With apologies for cross-listing:





Call for Presentations:





Fifth Biennial International Critical Thinking and Writing Conference:





Thinking and Writing Beyond Two Culture: STEM, WAC/WID, and the Changing Academy





Friday, November 21st and Saturday, November 22nd,
Quinnipiac University

275 Mount Carmel Avenue

Hamden, CT 06513





Hosted by QUWAC and the RWI, with support from the College of Arts and Sciences and the Office of Academic Affairs


In 2008 The Times Literary Supplement included the publication of C. P. Snow’s 1959 Rede Lecture, The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution, on its list of the 100 books that have most influenced Western public discourse since the Second World War.  Although Snow’s lecture prompted a dustup between scientists and literary elites over who could lay claim to the superior form of knowledge, over time the sides and tenor of the “Two Cultures Debate” have changed.  As the debate has expanded throughout the natural sciences, humanities, and social sciences to include various disciplinary groups and the beliefs, attitudes, and perspectives with which they are bound together as “cultures,” it has evolved into a conversation about how knowledge is recognized, valued, and taught across the cultures of the university.  The 2014 conference aims to advance this conversation through presentations that attend to the unfolding legacy of the Two Cultures Debate as well as those that revisit and challenge Snow’s original formulation.


Friday Evening Conversation:

Vaughan Turekian, Chief International Officer, American Association for the Advancement of Science

“Science Diplomacy: Critical Thinking and Writing across the Academy and the World,”

Dr. Vaughan Turekian is the Chief International Officer for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). In this role, he leads, develops and coordinates the broad range of AAAS’s international activities. He is also the Director of AAAS’s Center for Science Diplomacy and Editor-in-Chief of Science & Diplomacy, a quarterly publication from the Center. Both the Center and the publication aim to bring together stakeholders from the scientific and foreign policy communities to identify better ways to apply science cooperation to building relationships between and among nations.





Saturday Morning Keynote:





Kathleen Blake Yancey, Kellogg W. Hunt Professor and Distinguished Research Professor at Florida State University





“Concepts and Practices in Flux: Critical thinking and Writing across the Disciplinary Cultures of the Academy.”

An elected leader of many scholarly organizations—including the National Council of Teachers of English; the Conference on College Composition and Communication; and the  Council of Writing Program Administrators—Kathleen Blake Yancey is Editor of College Composition and Communication and Co-Director of the Inter/National Coalition for Electronic Portfolio Research. She has focused much of her research on writing across the curriculum and writing assessment, especially portfolios, authoring or co-authoring over 70 articles and book chapters and authoring, editing, or co-editing eleven scholarly books—among them Portfolios in the Writing Classroom, Reflection in the Writing Classroom, Assessing Writing across the Curriculum, and Portfolios 2.0. Her co-authored Writing across Contexts: Composition, Transfer, and Sites of Writing, a study of the role that content and reflection play in students’ transfer of writing knowledge and practice from first-year composition into multiple sites of writing across the university, will be published in spring 2014. Her numerous awards include the  Florida State University Award for Graduate Teaching, the WPA Best Book Award, and the Donald Murray Writing Prize.


Deadline for Proposals: Friday, May 23, 2014

The conference will be organized into three categories, each focusing on a different dimension of the
debate: Philosophy and Politics; Pedagogies, Programs, and Curricula; Critical Thinking and Writing.  While scholars and teachers are invited to submit proposals that engage in or with one of these dimensions of the debate, the conference intends to promote, across categories, a multidimensional conversation that addresses the following questions (and perhaps others):


How do linkages between critical thinking and writing operate within and/or even define a “culture” of the university?

How do linkages between critical thinking and writing vary among cultures that exist as the    major divisions of knowledge (natural sciences, humanities, and social sciences), within the major divisions of knowledge (biology, literature, criminal justice, etc.), and across the major divisions of knowledge (science journalism, sports studies, medical humanities, etc.)?

How are linkages between critical thinking and writing shared across the cultures of the
      university?

How might linkages between critical thinking and writing influence and/or be influenced by the shifting cultures of the university?

How do linkages between critical thinking and writing interface with technology in and/or across the cultures of the university?

How might linkages between critical thinking and writing be part of integrating high school
      students and their prior knowledge into the cultures of the university?

How might linkages between critical thinking and writing aid in transfer of learning within and/or across the cultures of the university?

How might linkages between critical thinking and writing in and/or across the cultures of the  university prepare students for graduate and/or professional work?


Send your proposal to Paul Pasquaretta, coordinator of the Research and Writing Institute: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>. We welcome both individual and group proposals. Panel sessions will be 90 minutes to allow for discussion; individual presentations will be limited to 20 minutes. Please include the following in your proposal:

·         Conference category

·         Title of panel/presentation

·         Information about each presenter:

§  name

§  full title/position; department/program

§  institutional affiliation

§  phone number and email

·         500-750 word abstract/session description. Please include the following:

§  purpose/goals for proposed session

§  connection to conference theme

§  expected outcomes/take-away for participants

§  section activities (if applicable)

§  selected references (not included in word count)

·         Equipment and materials needed (computer, projector, internet access, audio speakers, white board, flipchart, etc.)


Presenters are invited to submit their work for review for publication in the 2015 edition of Double Helix: A Journal of Critical Thinking and Writing: http://qudoublehelixjournal.org/index.php/dh/index


For more information about “Thinking and Writing Beyond Two Cultures,” contact Paul Pasquaretta, coordinator of the Quinnipiac University Research and Writing Institute, at 203-582-8509[X], or [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>.





Paul Pasquaretta, Ph.D.
Research and Writing Institute Coordinator
Double Helix Managing Editor
Quinnipiac University
ABL-N126
203-582-8509[X]
[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
http://www.quinnipiac.edu/institutes-centers/writing-across-the-curriculum