-Sorry that I’m posting this post a little later than when the reading was due! I was sick so, alas, here we go now-.
So I was reading Szwed’s piece of the ethnography of history, and largely focused on the part about of what the ‘social meaning of literacy’ is. However, a few other points about our class material in general began to cross my mind.
I’ve witnessed this reoccurring theme in the literature that we’ve read for this class, largely the fact that we don’t know what ‘literacy’ is. For being the hallmark of our class and the central question that we aim to seek, I have to wonder: are we ever going to have a correct answer?
What I’ve learned through the various readings that we’ve done, whether they be focused on the autonomous model or the ideological model, is that there is a growing consensus that the ideological/social model is gaining the most support amongst contemporary academics. What’s more, so much of the readings that we’ve done recently have been focused on the ideological model as this ‘end all’ of the field.
My question is this: what, if any, opposing theoretical camps surrounding the new literary studies will emerge within the next generation or so? Are there already efforts to expand and redefine the parameters of the new literary studies, or are these scholars largely stuck with new literary studies as the only way to define what is and isn’t ‘literacy’?
