CAI SPECIAL SERIES CFP: Generative AI and Writing in Higher Ed

Since the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, tech companies have been aggressively selling an array of “generative AI” (gen AI) technologies for research and writing to colleges and universities. Amid relentless AI hype, these tools are marketed as if they can provide appropriate, targeted feedback to students; relieve instructors of the perceived burdens of assessing student writing; reduce the costs of instruction; and streamline the writing and peer review of academic articles and grants. The same companies seek to profit from using academic writing as training data. As gen AI becomes increasingly common, research on its impact begins to document an array of harms. Scholars of critical AI studies and the teaching of critical AI literacies must ask if, when, and how chatbots can be safely integrated in education. Is an AI-centered approach appropriate for the teaching of writing within and across disciplines? Is it appropriate for academic research, scholarship and publication?

To engage important questions like these, Critical AI (edited at Rutgers University and published by Duke University Press) inaugurated an ongoing special topic series in 2024: Generative AI and Writing in Higher Ed. The series is edited by Marit MacArthur (University of California Davis) in collaboration with the journal’s editorial collective and international advisory board. In line with Critical AI’s broader editorial practice, submissions are welcome from across the disciplines, and from those working inside and outside the academy. We value interdisciplinarity, so long as the work is legible to readers in any discipline.

Please see our submission guidelines, which include strict word limits and a strong preference for articles published in a humanities style and conversant with Critical AI’s interdisciplinary content—including a prior special issue, Data Worlds, and a two-part special issue (part one and part two) on LLMs and the rise of chatbots.

The series welcomes proposals connecting to topics including the development, implementation, and use of generative AI tools in relation to

• The political economy of writing instruction
• Student and faculty privacy and intellectual property
• Educational technology and writing pedagogy
• Academic writing and peer review
• The undergraduate essay in ____ (college writing and/or specific disciplines such as History, Literature, or Anthropology)
• Critical AI literacies and the teaching of writing
• Linguistic justice and equity and the teaching of writing
• Race, ethnicity, class, multilingualism, and/or disability in writing pedagogy
• Anglocentrism and/or exclusion of minoritized languages
• Impacts on the teaching and practice of creative writing
• Voice and style
• Open-source resources and tools
• In-house, walled-garden writing tools
• Tools for protecting academic integrity and/or intellectual property
• Impact of automated feedback on student writing
• Graduate student labor
• Educational equity
• Graduate education and the training of future teachers

We invite 250-word proposals for a range of essays, from short think pieces of 1,500 to 3,000 words to essays of 5,000 to 8,000 words.

Please send queries about proposals to Marit MacArthur at mjmacarthur@ucdavis.edu.

This is an ongoing series, with no specific deadline at this time. Our editorial team will look at complete essays at their discretion.