This event is part of the School of Education's Bristol Conversations in Education research seminar series. These seminars are free and open to the public.

Hosted by: The Language, Literacies and Education Network (LLEN)

Speakers: Anwar Ahmed (University of British Columbia) and Brian Morgan (Glendon College/York University)

Attention to emotions and an ‘affective turn’ has become an area of growing research interest in critical literacies and language teaching (Anwaruddin, 2016; Benesch, 2012). Building on recent publications (Ahmed & Morgan, 2021; Ahmed, Morgan, & Maciel, 2021), the presenters will discuss implications of this turn for academic literacies and our understanding of texts. Affective literacies extend the interpretive boundaries and timescales for meaning making, focusing on the polyvocality of texts and the distributed semiotic resources/affordances that engage the identities and (post)memories of text users. The presenters will discuss how they came to understand their topic by way of duoethnography (Norris & Sawyer, 2012), a dialogic research methodology particularly suited for exploring affect in/for academic literacies. They will also include classroom examples from their work in English for Academic Purposes courses.

Anwar Ahmed is Assistant Professor of Language Education as Anti-oppressive Transformation in Multilingual Settings in the Department of Language and Literacy Education at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. He completed BA (summa cum laude, English & Political Science) at Beloit College, USA; MEd in Curriculum and Instruction at Loyola University Chicago, USA; MA in TESOL at North South University, Bangladesh; and PhD in Curriculum Studies and Teacher Development at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) of the University of Toronto, Canada. His recent book is Exploring Silences in the Field of Computer Assisted Language Learning(Palgrave Macmillan, 2022). Anwar’s current research focus is on affect/emotion in critical language education and multilingual writing pedagogy.

Brian Morgan is an emeritus faculty member and Senior Scholar at Glendon College, York University, in Toronto. He completed a BA (Combined Honors in Ethnomusicology and Anthropology) at York University and an MEd and PhD at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. His primary research and publication activities have been directed towards the intersections of language and identity and the development of critical literacies and pedagogies in English Language Teaching and Language Teacher Education. His most recent focus has been in the area of affect/emotion in applied linguistics, particularly through the research lens of duoethnography. Brian has published widely in field leading journals and academic presses. He is also co-editor of the Critical Language and Literacy Studies series for Multilingual Matters (Bristol, UK) as well as a current Board of Trustee member for the Center for Applied Linguistics in Washington, DC.

REGISTER FOR THIS EVENT