Mapping Multiple Literacies: An Introduction to Deleuzian Literacy Studies

by Diana Masny, David R. Cole

Mapping Multiple Literacies brings together the latest theory and research in the fields of literacy study and European philosophy, Multiple Literacies Theory (MLT) and the philosophical work of Gilles Deleuze. It frames the process of becoming literate as a fluid process involving multiple modes of presentation, and explains these processes in terms of making maps of our social lives and ways of doing things together.

For Deleuze, language acquisition is a social activity of which we are a part, but only one part amongst many others. Masny and Cole draw on Deleuze's thinking to expand the repertoires of literacy research and understanding. They outline how we can understand literacy as a social activity and map the ways in which becoming literate may take hold and transform communities. The chapters in this book weave together theory, data and practice to open up a creative new area of literacy studies and to provoke vigorous debate about the sociology of literacy.

208 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2012

Reviews

[Kyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was handed to me in class by a very encouraging professor, and will most likely be my first published book review, so I don't want to give too much of the goodies away on Goodreads when I can take time and give a thoughtful review for some journal (interested publishers can contact me through facebook!). I will briefly mention that as an introduction to Deleuze's theories on literacy, it was a bit of a stretch: many of his really good ideas were shared with Félix Guattari, and it begs the question of how much of these rhizomatic geophilosophical concepts came from this other author. With hardly any background knowledge of these two thinkers (what schools of thought they belonged to, the café where they frequently met - any clue would have sufficed) it all becomes Deleuzian (yes, I'm fully aware of slight elision needed to make it delusional).

No problem, however, to differentiate between the authors of this book: Masny has mapped out her area of interest, the multicultural, bilingual students of an elementary school in Ottawa. Cole jumps around in time and space, mostly in the southern hemisphere with a couple of brief visits to parallel universes. Abhorring the arborescent unity of current theories of New/multimodal/digital literacy, they coin the similar-sounding Multiple Literacies Theory which branches out from a tangled middle to far-flung corners of their virtual map. And like Br'er Rabbit running through the thicket, the further into the rhizomes you go, more ideas stick onto you, transforming you into a better reader, writer, learner and teacher.