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Christopher Aaron Lindgren

Christopher Aaron Lindgren, Assistant Professor

Chris Lindgren
Christopher Aaron Lindgren, Assistant Professor

Department of English
207 Shanks Hall 
181 Turner Street NW 
Blacksburg, VA 24061
lindgren@vt.edu

Chris Lindgren’s research and teaching specializes in literacy, rhetoric and technology, and writing in the sciences. He investigates what can be learned about the dynamic nature of writing by studying the rhetorical complexity of writing and reading computer code.

He has previously published about crisis rhetorics that call for computer coding as a mass literacy. His current project investigates what can be learned about the dynamic nature of writing by studying the rhetorical complexity of writing and reading computer code. He grounds this research in a case-study of a web developer on a data journalism team, who analyzes and visualizes data. He argues that by understanding this developer’s coding with large data sets as written communication, writing researchers can contribute substantive theories about how people use writing to conduct knowledge work.

Please visit his website for examples of his work, research, and syllabi at https://www.clndgrn.com/

  • Literacy Studies
  • Materialities of writing
  • Computer coding as written communication
  • Rhetorics of technology
  • Data visualization
  • Ph.D. in Rhetoric, Scientific, & Technical Communication, University of Minnesota – Twin-Cities
  • M.A. in Composition Studies, North Dakota State University
  • B.A. in English, North Dakota State University
  • Association for Computing Machinery: Special Interest Group on Design of Communication
    Association of Teachers of Technical Writing
  • National Council of Teachers of English
  • Rhetoric Society of America

Journal Articles

  • Brooks, K. and Lindgren, C. “Responding to the Coding Crisis: From 'Code Year' to Code Decade,” Strategic Discourse: The Politics of (New) Literacy Crises, edited by L. C. Lewis, Computers and Composition Digital Press, 2015.
  • Brooks, K., Lindgren, C., & Warner, M. “Tackling a fundamental problem: Using digital Labs to Build a Smarter Computing Culture,” Rhetoric and the Digital Humanities, edited by B. Hart-Davidson and J. Ridolfo, University of Chicago Press, 2015, pp. 224-32.
  • Hawk, B., Lindgren, C. & Mara, A. “Utopian Laptop Initiatives: From Technological Deism to Object-Oriented Rhetoric,” Writing Posthumanism, Posthuman Writing, edited by S. Dobrin, Parlor Press, 2015, pp. 192-213.

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