Susan E. Antlitz, Ph.D.

W r i t i n g

The picture below is a lab-grown bismuth crystal from Belgium. It's neat the way it forms in squares and pyramids. It reminds me of writing: Bismuth is an element in nature, but doesn't crystallize into such large forms unless cultivated in a lab. In writing, the thoughts and experiences are there in people's lives and contexts, but don't become a written text unless placed into the laboratory of the writing process, where they are also filtered through reflection, interpretation, and connection to larger contexts. Given time and needed conditions, a writing project begins to grow into its own unique patterns and structures, building something larger than the components in their raw state. I think it is rather amazing to find an element in nature like Bismuth that requires human assistance to naturally form in larger patterns. It naturally requires technology-- amazing!

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I have taught college writing courses since my graduate school school years in the late 1990's (I completed my doctorate in 2005). While in recent years I have used course software such as BlackBoard, WebCT, and Angel instead of independent course websites, I do still have a website from an English 101 class I taught at Illinois State University as a graduate assistant many years ago: English 101.

My research interests in Composition and Rhetoric are in the areas of Computers and Writing, including how virtual writing spaces affect writers, their writing processes, and the resulting texts. My dissertation, Building Textual Spaces: MOO Writing in the First Year Composition Classroom, explores MOOs (Multi-User Domains, Object Oriented) as interactive, virtual writing spaces. My Masters thesis, Writing as Membership: Community and Electronic Communication in Writing Instruction, included a textual analysis of student posts to a class listserv. [My doctorate is from ISU, and my MA and BA are from Western Illinois University.]

I was one of the co-editors for Kairos 7.3 (2002), and I also created the logo used for that issue. In addition, I served as an Associate Chair of the 18th Annual Computers and Writing conference that is featured in that same edition of Kairos-- It's customary for the conference co-chairs and associate chairs to guest edit an issue of the journal.

“Beyond Normal: Teaching and Learning in Virtual Spaces, C & W 2002.” Kairos 7.3 Fall 2002. http://english.ttu.edu/kairos/7.3/index.html.
Co-editors: Will Banks, Ron Fortune, James Kalmbach.

Other Websites

Electronic Communities in Writing Instruction: A Beginner's Guide (Graduate student html project)

Rewriting Expressivism (Graduate student html project)

The Technopoetics of Connection (Published in Karios 6.2 (2001)

Spirituality & Writing

While my studies have primarily focused on technology and writing, I am very interested in exploring the connections between spirituality and writing. In The Spiritual and Scholarly Life I have recorded some of my early musings about integrating my faith with my graduate studies in English. It was a text that I needed to write at that particular moment in my journey. I hope to construct an updated text that discusses more recent developments in that journey at some point in the near future. My thinking has grown and taken on new directions since my initial effort. I am considering To Walk the Worlds: A Continued Journey as a working title. I intend for the new text to explore some of my views about rhetoric and the human quest for connection as it relates to writing. I am also interested in looking at how some memebers of various groups attempt to establish common ground or negotiate their differences.

Technology also overlaps with spirituality and writing through its uses in the formation of communities and its connection to the ethics of communication. How we treat people in writing is just as important as how we treat them in other contexts.

I enjoy finding connections between faith and rhetorical concepts, such as the idea of Incarnational Rhetoric, in which writers "step into" the contexts and ways of thinking of their audience so that the audience can be enabled or invited to make the reciprocal move of entering into the writer's context and ways of thinking. As a result, rhetoric becomes more about bridging worlds of thought and experience than about engaging in ideological or persuasive conflict. There is an abundance of rich territory for students to explore in terms of to using their own worldviews to understand rhetoric more deeply. In my more whimsical moments, I ponder correlations between the seven spirits of God and composition processes ;)

Current Projects

At the moment, I am working on an essay titled "Taking Flight: Connecting Inner and Outer Realities during Invention."

Future Projects

At the moment, I am giving my ideas some time to emerge. My best work comes out of rest and creative play, and I find it important to reach inside myself and find my sense of vision when embarking on new projects. The spiritual aspects of life, the desire to celebrate common ground, and the connections people make to deeper meaning and purpose are very important to me. My attention is naturally drawn in that direction. During my resting phase, that is the area where I become the most productive.

As David J. Bolter says in Writing Space (1990), "Every written text occupies physical space and at the same time generates a conceptual space in the minds of writers and readers'" (85). I am currently building the conceptual space from which to embark on future projects.

http://seantlitz.com