Patrick Berry, assistant professor of writing and rhetoric at Syracuse University, will present a lecture on "Literacy, Rhetoric, and Hope in an Age of Mass Incarceration."
Berry has taught courses in first-year composition, professional writing, magazine production, and digital media composing in diverse classrooms, including a medium-high security prison. His is currently working on a book manuscript, Beyond Hope: Literacy, Mobility, and Possibility in an Age of Mass Incarceration.
Exploring beliefs in literacy in a medium-high security prison, this presentation challenges the polarizing rhetoric that often describes what literacy can and cannot deliver and suggests more nuanced and ethical ways of understanding literacy and possibility in an age of mass incarceration.
Berry's research on literacy narratives, digital media and production, and community outreach includes work published in Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy (2007), the coauthored chapters of Ubiquitous Learning (2009) and Technological Ecologies & Sustainability (2009); forthcoming articles in Pedagogy (2014) and English Education; and the award winning born-digital Transnational Literate Lives in Digital Times (2012, with Gail E. Hawisher and Cynthia L. Selfe).
