Otto Kruse, Martine Jey, Sylvie Plane, Joan Mullin, Judith Kearns, Brian Turner, Birgitta Ramsey, Thorsten Pohl, Bella Rubin, Trudy Zuckerman, Lisa Ganobcsik-Williams
Historical Roots of National Writing Cultures
The objective of this two-part Symposium is to initiate a conversation on the diversity of national traditions in academic writing. The marked differences in the teaching of writing, here referred to as different writing cultures, are embedded in the historically grown national systems of higher education and their respective conceptions of literacy. They rely on writing practices (like the writing of theses, seminar papers, dissertations, essays, examination assignments, reports) which may persist for centuries, once they have been adopted by the disciplines and become part of the regulatory frameworks of the universities. The contributions of this panel help clarifying national writing traditions by analysing the development of a special aspect of academic writing (preferred genres, writing practices, forms of instruction, teaching directions or philosophies, curricula, course organization etc.) within a certain historical period. Hopefully, the panel will lead to the constitution of a special interest group on the history of academic writing within EATAW.