These speakers historicize definitions of Literacy on both national and regional scales, particularly as focused on activism and advocacy.

Woody Guthrie was, among other things, a political activist and one of America’s most important and prolific twentieth century writers. Curiously, however, writing studies as a field has not taken up his work in any significant way. My project aims to rectify this gap and to bring the explanatory power of writing studies—and particularly the concept of literacy sponsorship—to bear on Guthrie’s work. Doing so will reveal new facets of Guthrie as a writer—specifically a writer of his own historical legacy.