[DDL extended] Navigating the security in the future of digital writing among technological transformation

deadline for submissions: 
September 8, 2023
full name / name of organization: 
SAMLA (South Atlantic Modern Language Association)
contact email: 

Navigating the security in the future of digital writing among technological transformation Living in this post-pandemic age, the insecurity from fear, suffering, and spacial constraint is now extended by technology to a new setting: academia, particularly the writing classroom. The latest technological transformation, like AI-powered writing assistants and tools, are challenging traditional writing pedagogy and practice, challenging us to work with such a “technological problematic” (Sundvall 5). In the past, technological transformations, such as personal computing and the advent of the internet, have established the field of digital writing. The evolving and complex nature of Web 2.0 further enables scholars and practitioners to explore the potential of digital writing with its affordance of interactivity and media coverage. Traditional digital writing is primarily characterized as using multimodality to compose and deliver on digital devices. Facing the last wave of technological advancements like Web 3.0, artificial intelligence, algorithm, Internet of Things, and Blockchain, will these technological transformations consolidate and bring more security to the digital writing field with its affordance and functionality? This panel examines “how rhetoric and writing might appropriate emergent technologies before they have already after-the-fact arrived” (Sundvall 6) and focuses on the future of digital writing amid the rapidly changing technology landscape that redefines and contextualizes writing practice. Proposals might address but are not limited to the following questions:

  •  How does the technological transformation challenge the traditional digital writing class? How might digital writing pedagogy and practice adopt and strategize some of the non-traditional technological advancements besides multimodality and hypertext?
  • How does the technological transformation force us to rethink the potential of human and digital machine collaboration and contentedness in the digital writing context?
  • How does the shift from digital writing using technological tools to communication to collaboration between humans and machines (web, computer, robots, etc.) change the writing process, form, and agency?
  • Regarding the nature of digitality and social-technical assemblages, how might we further explore the potential of digital writing research agenda?
  • How might we cultivate a digitally sensitive and inclusive mindset among our students in daily writing practice?

This roundtable panel welcomes submissions on any aspect of connectedness between digital writing and technological transformation. Abstracts addressing the conference theme are especially welcome.

By Sept. 8, 2023, please submit an abstract of 250 words and a brief bio to Dr. Baotong Gu, bgu@gsu.edu, or Liping Yang, at lyang34@gsu.edu.

References:Sundvall, S. (Ed.). (2019). Rhetorical speculations: The future of rhetoric, writing, and technology. University Press of Colorado, Utah State University Press.