Moving Beyond Academic Discourse: Composition Studies and the Public Sphere - Softcover

Christian R. Weisser

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0809324164 ISBN 13: 9780809324163

Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press, 2002

Synopsis

Moving student writing beyond academic discourse and into larger public spheres is a difficult task, but Christian R. Weisser’s study challenges composition instructors to do just that. This highly accessible book does what no other study has attempted to do: place the most current, cutting-edge theories and pedagogies in rhetoric and composition in their intellectual and historical contexts, while at the same time offering a unique, practical theory and pedagogy of public writing for use both inside and outside of the classroom.

By positing a theory of the public for composition studies, one which envisions the public sphere as a highly contested, historically textured, multilayered, and sometimes contradictory site, Weisser offers a new approach to the roles that compositionists might assume in their attempts to initiate progressive political and social change.

After first providing a historical context that situates composition’s recent interest in public writing, Weisser next examines recent theories in composition studies that consider writing an act of social engagement before outlining a more complex theory of the public based on the work of Jürgen Habermas. The resulting re-envisioning of the public sphere expands current conversations in rhetoric and composition concerning the public.

Weisser concludes with a holistic vision that places greater political and social import on addressing public issues and conversations in the composition classroom and that elucidates the role of the public intellectual as it relates specifically to compositionists in postmodern society.

About this title

About the Author:

Gary A. Olson is the president of Daemen College. Previously, he was the provost and vice president for academic affairs and a professor of English at Idaho State University. His most recent book is A Creature of Our Own Making: Reflections on Contemporary Academic Life. He also authored Justifying Belief: Stanley Fish and the Work of Rhetoric and coedited Postmodern Sophistry: Stanley Fish and the Critical Enterprise.

Review:

“Weisser’s book is a model of clarity. . . . and his treatment of the issue of public writing is the most extensive I have read.”―Patricia Bizzell, College of the Holy Cross 

About this edition

• Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0809324164
• ISBN 13: 9780809324163
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 168