Staff Profile

Dr. Hirsu is a specialist in rhetoric and writing studies. She completed a Phd in Composition, Literacy and Culture at Indiana University and an MA in TESOL/ Applied Linguistic (secondary area: Socio-Linguistic Anthropology) at Iowa State University. Before joining the University of Glasgow, she was an Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Composition at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and held teaching positions at Indiana University (Bloomington, IN) and Iowa State University (Ames, IA). 

Her research is transdisciplinary, bringing together strands from digital literacies, social inclusion and integration, rhetoric and composition, and trasnlingualism and translingual pedagogy. Her work has appeared in Computers and Composition and JAEPL: The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning and she is currently involved in a series of projects with professional and public impact.  

At the University of Glasgow, Dr. Hirsu is part of a TESOL team in the School of Education since 2015. While she is working on the TESOL programme, she is also delivering a series of lectures, seminars, and workshops on academic writing. With a teaching experience of 15 years+, she has worked with many student groups, including novice writers, advanced and honors students, multilingual learners, and professional writers. Dr. Hirsu finds inspiration in her students' energy and dedication to learning and in her colleagues' robust work. 

Selected Publications: 

Hirsu, L. (2015) Tag writing, search engines, and cultural scripts.Computers and Composition, 35, pp. 30-40.(doi:10.1016/j.compcom.2015.01.002)

Hirsu, L. (2017) Clicks, tweets, links, and other global actions: the nature of distributed agency in digital environments. In: Rice, R. and St. Amant, K. (eds.) Thinking Globally, Composing Locally: Rethinking Online Writing in the Age of the Global Internet. University of Utah Press. 

​Hirsu, L. (2018) 'Where am I? Do you have WiFi?’: vital technologies and precarious living in the Syrian refugee crisis.In: Hesford, W. S., Licona, A. C. and Teston, C. (eds.) Precarious Rhetorics. Ohio State University Press.