Graduate students from our Theories of Literacy course are sharing insights from our weekly sessions in weekly blog posts. They’ll rotate the responsibility throughout the fall 2025 semester, sharing how we’re making sense of the ideas that emerge in our time together.
Well, it’s finally happened. We’ve been told all semester that winter would be coming, and there has been a slight chill following us the past few weeks. We should have been preparing, but we didn’t listen. That’s right, it finally happened. We read Bruno Latour’s “Third Sense of Uncertainty: Objects Too Have Agency.” This piece has been the specter haunting us (and by us I mean Hailey [the Elder]) the past 7 weeks. The problem I had with the piece? Not once did the word chair show up. I have been waiting all semester long to read this chair piece! (If lost on this semester-long joke, take a look at the expertly written pieces which precede this one).
What, then, does Latour’s piece contain? Well, like Wolfram Von Eschenbach has asked his readers for over 700 years, I too, then, must ask: “would you like to hear what it said?” (24).
Giving us a few examples, such as “kettles ‘boil’ water, knives ‘cut’ meat, baskets ‘hold’ provisions, hammers ‘hit’ nails on the head” (71), Latour is bringing to the forefront the work that these objects do. Latour, to be on the same page, is not arguing that these objects desire to do these jobs like a Hegelian “master-slave dialectic” pushed to
the extreme as in “The Brave Little Toaster.”
What is being argued is that sociologists have not utilized their research to their fullest potential since they have not taken into account the way that objects play much more important roles in how we function as a collection of disparate societies, cultures and identities than has been thought. If thought at all. Latour makes this clear stating that ANT (Actor-Network Theory) “is not the empty claim that objects do things ‘instead’ of human actors: it simply says that no science of the social can even begin if the question of who and what participates in the action is not first of all thoroughly explored even though it might mean letting elements in which, for lack of a better term, we would call non-humans” (72). We must, then, not only think humans live in a world of pure human-to-human interaction. How would such a thing work without religious buildings with their myriad of objects in each room, each bar without its specific beer glasses for your stouts and ales, or a classroom without desks and chairs? (Kim might have an idea regarding the last example). We, then, have been missing the mark for a long time. Before we get too lost in the sauce though, we should heed the instructions of Deborah Brandt and Katie Clinton before moving forward with our newfound passion to study how objects influence our existence in ways never thought of before.
In their piece titled “Limits of the Local: Expanding Perspectives on Literacy as a Social Practice” Deborah Brandt and Katie Clinton, following Latour’s ideas, bring objects to the forefront of literacy studies. They likewise do something interesting with this idea, bringing the idea of technologies and their influence on time and space to our attention. Stating that “literate practices depend on powerful and consolidating technologies” (338), Brandt and Clinton explore this idea, going on to write that local literacy events “can have globalizing tendencies and globalizing effects, accomplished often through the mediation of globalizing technologies (347). Why does such a thing matter? Brandt and Clinton remind us that these technologies, being things such as “ledgers, files, documents, books, computers” have “all played a role in mediating larger and longer pieces of the social world, holding them in connection, across continents” meaning that “engaging as readers and writers with these things engages us, as well, in this kind of transcontextualizing work” (347). These things do something great for me too. They allow me to not only participate in transcontextual literacy in terms of language and technology (Lord knows how many books I brought back from Germany), but also to explore this with time. The picture from the top of this piece being a great example. It is interesting then, how we have thrown technologies and objects to the wayside on our quest to study literacy. This came up in conversation with our class which, like Eschenbach, I will take great pleasure in showing you what happened.
In class we got into a discussion, naturally, about how technology shapes our literacy practices. Kim put on an adorable video where a toddler asks Alexa to play Pinkfong’s “Baby Shark” which I will link here: Baby Shark and Alexa. In the video, Alexa plays many different things, but not once does it put on the “Baby Shark” song the young girl is pleading for. That is, not until the girl’s mother is able to get Alexa to understand what it is her daughter is looking for by pronouncing the song in a way where the k at the end is emphasized, allowing Alexa to better understand what was being requested.
