• View
• Edit
• History
• Print

2008B6Hochman

Whither English?
Reviewed by Will Hochman
hochmanw1@southernct.edu

Jillian Skeffington: When “and” Is Not Enough: Looking at Rhetoric In and For Composition”

In her presentation Skefffington analyzed Corbett, Berlin, and Connors to examine the nexus of rhetoric and composition. When looking at Corbett, Skeffington saw Corbett exploring “composition” as the practice of “rhetoric” to explain the complex relationships of the two terms—rhetoric and composition. Corbett used classical rhetoric to enhance the teaching of composition. Berlin, according to Skeffington, understands developments in rhetoric as a way to enhance composition at a more theoretical level than Corbett. Berlin’s focus on rhetorical history and rhetorical understandings of composition may obscure other rhetorical theories, but both Corbett and Berlin see composition as the practice of rhetoric. Skeffington says Connors shifts the focus to the rhetoric of composition practices, and she claims that Connors sees composition as a field ripe with its own rhetorical features. Connors is more concerned with the materials and conditions of composition, so as to understand its rhetorical underpinnings.

Skeffington said that she sees Connors as re-opening the relationships between theory and pedagogy and asserts that the relationships between composition and rhetoric are too complex to be linked by “and.” Her title said it all. In her presentation she asserted the placement of rhetoric in composition.

I was grateful for the presentation and enjoyed the way she positioned influences. At the same time, I wondered why our field has so many “difficult” fits—within itself (comp. vs. rhet.), within departments, and even within universities—when we are actually more of an academic “universal donor” than most fields are to each other.

John Warnock: “English” in a Rhetorical Disposition

Professor Warnock explored the disciplinary identities of Comp/Rhet and English historically. He says that English arose as a discipline “at the expense of rhetoric,” and, as time went by, English excluded rhetoric from the discipline to make a place for itself in developing l9th Century and early 20th Century academic departments. Warnock asserts that this shift is changing again today.

In his presentation, Warnock said that he saw the rise of composition in the 20th century as something outside the fundamental understanding of English departments. Warnock claimed that “rhetoric has returned from the realm of the repressed” and credited Louise Phelps for helping composition to be understood as an “emerging discipline” instead of a “sub-discipline” of English. He is currently “shopping around” a book on Rhetorical Disposition because of composition’s disciplinary problems. Warnock relies on John Dewey to deny knowledge as certainty and to emphasize knowledge as action.

Dewey and Warnock seem to question the scientific realities of knowledge-making, and in his presentation Warnock used the phrase “rhetorical disposition” as a way to question the interpretative understandings of English. He asserted that an approach to learning as rhetorical disposition is more like an art than a way to maintain a body of knowledge. A rhetorical disposition in composition means writers are doing more than analyzing and criticizing to build and create knowledge, and that this puts us in opposition to traditional English department disciplinary values. The best composition can hope for in Warnock’s view is a kind of “modern detente” with what is now the contemporary English department.

I have to admit this presentation whetted my appetite for Warnock’s book. I wondered what a speaker from an earlier session I saw (Darren Young) would do with Warnock’s point of view.

Louise Wetherbee Phelps: The Symbolic Construction of Disciplinarity: Composing the “Integrated” Past, the Fragmented Present, and Myths of Future Unity in a “Rhetorical Disposition”

Phelps began by noting that at Syracuse, where she teaches, she works in a Writing department. Phelps has also been working on her visibility project to gain recognition for our field as “Composition and Rhetoric/Writing Studies.” She described the evolution of this process. Phelps explained that NRC taxonomy processes required the slashed term and pointed out that it could both establish a boundary on one level to distinguish our field from English or Communication, while acknowledging and classifying differences.

In her presentation, Phelps said that she wants the field of “Composition and Rhetoric/Writing Studies” to treat disciplinarity as something flexible instead of something statically related to a field of knowledge. She suggested principles toward a “superdiciplinary” role for our field.

This was truly a well done session. The order of the speakers and the progression of their ideas gave me a feeling of “field context” that seemed sharp and confident. The speakers outlined many of our field’s issues and offered thinking that was reasonable, necessary and clear.