Biography

Charles Bazerman, Distinguished Professor of Education Emeritus at the University of California, Santa Barbara, has investigated the practice, teaching, and nature of writing, understood in a socio-historic context. Drawing from rhetoric, linguistics, sociology, history, psychology, science studies, evolutionary neurology, and education, he has developed and integrated theories of genre, activity systems, social interaction, intertextuality, and cognitive development (2013).  This theoretical perspective is grounded in empirical investigations of the history of scientific and other forms of writing, textually mediated social groups, the development and circulation of knowledge though writing, and the lifespan development of writing abilities.  
Bazerman’s academic career began with degrees in English and American literature, but teaching elementary grades shifted his attention to literacy and writing studies. Recognizing that most student writing at universities depended on texts students read, he developed a pedagogy based on intertextuality within fields of knowledge (1981). His first scholarly book (1988) studied the history and practice of writing in natural and social scientific disciplines, which laid the foundation for his subsequent research on the interplay between writing and disciplinary knowledge, cognitive development, the circulation of knowledge within society, and the communicative complexities in carrying out large socio-technical projects, such as centralized electrical power (1999) and acting on climate change. His curiosity about his students’ experiences before and after they passed through his classes and his studies of influential figures in transforming writing in their fields, such as Isaac Newton, Joseph Priestley, Adam Smith, and Thomas Edison, led to an interest in lifespan development of writing (2018).
His contributions have been translated into Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, Danish, and Chinese, and he has worked with campuses throughout Europe, Latin America, and Asia.  Numerous awards and honors have recognized his role in developing contemporary understanding of writing as a social and cognitive activity, tied to the growth of knowledge.
 
Selected Publications:

   Bazerman, C. (1981). The informed writer: Using sources in the disciplines. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
   Bazerman, C. (1988). Shaping written knowledge: The genre and activity of the experimental article in science. University of Wisconsin Press.
   Bazerman, C. (1999). The languages of Edison’s light.  Cambridge MA: MIT Press.
   Bazerman, C., & P. Prior (2004). What writing does and how it does it: An introduction to analyzing texts and textual practices. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
   Bazerman, C. (2008). Handbook of research on writing: History, society, school, individual, text. Taylor & Francis Group/Lawrence Erlbaum Associate
   Bazerman, C. (2013).  A theory of literate action. Literate action, volume 2. Parlor Press and WAC Clearinghouse.
   Bazerman, C., A. Applebee, V. Berninger, D. Brandt, S. Graham, J. V. Jeffery, P. Kei Matsuda, S. Murphy, D. W. Rowe, M. Schleppegrell, & K. C. Wilcox (2018) Lifespan development of writing abilities. Urbana IL: NCTE Press.
   Bazerman, C. (2024). Unfinished business: Thoughts on the past, present, future and nurturing of homo scribens. WAC Clearinghouse and University Press of Colorado.