About James Collier

Background

I am an Associate Professor in the Department of English at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech). I am also an Affiliated Faculty Member in Science and Technology Studies and in the Alliance for Social, Political, Ethical and Cultural Thought. Please feel free to contact me at jim.collier@vt.edu or at 540.231.8340.

Before returning to Virginia Tech in 2001 I was the Director of the Writing in the Disciplines Program at the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Writing at Duke University. At Duke I was also an Assistant Professor of the Practice and taught courses in "Science Writing" and "Academic Writing." From 1998-2000, I was an Assistant Professor at the University of Massachusetts and taught "Technical Writing" and "Advanced Software for Professional Writers" in the Professional Writing and Technical Communication Program (PWTC) in the English Department. Additionally, I taught graduate courses in the "Rhetoric of Science" (Spring 1999) and "The Interdisciplinary Movement" (Spring 2000).

Degrees I hold:

All degrees were taken at Virginia Tech.


On Research

I write under the name James H. Collier

I am the second author, with Steve Fuller, of Philosophy, Rhetoric and the End of Knowledge: A New Beginning for Science and Technology Studies (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2004). I am the author and editor of Scientific and Technical Communication: Theory, Practice and Policy (with David Toomey; Sage, 1997). And I have authored and edited an expanded, digital edition of Scientific and Technical Communication (with David Toomey, 2004). Currently I am working on a book for Lawrence Erlbaum Associates under the barely working title Meta-Inquiry. Concurrently, I am working on a project regarding how academic researchers identify intellectual problems and if those problems, as recognized, posed and pursued, can be, or should be, "solved." Over the last few years I have published articles in, among other journals, Futures, Minerva, Philosophy and Rhetoric, and Technical Communication Quarterly.


Research Statement (a PDF version of this statement, 76 KB)

My research analyzes forms of inquiry and the forms of knowledge they seemingly produce. My evolving research interests are illustrated by three related book projects. I am currently working on Meta-Inquiry. In this book I take up how researchers identify intellectual problems and form questions that can, and should, be pursued. Identifying these problems and questions is generally the province of disciplinary narratives. However, through an emphasis on paradigmatic inquiry, instrumentalism and research quantity, disciplinary rhetoric often dulls the research imagination. I believe we need to develop and to teach shared criteria, sensibilities and judgments regarding what inquiry is, should, and can be. In so doing, I envision ways to help renew academic inquiry. We should, I claim, regard argument, rhetoric, and public discourse as elements of a coherent narrative informing our judgments about epistemic inquiry. I believe we need a forum for explicitly rendering these judgments. Writing in the Disciplines advances this forum.

My initial research brought together work in the fields of Scientific and Technical Communication and Science and Technology Studies (STS) — the history, sociology and philosophy of science and technology. In Scientific and Technical Communication: Theory, Practice and Policy I demonstrate how a critical understanding of science and technology can make for more informed technical communications practices. Since the field of technical communication requires theoretical perspectives on science and technology, STS offers a way for technical communicators to conceptualize and critically engage the objects of their inquiry. My research, and its resulting practices, advocates a role for technical communicators as brokers facilitating knowledge production processes.

To act as epistemic brokers, technical communicators need to know how persuasion works. Early work on rhetoric in science focused on different ways to employ ancient rhetoric to interpret canonical scientific texts. However, the import of this work has not gone unquestioned. In response, my research argues for a normative philosophy as a basis for moving research forward in the rhetoric of science. In my dissertation and in a series of articles, I articulate normative criteria for adjudicating knowledge claims made by researchers about the nature and conduct of science and technology. In developing these criteria I ask: How do we know what we know about science and technology? What counts as knowledge about science and technology? What ought we do as a result? These questions have led me to consider the relative efficacy of case studies, the concept of contextualization, the differences in humanistic and intellectual inquiry, the nature of knowledge about science (meta-scientific knowledge), and the ways in which academics identify, pose and resolve intellectual problems.

Academics engage intellectual problems in seemingly endless ways. However, tacit and often unrealized regulations exist regarding what counts as proper, or good, academic inquiry. In Philosophy, Rhetoric and the End of Knowledge: A New Beginning for Science and Technology Studies, Steve Fuller and I consider philosophy's place in improving the course of contemporary knowledge production. We argue for a normative epistemology in which the means and ends of producing knowledge are explicitly analyzed and enacted. While our focus is science, my current work takes up the question of how academics understand their own inquiry.

My current work examines the means by which academics, particularly in the humanists and social scientists, identify intellectual problems that can and should be pursued. I claim that the critical research imagination has been dulled by current emphases on paradigmatic inquiry, instrumentalism and research quantity. Seemingly novel responses garnered by pluralism, contextualism and interdisciplinary admixtures often perpetuate the notion that more, and more "interesting," research is better. Subsequently, we share no explicit criteria or sensibility of what good or novel research can be. I believe this shared sensibility can be developed through a sustained, philosophical examination of how, and why, we know what we know (meta-knowledge). In the midst of our rush to apply and advance our knowledge about the world, we need to address questions of what our knowledge should be in the world.


Sample Article

"Reclaiming Rhetoric of Science and Technology: Knowing In and About the World"

Abstract

Meta-cognitive work and consideration of relevant philosophical issues are widely recognized as vital for evolving fields of study. This article suggests that a number of common research practices (over-reliance on case studies and contextualization, in addition to the globalization of rhetoric) have delayed real contemplation of larger issues in RST. The author calls for closer scrutiny of philosophies underlying the practice of RST and a negotiation of social and philosophical vision for the discipline.

