English Studies: An Introduction to the Discipline(s) (Refiguring English Studies)

Well-known scholars in the field explore the important qualities and functions of English studies’ constituent disciplines―Ellen Barton on linguistics and discourse analysis, Janice Lauer on rhetoric and composition, Katharine Haake on creative writing, Richard Taylor on literature and literary criticism, Amy Elias on critical theory and cultural studies, and Robert Yagelski on English education―and the productive differences and similarities among them that define English studies’ continuing importance. Faculty and students in both undergraduate and graduate courses will find the volume an invaluable overview of an increasingly fragmented field, as will department administrators who are responsible for evaluating the contributions of diverse faculty members but whose academic training may be specific to one discipline. Each chapter of English Studies is an argument for the value―the right to equal status―of each individual discipline among all English studies disciplines, yet the book is also an argument for disciplinary integration.

Bruce McComiskey is associate professor of English at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Throughout his career, McComiskey has taught courses in rhetoric and composition, literature, discourse analysis, critical theory, and English education, and he currently directs the Red Mountain Writing Project. McComiskey’s most recent publications include Teaching Composition as a Social Process (2000), Gorgias and the New Sophistic Rhetoric (2002), and City Comp: Identities, Spaces, Practices (2003), a coedited collection on teaching writing in urban spaces. In addition to his academic writing, McComiskey has also published a number of poems in literary anthologies and magazines.