Colin Lankshear

My main research and writing interests are in the area of literacy and new technologies. With my main collaborator, Michele Knobel, I edit a books series called "New Literacies", for Peter Lang. My wider interests include British motorcycles (up to the 1970s, although I'd love a late model Triumph), producing my own coffee on our small patch of coffee land in Mexico, hanging out in Newfoundland, dogs and building. A key formative influence on my work was the time I spent between late 1988 and early 1990 living in a peasant community in Nicaragua. I hope to return there for a decent period in the near future and write about life in the same village more than 20 years apart. My Spanish is passable, and keeping on the move within the Americas provides an interesting perspective on life. Until recently I worked in a range of Australian universities, as well as enjoying time in Mexico's wonderful UNAM and in McGill University in Montreal. These days I am working part time teaching Masters courses (face to face and at distance) for Mount St Vincent University in Canada. I am an adjunct professor at MSVU and at McGill. I contribute to a couple of weblogs ("joypix" and "everydayliteracies", both of which are at blogspot.com) and I aim to write at least 1000 disciplined words a day. I look forward to mucking around a lot more with digital media in the years ahead, and to more motorcycling than has been possible in recent times. There are also a couple of much loved Ford Mustangs in the frame. My guess is that Route 66 will call out pretty soon. I enjoy blues, jazz, classic R and B, punk, grunge, alt rock, western swing, post Gram Parsons country, everything by Doug Sahm, and whatever categories one might include such wonders as the White Stripes, Leonard Cohen and the Cowboy Junkies under.