The project reflects our interest in developing new ways to tap into WPA perspectives, identities, stories, and theories on a global scale that would be timely, connective, and designed with an inventive sense of new media. We knew that, in our theorizing and questioning of WPA identity, we wanted to collaboratively create a discussion that was even more complex than our rfive voices would create in a written text.
the.Process :: We circulate video cameras and invite and collect responses to the questions driving our inquiry into WPA identities.
the.Goals :: One, to experiment with how knowledge is developed, in this case how threads emerge, converge, and diverge when we have access to other people’s responses. Two, to collect and organize recorded responses so that the complexities of identity are available and mappable for us, for the readers of our book, and for any other interested folks.
We see this assemblage extending in new directions the work begun in surveys of WPAs and gWPAs conducted by Anthony Edgington and Stacy Hartlage Taylor (2007), Theresa Enos and Shane Borrowman (2008), and Shirley K Rose and Jonikka (The WPA's Progress, under contract). We are also expanding the metaphorical and theoretical tradition of work on WPA identity and development represented by collections like Kitchen Cooks, Plate Twirlers, and Troubadours (George, 1999), Untenured Faculty as WPAs: Institutional Practices and Politics (Dew and Horning, 2008), and The Promise of Perils of WPA (Enos and Borrowman, 2008).
We welcome your contributions to and feedback on this long-term new media project, and we hope the site compels new connections, perspectives, and questions that keep us all re-thinking what administrative identities can be.
