came about as a result of their participation in the project.

Susie Andretta (London Met): Transliteracy and Web 2.0

The term transliteracy describes “a unifying perspective on what it means to be literate in the 21st Century [including] the ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks” (Thomas, 2009). Transliteracy is therefore not interpreted as a collective term to revamp existing forms of literacies such as media literacy, ICT literacy or information literacy, but as a new literacy associated with the participative Web 2.0 environment and with users who are active and critical producers of content, rather than ‘passive’ consumers of information. This session shall explore examples of transliteracy practices in diverse contexts and reflect on some of their benefits and challenges.

For more information please visit the conference website

Fees

Please see the registration page for a full fee breakdown