Kim turned to us after playing the video, and asked us “what is going on here?” to which Hailey responds that “she understands that there is a lady in the box who plays ‘Baby Shark.’ She doesn’t talk to it like she talks to a person though. There’s very much input-output compared to a conversation.” I found Hailey’s take very interesting since this brings to light that, while objects and technologies may have agency if one agrees with the writers I discussed above, the way we treat these objects and technologies as tools to communicate with others can be very impersonal. I think, however, that our shaped idea of how to interact with others as humans, which comes to us at a later age could play a role in how we interact with these technologies. Take, for instance, this video of an older couple trying to get Alexa to play a happy birthday song for them: POV: Alexa Ruins The Birthday Party 🎂😂 . The couple listens to Alexa and waits their turn to respond, like one does in a conversation with another human. Just as Hailey pointed out with the young girl, they “know” there is a lady in the box, yet their conditioning of how to deal with a “lady” (in a box or not) has been formed through years of interacting with humans. One wonders, then, how younger generations will interact with humans both inside and outside of the box.
This conversation led to the next, which was whether one preferred audiobooks over reading a physical book. The answers were very diverse. Hailey asked the question as to “how much of an audiobook is ‘reading’?” I, although staying mostly quiet due to taking notes during this class period for this piece, asked, “is reading the Bible on stained glass still interacting with the Bible?” Hailey, taking a time to think, responded “no,” while Kim nodded her head, understanding the trajectory of my question. I neither agree nor disagree with Hailey, but I do think it brings to light how these technologies of literacy, while seen through our modern lens, might make us forget how these technologies have morphed throughout centuries, yet their mission(s) have always been there.
Our conversation moved to something everyone loves to hate talking about: AI. (For data, see Chico State’s Fast “Facts” on AI integration from their page on AI.) We were told by Kim that the usage of AI is being thrust upon us since, as she has been told multiple times, such a thing is “inevitable.” This messaging is being pushed even harder by Chico State’s AI page (linked above) with fast “fact” statistics which Kim, after crunching the numbers, told us “the math“ for these stats ”ain’t mathing.” While many of us were against, and disgusted (though not shocked) by the rhetoric our campus was using, our perceptions regarding AI were refreshingly varied. Sel found AI to be an interesting aspect of current human culture, but couldn’t morally justify using it since the environmental impact would be too great. Julian, on the other hand, stated that AI was a great tool to help him think outside the box, allowing him to be forced to utilize other avenues of thinking. I personally never use AI due to my own moral implications, but I am finding that this “inevitability” that we are being warned about means this technology might have an agency that, although I am not ready to interact with, will decide whether I can interact with society at large or will be thrust aside, left to fend for myself. I could not think whether it would be better to use the “future is now old man” picture or the ending from “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” I have decided, then, thanks to the power of technology, to use both. 
Bradley Mendoza-Wilson is a first generation college student halfway through their first 
semester of graduate school at Chico State. Bradley got his bachelor’s in English literature with a second major in German. He decided that was not enough and tacked on two minors in Medieval/Renaissance Studies and European Studies. When not running around campus or working on papers, Bradley can be found in a myriad of places reading medieval poetry or walking through historic cemeteries with his wife.
Further Reading
Brandt, Deborah, and Katie Clinton. “Limits of the Local: Expanding Perspectives on Literacy as a Social Practice.” Journal of Literacy Research, vol. 34, no. 3, 2002, pp. 333–47, https://doi.org/10.1207/s15548430jlr3403_4.
Eschenbach, Wolfram von. Parzival: With Titurel and the Love Lyrics. Edited by Cyril Edwards, 1st ed., vol. 56, Boydell & Brewer, 2002, pg. 24, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781846151347.
Latour, Bruno. Reassembling the Social: an Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. E-book, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. 71-72. https://hdl-handle-net.mantis.csuchico.edu/2027/heb32135.0001.001.