How to be a cyborg: a collection of essays
- WCU Author/Contributor (non-WCU co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
- Katharine Emma Louise Hamilton (Creator)
- Institution
- Western Carolina University (WCU )
- Web Site: http://library.wcu.edu/
- Advisor
- Laura Wright
Abstract: One of the central topics of study in the field of Rhetoric and Composition is the ways that writers relate to writing technologies. While some take technological instrumentalist stances, others posit that writing technologies can’t be separated from their writers, creating an embodied, posthumanist notion of a writer-technology hybrid. As social media technologies rapidly advance and social media use becomes more and more ubiquitous, this “cyborgian” lens needs to be applied to emerging writing technologies to uncover ways that everyday writers function within ever-shifting rhetorical ecologies (and to what effect). Contemporary networked writing technologies, such as social media, have extreme ideological underpinnings and put users without critical literacies related to these technologies in harm’s way by way of endangering their physical bodies as well as the ecologies of lands in which users live. There is, of course, no shortage of scholarship on these topics within the field of Rhetoric and Composition. However, most everyday social media users do not have access to this scholarship, which disempowers them to make informed choices about their writing habits using these technologies. As such, this thesis takes the form of a collection of creative nonfiction essays about writing technologies and the ways that users relate to them. My goal is to support non-academic writers in their need to develop their own theories for habits of use when engaging with these technologies. I adopt an embodied writing methodology to bring in personal experiences that others might relate to.
How to be a cyborg: a collection of essays
PDF (Portable Document Format)
365 KB
Created on 4/1/2023
Views: 116
Additional Information
- Publication
- Thesis
- Language: English
- Date: 2023
- Keywords
- creative nonfiction, digital rhetoric, digital-material rhetoric, embodied writing, new materialism, personal essay
- Subjects
- Creative nonfiction
- Rhetoric
- First person narrative
- Continental philosophy
- Essay
- Literature and technology