"According to Latour, the failure to incorporate things into our conceptions of social interactions causes the 'breaks' in our social theories between macro and micro, agency and social structure, the local and the global."
— Deborah Brandt & Katie Clinton
Literacy practices are more than cognitive efforts black-boxed inside our heads. Such practices are imbued with social context and are connected to a range of nonhuman objects that arguably have agency in their own rights. This notion regarding material agency travels under different names: posthumanism, new materialism, actor network theory, object oriented ontology, thing power, vibrant matter. In this vein, literacies and their varied apparatuses exist within networks that, when followed, can provide insight into learning practices, rhetorical situations, identity work, and communicative actions. My inquiries in such channels began during my Ph.D. work and have complemented more recent thinking about writing practices and pedagogical strategies such as service-learning.
Select Publications, Literacy and Materialism
Lovvorn, Jason F., and Kevin M. Leander. "Following Texts, Bodies, and Objects in Everyday Practice: Thinking with Actor Network Theory." Data Analysis, Interpretation, and Theory in Literacy Studies Research: A How-To Guide, edited by Michele Knobel, Judy Kalman, and Colin Lankshear. Myers Education Press, 2020, pp. 181-198.
Leander, Kevin M., and Jason F. Lovvorn. "Literacy Networks: Following the Circulation of Texts and Identities in the Schooling and Online Gaming of One Youth." Cognition & Instruction, vol. 24, no. 3, 2006, pp. 291-340.
Select Presentations, Literacy and Materialism
"Border Agent: A New Materialist Perspective on Alberto Rios." College English Association Conference. Birmingham, AL. April 2022.
"Affect and Learning through Service: A New Materialist Framework." Gulf-South Summit on Service-Learning and Civic Engagement through Higher Education. Nashville, TN. March 2021.
"Community Center Matters: New Materialist Narratives of Service-Learning Pedagogy." National Council of Teachers of English Assembly for Research Midwinter Conference. Nashville, TN. February 2020.