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Cambridge University Press 0521593565 - Literacy and Literacies: Texts, Power, and Identity James Collins and Richard Blot Frontmatter More information literacy and literacies Literacy and Literacies offers a unique, comprehensive survey of both classical and current (mainly anthropological) literature in the field of literacy studies, combined with in-depth critical discussion of particular cases. It explores ques- tions of power, cultural form, and historical process as they are raised by and developed in studies of literacy, and draws on the history of literacy, critical education studies, and the anthropology of literacy, to develop a new synthesis. James Collins and Richard K. Blot argue that neither the generalizing, universalist claims of the “consequences of literacy” thesis, nor the contextualizing, situated studies of the “New Literacy” offer satisfactory approaches to the phenomenon of literacy. Through their analysis of two domains – that of literacies and power and that of literacies and subjectivity – Collins and Blot reveal important histor- ical processes associated with literacy practices while also challenging received assumptions about literacy, intellectual development, and social progress. james collins is Professor of Anthropology and of Reading at the University at Albany, State University of New York. He is the author of Understanding Tolowa Histories: Western Hegemonies and Native American Responses (1988), and has contributed to a number of books and journals. richard blot is Assistant Professor at the Graduate Program i