Writing Worldviews: Extended Scholarly Conversations from IWAC 2023

Framed by the IWAC 2023 conference theme of WAC in transitional times, Writing Worldviews: Extended Scholarly Conversations from IWAC 2023, edited by Christopher Basgier, Terry Myers Zawacki, Magnus Gustafsson, Sue Hum, and Maureen Mathison, offers a diversity of perspectives on growth and change in the field amid social, political, educational, technological, and global pressures. The book appears in the book series, Perspectives on Writing, which is edited by Rich Rice and J. Michael Rifenburg.

Across histories and futures, equity and linguistic justice, and place-based program practices, the contributors to this edited collection take up questions defining WAC’s next decade:

• What principles and practices do we carry forward?
• What do we leave behind?
• How do we prepare to meet future challenges and the opportunities they afford as WAC becomes increasingly translingual and transnational?

In response, this volume offers both a map of the field and a call to shape it with intention as we participate in writing and rewriting existing worldviews through the languages we use, the methods we apply, the interpretive and discursive practices we employ, and the rhetorical positions we assume. As the title suggests, it is through scholarly conversations, like those begun at IWAC 2023 and extended here, that the values structuring our work become visible and contestable, providing WAC leaders with frameworks for decision-making, program design, and institutional action.

This book, like other books published by the Clearinghouse, will be available in a print edition from University Press of Colorado in the coming months. Thanks to Chris, Terry, Magnus, Sue, and Maureen for their work on the book and for their decision to share it with us as an open-access publication. Thanks as well to the many chapter authors and the anonymous peer reviewers who contributed to its development.