Introduction

Welcome to Digital Rhetorical Privacy Collective (DRPC) Privacy Week! Over the last year, the DRPC Advisory Board has collaborated to produce DRPC Privacy Week, which is the primary outcome of our 2023 Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) Emergent Researcher Award. Thank you to CCCC for believing in the potential of this project, and for providing us with funding and mentoring to make this event possible. Importantly, DRPC Privacy Week occurs concurrently with Data Privacy Week, which according to the Federal Privacy Council is, “a global effort to raise awareness about the importance of respecting privacy, safeguarding data, and enabling trust.” The goal of DRPC Privacy Week is to amplify topics about privacy and surveillance for rhetoric, composition, and technical communication scholars and our community partners. To that end, the DRPC Advisory Board has produced a week-long, interinstitutional event with panel discussions, workshop opportunities, student demonstrations, and culminating in a keynote panel. Events are virtual, hybrid (in-person and via Zoom), or asynchronous. You can register for all 6 DRPC Privacy Week events here: https://drpcollective.com. 

The DRPC Advisory Board includes Morgan Banville (Massachusetts Maritime Academy), Chen Chen (Utah State University), Gavin Johnson (Texas A&M University-Commerce), Cecilia Shelton (University of Maryland), Noah Wason (SUNY Binghamton), and me, Charles Woods (Texas A&M University-Commerce). In our CCCC Emergent Researcher Award grant proposal, titled, “Teaching and Learning about Privacy and Surveillance: Creating Coalitions Through the Digital Rhetorical Privacy Collective,” we noted that, “as issues concerning digital privacy and surveillance become increasingly commonplace, the DRP Collective examines how building an intersectional, coalitional resource enables us to disrupt the structures surveilling bodies based on race, class, gender, sexuality, disability, etc.” Of course, we are not the first rhetoric and composition scholars to study privacy and surveillance, but we hope our approach—one focused on coalition building and reaching public audiences—offers a renewed direction for these topics in research and teaching in rhetoric, writing studies, and technical communication classrooms. 

We think issues of privacy and surveillance are important in these spaces for a multitude of reasons. In our grant proposal, we noted that “it is important to consider how privacy/surveillance practices impact writing in different organizations, communities, and cultures, we consider the transfer of knowledge about privacy/surveillance across contexts as paramount to the DRPC mission. Contemporary global politics concerning privacy and surveillance as well as long-established, historical surveillance practices make this work kairotic, offering a timely response to the moment. The insights that come from rhetorical work in digital privacy are essential to facilitating our critical understanding of contemporary and complex intersectional identities.” We consider DRPC Privacy Week a major step in expanding our coalition and for reaching our overall goal of amplifying the importance of teaching about privacy and surveillance.

Collaborators

We have coordinated and organized  scholars from many universities to be a part of DRPC Privacy Week, including from Dr. Mali Collins (American University), Reed Hepler (College of Southern Idaho), Dr. Sarah Young (Erasmus University Rotterdam), Dr. Morgan Banville (Massachusetts Maritime Academy), Dr. Noah Wason (SUNY Binghamton), Dr. Charles Woods, Dr. Gavin Johnson, A.P. Anderson, Zephyr Rankin, and Michele Hearn (Texas A&M University-Commerce), Dr. Christina V. Cedillo (University of Houston-Clear Lake), Dr. Cecilia Shelton (University of Maryland-College Park), Dr. Tim Walker (University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth), Dr. Atilla Hallsby (University of Minnesota), Dr. Calvin Pollack (University of Washington), Dr. Maria Novotny (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee), and Dr. Chen Chen (Utah State University).

In addition to our CCCC Emergent Researcher Award funding, DRPC Privacy Week has had additional support from Massachusetts Maritime Academy; Utah State University Libraries, College of Humanities & Social Sciences, Department of Journalism & Communication, and Department of English; and, University of Maryland English, Center for Literary and Comparative Studies, and Frederick Douglass Center for Leadership through the Humanities. 

We are pleased to share for the first time in this blog post that Dr. Carmen Kynard (Texas Christian University) will serve as a respondent to DRPC Privacy Week in February 2024. That brings the total number of collaborators to 18 across 14 different institutions! Thank you to everyone for their time, labor, and expertise and these institutions and organizations for their support for DRPC Privacy Week.

Events

Monday, January 22, 2024

Event: “Teaching About Privacy in an Age of Generative AI”

4:00-pm-5:00pm EST via Zoom (originates from Utah State University)

Tuesday, January 23, 2024 (2 events)

Event: “Beyond the Panopticon”

Asynchronous (originates from SUNY Binghamton)

Event: “Privacy, Intellectual Property, and the Future of Free Inquiry on College Campuses”

12:00pm-1:00pm EST via Zoom and Waters Library at Texas A&M University-Commerce

Wednesday, January 24, 2024

Event: “Surveillance on the Sea”

10:00am-12:00pm EST via Zoom and Admiral’s Hall at Massachusetts Maritime Academy

Thursday, January 25, 2024

Event: “Black Feminism, Reproductive Justice, and Digital Surveillance”

4:30pm-5:30pm EST via Zoom and Tawes Building at University of Maryland

Friday, January 26, 2024

Event: “Amplifying Privacy-Surveillance Rhetorics”

3:30pm-5:00pm EST via Zoom (originates from TAMUC)

Conclusion

When I first outlined the DRPC in my dissertation, I described “an interactive, coalitional resource that features activities, assignments, and reading lists” and explained, “As this coalitional resource develops in the coming months I will seek out and secure funding through grants…Specifically, I plan to apply as an individual scholar for funding opportunities through the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC).” Surprise! I didn’t wind up applying for funding opportunities as an individual scholar, but instead with the most brilliantly creative and determinedly dedicated group of collaborators I have ever worked with, the DRPC Advisory Board.

If you would like to learn more about DRPC Resources and getting involved in the DRPC, reach out to us via our website where you can fill out a form. Already using DRPC resources in the classroom? Let us know how! So, welcome to DRPC Privacy Week! We hope you register for all 6 events and can’t wait to see you this afternoon on Zoom for, “Teaching About Privacy in an Age of Generative AI,” originating from Utah State University!

Thanks,

Charles