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1 Introduction As we write this sentence, more than a decade has passed since the publication of Deborah Brandt’s Literacy in American Lives (2001). At the time of publication, Literacy in American Lives was one of many voices in the boisterous, interdisciplinary, and ultimately transformative conversation about literacy that had become known, collectively, as “the New Literacy Studies,” the theoretical conception that construed literacy, as Brian Street (1995) writes, “as an ideological practice, implicated in power relations and embedded in specific cultural meanings and practices” (p. 1). This conversation was in full swing when Literacy in American Lives appeared, and Brandt’s book seemed yet another contribution to the series of carefully researched, thoughtfully argued works that were changing understandings of literacy from an individually acquired, ideologically autonomous skill to a social and cultural practice (see, among many published previous to Brandt’s book, Scribner and Cole, 1981; Heath, 1983; Street, 1984, 1993, 1995; Farr, 1993; Barton, 1994; Moss, 1994; Collins, 1995; Besnier, 1995; Gere, 1997). Yet, Literacy in American Lives would eventually emerge from this conversation to become a preeminent, if not the preeminent, voice in literacy studies. Consider that in the decade-plus since its publication, Brandt’s book has garnered three major book awards, the MLA Mina Shaughnessy Prize, CCCC’s Outstanding Book Award, and the Grawemeyer Award in Education from the University of Louisville. More, the book is routinely cited in literacy scholarship, appears almost de rigueur on graduate syllabuses on literacy, and has made Brandt a much sought after speaker at national conferences and at universities in the United States and abroad. The influence of Brandt’s work was not immediately apparent. The early reviews of Literacy in American Lives were enthusiastic, though not unequivocally so. D. K. Kaufmann in Choice calls the book “powerful” but writes, “[Brandt’s] focus on economic influences sometimes obscures the other uses of literacy she defends” (2002, p. 1471). Joseph Zimmer (2002, p. 432) in The Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy takes a different view: “While Introduction 2 economics are important, Brandt does not slight social and cultural factors that cannot be separated from the rich context of literacy in people’s lives.” Zimmer finds the book “fascinating” and “important,” praising its methodology , highlighting the use of the life history interview, and terming the book a “great addition to the history of literacy.” Diane Lemonnier Schallert and Suzanne E. Wade (2005) in the Reading Research Quarterly describe Brandt’s book as a “beautifully argued and densely illustrated thesis about the economic value of the everyday literacy of people living in the 20th century” (p. 523). These reviewers praise, as does Zimmer, the book’s methodology, writing that Brandt’s interviews with eighty people, from ages ten to ninetyeight , living in south central Wisconsin was “so important, so unusual, and so ultimately compelling” as to deserve special notice. Schallert and Wade further note that Brandt’s innovative concept of literacy “sponsors”—described in the book as “agents, local or distant, concrete or abstract, who enable, support, teach, and model, as well as recruit, regulate, suppress, or withhold, literacy—and gain advantage by it in some way” (2001, p. 19)—enabled Brandt to define literacy as a “commodity” and a “resource,” at once “political, economic, intellectual, and spiritual” (Schallert and Wade, 2005, p. 523). Offering yet another lens, Beth Daniell’s (2003) review in College Composition and Communication features the voices of Daniell’s advanced writing students, who described their reactions to the book and how it invited them to understand literacy in contexts of their own lives. Among these reactions was the student Joanna’s assessment that “Brandt does not simply bring the sociological background and history of literacy to our attention but also finds a way to make it moving . . . giving substance to the academic. It is not often that I find myself introspective after reading an educational study, yet Brandt created something that does just that” (p. 359). Looking back at these reviews, we are struck by how prescient they were in identifying the moves and methods that have made Literacy in American Lives required reading for literacy researchers. Read collectively, the early reviews address in Literacy in American Lives the insistence on viewing literacy through a historical lens, which represents a departure from the “ethnographic present” that was the focus of much research in New Literacy Studies. They note, as well, the introduction of sponsorship, the conceptual innovation used to track the forces that encourage...

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