In defense of undergraduate writing: Generative AI and undergraduate reading / writing

This is the fourth and final seminar in a series titled "The Social Implications of Generative AI." It was presented in the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, Stellenbosch University, on 10 October 2024.

Taryn: The complex and multifaceted concept of ‘identity’ is an important
component of any sociolinguistic understanding of language and language
use (see, for example, Holmes 1997, Bucholtz 1999, Norton 2010, Wodak 2012 and Clark 2013). In this talk, I investigate and problematise the notion of ‘identity’ in the era of Artificial Intelligence (AI) before moving on to consider what this means for academic writing and our own pedagogical practices.

Lloyd: Generative AI presents a particular reading-writing challenge to the
humanities, where disciplines are typically framed in terms of canonical
literatures and a commitment to academic writing as authorial stance. This
presentation unfolds in three sections: a formulation of the undergraduate writing problem; a brief discussion of the post-ChatGPT macro context of the
problem; and a discussion of my situated response to the problem, i.e.
reading/writing modalities in my second-year Sociology of Communication
module.

Taryn Bernard chairs the Teaching and Learning Committee in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, and Lloyd Hill lectures in the Department of Sociology & Social Anthropology.