Please download the full text of the article (PDF 47 KB).


Courses at Virginia Tech

I teach, or have taught, the following courses at Virginia Tech:

• Rhetoric in Digital Environments (Spring 2008 graduate course)
• On the Nature of Academic and Intellectual Inquiry (Fall 2006 graduate course)
• Knowing in Non-Fiction (Spring 2005 graduate course)
• Writing in the Disciplines (Fall 2003 graduate course)
• The Rhetoric of Science (Spring 2003 graduate course)

• The Internet: Hype and Glory (Capstone Course)
• Managing Knowledge and Information (Capstone Course)
• The Public Intellectual (Senior Seminar)
• Rhetoric and Scientific and Technological Controversies (Capstone Course)
• Writing and Designing for the World Wide Web
• Science Writing
• Technical Writing On-Line
• Technical Writing
• Business Writing


Teaching Philosophy Statement (a PDF version of this statement, 76 KB)
(a further development of these ideas can be found in "Learning How to Learn (and Teach) Digital Technologies," Center for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Newsletter, Spring 2005.)

The goal of teaching is to engage students in making meaning. To make meaning, I encourage students to explore ways in which knowledge is both in, and about, the world. This dynamic can be mapped, in part, through the study of science and technology. Science provides the best means for gaining certain knowledge about the world. Still, it remains a human endeavor in the world. By studying science as both in and about the world, students can develop a distinct, highly integrated, coherent form of knowledge. This knowledge occurs at the meta-level: It addresses how we know what we know about science and technology. From this meta-level analysis, I ask students to develop arguments and criteria regarding how we judge our knowledge about science, how we ought to continue to study and critique science, and how we ought to communicate about science and technology. Moreover, I want students to extend this analysis. I want them to consider ways in which we can explicitly formulate the kinds of problems and inquiry we wish to pursue in the humanities and social sciences.

In required courses such as "Science Writing" and "Technical Writing," students can and should learn professional norms of communication and dominant forms of sharing knowledge. Yet such courses can also teach students how these communicative forms are matters of social context and sites of negotiation and contestation. I design these courses to lead students to the insight that communication has the power to shape knowledge -- their words matter. These courses not only help students to gain practice in discursive conventions, but also teach them to reflect on their formative power. Thus, I place the conventions of scientific and technical communication in historical context, at moments in which such communication is a matter of intense dispute, such as in the debates between Hobbes and Boyle or over Darwin's On the Origin of Species. We then study specific forms of communication, and see that, even in the most mundane instances, the stakes of communication are high. For example, we might study the ways that scientific innovations (say, microwave ovens or atomic energy) have been explained to the public, in contrast with the ways that scientists speak with one another about such matters. We study scientific and technological controversies, matters of acute interest that are not settled, and that should initiate complex negotiation. Overall, in this learning environment, students naturally move beyond the diligent reproduction of forms. Communication is hardly a matter of plugging in formulas; instead, students have the opportunity to learn to write by negotiating meaning.

Technology-driven design courses must address rapid changes in software and hardware, as well as shifting conceptual frameworks for the production, circulation and uses of texts. Such courses, then, demand a flexible, forward-looking approach to teaching. Enrolled students typically represent disparate backgrounds -- from programmers to neophytes, from employed web writers to novices -- and my design courses offer opportunities for all students to enrich their abilities. For example, in my course "Writing and Designing for the World Wide Web,"I teach students to "learn how to learn"changing knowledge and practices. I found that if students take direct responsibility for their learning, and for the learning of others, they devise innovative, significant approaches to the subject matter. I encourage this process by devising multiple, complimentary ways of learning material for any one class. For example, for a topic regarding (X)HTML syntax, I put students in groups, have them learn a design topic, and teach the class through a discussion of the topic and a hands-on tutorial (which they uniquely design). To prepare for class, the remaining students try synchronous or asynchronous on-line tutorials, consult the class texts, or consult additional on-line resources. Their learning about each topic feeds their ongoing individual projects: the thorough and thoughtful design of a website. Throughout the semester, students also reflect on how they best learn technologies of design, and plan for how to continue to educate themselves as designers.

In my upper-division and graduate classes, students have the opportunity to formulate and pursue intellectual problems with increasing complexity and rigor. I design seminars to provide scaffolding for sustained intellectual development. As the courses proceed, students take increasing leadership roles in discussions about issues, readings, and one another's projects. In the case of graduate classes, I help to orient students to their disciplinary environment. Students learn about disciplinary conventions as they have developed over time — who gets to speak and why, the effect of traditions and social networks, what issues and ideas are being argued, and what is at stake in the arguments. For example, I often invite students to analyze seminal texts, not only to study the texts themselves, but also to understand that they arise within contested social contexts. Therefore, we read up to and beyond these texts, in order to sort out the rhetorical situations of their production and reception.

I want my students to see knowledge claims and meaning as negotiated. I want students to find their place in the conversation and to feel their own powers. As they do, I encourage them to find audiences beyond the classroom, and to participate in larger conversations in traditional disciplinary forums such as conferences and journals. Again, however, I also invite students to study these forums, to assess their strengths and limitations, and to explore new opportunities for public speech and dialogue as they each discover a place to stand.

Teaching and Learning in a Digital Environment


Technical Writing

— Updated: 18 May 2008