Author-educator to discuss literacy in a digital world at Fairfield University | Press Releases

Image: Richard Miller Richard Miller, Ph.D., author of "As If Learning Mattered: Reforming Higher Education," will deliver "Cultivating Curiosity in These Our Distracted, Polarized, Irate, Ill-Informed Times" at 6 p.m., Thursday, March 6, in Fairfield University's DiMenna-Nyselius Library Multimedia Room. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Dr. Miller's keynote speech is part of a two-day series of lectures and workshops related to digital literacies and open access to information. It will be preceded by a reception at 5:30 p.m.

Dr. Miller, a nationally recognized speaker on literacy, technology and higher education, will discuss how the speed of the internet has brought an "instant certainty" to our world. "Citizen journalists provide live feed of unfolding events; tweeters respond in a flurry; and suddenly everything seems to be on the verge of already being old news," he writes.

What does it mean to be literate in such a fast-paced world? Is a research ethics possible in the new learning environments that are emerging? In his address, Dr. Miller will explain how the shift from paper to screen has transformed the experience of literacy and what implications this has for teachers of reading and writing.

Dr. Miller's current research focuses on the end of privacy and how education is being changed by the proliferation of hand-held devices and instant publication. A former chair of the English Department at Rutgers University, he is consulting in the doctoral program in clinical social work at Rutgers during the 2013-2014 academic year. His other titles include "Writing at the End of the World" and "Habits of the Creative Mind," which he is co-writing with Ann Jurecic, Ph.D., associate professor of English at Rutgers.

Sponsors for this event are: The Humanities Institute of the College of Arts and Sciences, The DiMenna-Nyselius Library, The Writing Center, and the departments of Communication and English.

For more information, contact Elizabeth Boquet, Ph.D., professor of English, at eboquet@fairfield.edu .