Searching for Literacy

Harvey J. Graff is Professor Emeritus of English and History at The Ohio State University, USA. He was inaugural Ohio Eminent Scholar in Literacy Studies and founded the university-wide interdisciplinary initiative LiteracyStudies@OSU. One of the world’s authorities, his books are recognized landmarks, from The Literacy Myth to The Legacies of Literacy and The Labyrinths of Literacy, among others on children and youth, cities, and interdisciplinarity.

• Part 1. Searching for Literacy Studies.- 1. Back to Basics.- 2. Linguistics: Between Orality and Writing.- 3. Anthropology: Reading and Writing from Pictographs to Ethnography.- 4. Psychology: Between Mind and Culture.- 5. Literature and Composition: Reading and Writing Revised.- 6. Many Literacies, Other Visions: Digital, Visual, Science, Numbers, Performance.- 7. Historicizing Literacy and Literacy Studies: Axioms and Lessons.- 8. Epilogue: Many Pasts, Many Futures.- Part 2. 2021: Looking Forward and Backward.- 9. The New Literacy Studies and the Resurgent Literacy Myth.- 10. Literacy, Politics, Culture, and Society: The New Illiteracy and the Banning of Books, Past and Present.- 11. The Economic Debasement of Literacy: The Misrepresentation and Marketing of “Financial Literacy”.

“Searching for Literacy is an important and unique book, offering by far the most  encompassing ‘Social and Intellectual Origins of Literacy Studies’ both within this said purview and beyond it. … Numerous new frameworks are proposed that will prove useful for researchers. In short, this is a book that should be read by anyone with a stake in literacy studies research or an interest in literacy.” (Jamie D. I. Duncan, Community Literacy Journal, Vol. 18 (1), 2023)