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Friday, January 30th, 2026
Online Conference hosted by the University Writing Program, Johns Hopkins University
Welcome to Continuous Collisions: Writing, Publics, Pedagogy! Please click on the tabs at the top for detailed information about our sessions and participants. Zoom links for each session will also be posted shortly before the conference. We look forward to seeing you there!
The University Writing Program at Johns Hopkins University was founded in 2021 with its mission to help students become agile writers. In addition to Reintroduction to Writing (the first-year writing course, and part of the First-Year Foundation), upper-level writing forms a central part of the UWP's curriculum, as do partnerships with other JHU departments and programs to support the teaching of writing in their curricular contexts. Our advanced courses build on the work of Reintro: we continue to approach writing as an adaptable process of inquiry and action, as deeply informed by reading, and as reflective, embodied, and always emerging. For more information, visit the UWP home site at: https://krieger.jhu.edu/writing-program/
The National Advanced Writing Symposium is an online-only conference focused on the pedgagogy of advanced writing.
The National Advanced Writing Symposium is an online-only conference focused on the pedgagogy of advanced writing.
Founded in 2023, currently three institutions rotate responsibility for hosting the conference: University of Southern California, UC-Santa Barbara, and Johns Hopkins University.
Founded in 2023, currently three institutions rotate responsibility for hosting the conference: University of Southern California, UC-Santa Barbara, and Johns Hopkins University.
Each institution develops the conference theme and program independently while remaining true to the NAWS focus on rhetoric and composition beyond the first-year writing classroom.
Each institution develops the conference theme and program independently while remaining true to the NAWS focus on rhetoric and composition beyond the first-year writing classroom.
What is "advanced writing"?
What is "advanced writing"?
We define “advanced writing” as any teaching of writing that addresses material beyond the first-year composition class, such as rhetoric courses aimed at writing studies majors; WAC/WID courses; technical, science, business, or health writing courses; or community-engaged courses. This also encompasses course that take place online or asynchronously and the challenges or affordances therein.
We also acknowledge that advanced writing can cover programmatic concerns, like capstone projects or the thesis, or writing program adjacent spaces, such as writing centers.
Meet the NAWS 3 Conference Co-Chairs
Meet the NAWS 3 Conference Co-Chairs
Laura
Laura
Hartmann-Villalta
Hartmann-Villalta
A feminist Latina studying American and British literature and visual culture, Laura Hartmann-Villalta (she/her/hers) teaches at Johns Hopkins University as a Senior Lecturer in the University Writing Program. Hartmann-Villalta has been teaching writing at the college level for twenty years. She has taught courses in business writing, technical writing, writing for arts, media and design majors, and academic writing for ESL learners...and now a variety of advanced writing classes for JHU. Featured in December 2022 on the Pedagogue podcast, Hartmann-Villalta believes mindfulness and reflection is key to mastering transferrable skills in any writing classroom.
From 2023-2024, Hartmann-Villalta served as the Chair of the MLA’s Committee on Contingent Labor in the Profession, actively changing how the MLA recognizes, supports, and represents the scholarship of contingent faculty across the Modern Language Association. With co-organizer Benjamin Hagen, (University of South Dakota) Hartmann-Villalta manages the Modernism and Pedagogy Special Interest Group for the Modernist Studies Association.
In her professional service for the MLA and other professional associations, Hartmann-Villalta advocates for the shared interests of tenure-track and contingent faculty in the face of catastrophic financial cuts across American higher education.
Together with her co-chair Sandy Koullas, Laura Hartmann-Villalta organized the NAWS 3 conference from start to finish. Thank you for putting up with all my texts, Sandy!
Sandy Koullas
Sandy Koullas
Sandy Koullas joined the University Writing Program at Johns Hopkins as faculty in 2021. She holds a BA (philosophy and psychology) and an MA (philosophy) from the University of the Witwatersrand and an MA and PhD (philosophy) from Johns Hopkins. She has previously taught at the University of the Witwatersrand, SUNY Potsdam, and Georgetown University. She currently holds the position of Senior Lecturer and serves as the Teaching Fellows Program Coordinator in her program.
Many of Koullas’s recent courses have centered around the moral emotions, especially love, anger, fear, and hope. Her research interests are in ethics and African philosophy, with particular focus on practical reason, character, and virtue. Her chapter “Love, Practical Reason, and African Philosophy” in the Routledge Handbook on Love in Philosophy (edited by Adrienne Martin, 2019) showcases the intersection of some of these areas of interest. She is also interested in experiential learning and teaches an upper-level class where students conceptualize, plan, publicize, and host a public-facing academic conference.
Dr Koullas loves teaching and working with students to build their confidence in new ways of thinking and expression. The pedagogical relationship is one she deeply values, and it contributes at least as much to her own learning as it does to the education of her students.
Koullas also loves conferences, and enjoyed planning this one with her co-chair, Laura Hartmann-Villalta!
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