I’m a professor of English at the University of Louisville where I teach and write about issues of literacy, identity, sustainability, digital media, popular culture, and creative nonfiction. My recurring research interests have been the intersections of the literacy practices people engage in in their daily lives and the literacy practices they encounter in schools and universities. My most recent book, Literacy Practices and Perceptions of Agency: Composing Identities, focused on issues of literacy, identity, and perceptions of agency. Or, to put it more simply, when do we feel literate? I’m currently working on a book project based on interviews with students about their complex, affective, and often disruptive experiences of writing and learning during the global pandemic.
I also have an ongoing interest in digital media technologies and literacy with a current focus on a global climate change education project involving middle school students in four countries. Other current projects include work on community writing projects and writing center research. I also write creative nonfiction, both as an approach to my scholarly writing and as essays on other subjects. My interest in cross-cultural communication and identity has also taken me to a number of different countries to teach and do research, including the United Kingdom, the Philippines, and Kazakhstan. You can also find further information about my previous books as well as journal and other publications.
My teaching is inextricable from my writing and research. I believe that we need to build on the knowledge our students bring into the classroom, and that we can only do this when we listen carefully to what they have to say. Although we cannot prepare our students for every rhetorical or literacy challenge they will meet in their lives, we can work to help them develop a rhetorical awareness that will help them negotiate the unfamiliar writing and reading situations they encounter both inside the classroom and beyond. I also believe that writing can be pleasurable and fulfilling, even as it is hard work. I am currently director of the University of Louisville Writing Center. I have had a broad range of teaching experiences in composition and rhetoric, writing center studies, literature, creative writing, and popular culture.
In terms of the important stuff, I have twin sons. Griffith is a writer who also works in the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Michigan Rhys works as a forester in Vermont. My wife, Mary Brydon-Miller, also teaches at the University of Louisville. I’m a movie freak, love to hike, play music, eat good food, and travel all I can.
Bronwyn T. Williams 