Skip to main content
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
Arts & Culture
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • University Statements
  • |
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
Sections
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • University Statements
  • |
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
Arts & Culture

‘Gravyland’ chronicles urban university writing program

Wednesday, April 7, 2010, By News Staff
Share
College of Arts and SciencesCommunity

In his new book “Gravyland” (Syracuse University Press, 2010), Stephen Parks, associate professor of writing and rhetoric in Syracuse University’s College of Arts and Sciences, chronicles the history of an urban university writing program and its attempt to develop politically progressive literacy partnerships with the surrounding community while having to work within and against a traditional educational and cultural landscape.

Parks details the experience of the New City Writing program at Temple University from its beginning as a small institute with one program at a local public school to a multifaceted organization, raising millions of dollars, and establishing partnerships across the diverse neighborhoods of Philadelphia. In doing so, the author describes classrooms where the community takes a seat and becomes part of the conversation—a conversation that is recorded and shared through a selection of the writing produced.

While Parks celebrates classroom success in generating knowledge through dialog with the larger community, he also highlights many of the obstacles the organizers of the New City Writing program faced. He shows that writing alliances between universities and communities are possible, but they must take into account the institutional, economic and political pressures that accompany such partnerships.

Blending the theoretical and practical lessons learned, Parks details New City Writing’s effort to offer a new model of education, one in which the voice of the professor must share space with the voices of the community, and one in which students come to understand that the right to sit in a classroom is not just the result of war, but of peaceful civil disobedience, of community struggles to gain self-recognition and of collective efforts to seek social justice.

Parks is the author of “Class Politics: The Movement for the Students’ Right to Their Own Language.” He is also executive director of New City Community Press and editor of Reflections: A Journal of Writing, Service-Learning, and Community Literacy. In addition, Parks has published a recent article with Nick Pollard in College Composition and Communication (February 2010): “Emergent Strategies for an Established Field: The Role of Worker-Writer Collectives in Composition and Rhetoric.”

  • Author

News Staff

  • Recent
  • Innovation Fund at SyracuseCoE Awards $40,000 to Local Climate Tech Companies
    Friday, December 8, 2023, By News Staff
  • Psychology Professor and Ph.D. Candidate Awarded NIH Grants for Alcohol-Related Research and Treatment
    Friday, December 8, 2023, By Dan Bernardi
  • Auxiliary Services Expands Dining Choices, Meal Plan Options and ’Cuse Cash Opportunities, adds 727 South Crouse Ave. to Housing Portfolio
    Friday, December 8, 2023, By Jennifer DeMarchi
  • Former Blackstone LaunchPad Duo Shine in Forbes 30 Under 30 Awards with OthersideAI
    Thursday, December 7, 2023, By Cristina Hatem
  • From Boland Hall to Broadway, Colleagues and Friends Produce ‘How to Dance in Ohio’
    Thursday, December 7, 2023, By Kim Infanti

More In Arts & Culture

Life Trustee Daniel D’Aniello ’68, H’20 Honored With Keys to the City of Florence, Italy

Alumnus, philanthropist and Life Trustee Daniel D’Aniello ’68, H’20 was recently celebrated by the city of Florence, Italy, for his dedication to the city and his support of the Syracuse Abroad program in Florence. In a ceremony hosted by the…

From Boland Hall to Broadway, Colleagues and Friends Produce ‘How to Dance in Ohio’

Two Syracuse University alumni are opening their first Broadway musical as lead producers, “How to Dance in Ohio,” and the Dec. 5 preview performance included close to 200 Syracuse University leaders, alumni, parents and friends. Producers Ben Holtzman ’13 and…

Pink to Perform at JMA Wireless Dome Oct. 6

Pink will bring her high-energy musical, dance and aerobatic performance to the JMA Wireless Dome on Sunday, Oct. 6, as part of her 17-city 2024 Summer Carnival Tour. The tour will feature special guest, friend and award-winning artist Sheryl Crow,…

Art History Professor Receives NFAH Fellowship for Work on Modern Pueblo Painting

Historically, studies of early 20th-century Pueblo painting focused on the role non-Native anthropologists, artists and patrons played in fostering and marketing Pueblo art. In the last two decades, there has been a shift in approach spearheaded by scholars in the…

A&S Professor Wins Mentorship Award

Gwendolyn D. Pough, dean’s professor of the humanities and professor in the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies, is the latest recipient of the 2023 Ede Mentoring Award from the Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric &…

Subscribe to SU Today

If you need help with your subscription, contact sunews@syr.edu.

Connect With Us

  • X
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
Social Media Directory

For the Media

Find an Expert Follow @SyracuseUNews
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
  • @SyracuseU
  • @SyracuseUNews
  • Social Media Directory
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy
  • Campus Status
  • Syracuse.edu
© 2023 Syracuse University News. All Rights Reserved.