Making Sense : Essays on Art, Science, and Culture

This cross-disciplinary reader gives students the opportunity to read and write about significant issues across the arts and sciences and to explore how knowledge is constructed and communicated. Thirty-eight contemporary essays are preceded by introductory chapters on writing and reading and are followed by assignment sequences that juxtapose three or more essays with a central theme. The Second Edition of Making Sense presents works by well-known authors such as Annie Dillard, Gloria Anzaldúa, bell hooks, Lawrence Lessig, Ralph Ellison, and Nancy Sommers, as well as selections by lesser-known writers from a variety of fields. While the essays are arranged in alphabetical order, the text also offers alternative thematic and disciplinary tables of contents.

Robert L. Coleman (Ph. D. in Literatures in English from Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1998) has been teaching at universities since 1987. Currently, he is Assistant Professor of English at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, Alabama, where he teaches American literature and composition. In addition to being the lead editor of "Making Sense: Constructing Knowledge in the Arts and Sciences," He is currently writing a book on intersections of rhetoric and romance in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American fiction. From 1996 to 1998, he was an Assistant Director of the Writing Program at Rutgers University.

Scott Campbell is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Connecticut at Waterbury, and he serves as the Coordinator of Writing at the UConn campuses at Waterbury, Torrington, and Greater Hartford. Scott received his doctorate from Rutgers University and, in addition to the University of Connecticut, he has taught composition and literature courses at Stony Brook University, Montclair State University, and Rutgers. He is currently involved in building a multi-campus Writing Center, overseeing Freshman English courses, and facilitating writing intensive courses across the disciplines.

Stephanie Girard is Faculty Development Coordinator and Assistant Professor of English at Spring Hill College. She holds a Ph.D. in English from Rutgers University, where she was a Jacob K. Javits Dissertation Fellow. She is the author of "'Standing at the Corner of Walk and Don't Walk': Vintage Contemporaries, Bright Lights, Big City, and the Problem of Betweeness" (American Literature, March 1996). She has given papers at numerous conferences including the MLA and the CCCC. In addition to Making Sense, she is co-editing a volume of essays on the topic of what it means to be a professor of the humanities in the 21st century. Dr. Girard has taught basic, standard, and advanced composition; proposal writing; writing in the professions; and studies in nonfiction prose. Her research interests include contemporary fiction, the history of publishing, and the sociology of literature.