Digital Arguments (Panel / In-Person)


Special Session
Film and Media Studies / Cultural Studies

Russell McDermott (Dickinson College)
mcde@****.com (Log-in to reveal)

This special session seeks to explore scholarly work that are composed through non-traditional forms of academic writing. Everything from the video essay (including remix, digital argument, MeMorial, videographic criticism, etc.) to the digital book will be considered. Any work that explores the affordances of alternative form is welcome.
From the media stylo of Eric Faden to the MeMorial of Gregory Ulmer to the digital argument of Virginia Kuhn there is growing attention in (PARTS?) of the academic community on non-traditional forms of scholarly production. The rise of special issues of established journals (for example The Cine-Files issue 11) and new dedicated online publications (see Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric Technology, and Pedagogy) devoted to the intersection of scholarly production and media-rich writing proves that there is an appetite for academic work written with moving images, augmented spaces, virtual environments, social media interactions and more. While the existing works differ in their specific operating assumptions, critical praxis, field and motivation, they each share a concern with expressing “traditional” ideas and activities (argument, exploration, dialogue-generation, and critique, etc.) through the specific affordances provided by emergent technologies and platforms.

This special session seeks digital arguments by scholars both trained and new to the technology which explore their specific fields and interests through the affordances of non-traditional, media-rich, writing. While it welcomes to papers that touch or are in proxy to the conference theme, all topics are welcome.