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The End of Composition Studies
Setting forth an innovative new model for what it means to be a writing teacher in the era of writing across the curriculum, The End of Composition Studies urges a reconceptualization of graduate work in rhetoric and composition, systematically critiques the limitations of current pedagogical practices at the postsecondary level, and proposes a reorganization of all academic units. David W. Smit calls into question two major assumptions of the field: that writing is a universal ability and that college-level writing is foundational to advanced learning. Instead, Smit holds, writing involves a wide range of knowledge and skill that cannot be learned solely in writing classes but must be acquired by immersion in various discourse communities in and out of academic settings. The End of Composition Studies provides a compelling rhetoric and rationale for eliminating the field and reenvisioning the profession as truly interdisciplinary—a change that is necessary in order to fulfill the needs and demands of students, instructors, administrators, and our democratic society.
Power and Class in Political Fiction
This book introduces Elite Theory to the literary study of class as a framework for addressing issues of the nature of governance in political fiction. The book describes the historical development and major tenets of Elite Theory, and shows how each of four post-war Washington novels—Gore Vidal’s Washington, D.C.; Allen Drury’s Advise and Consent; Joan Didion’s Democracy; and Ward Just’s Echo House—illustrates the way class-based political elites exhibit forms of “ruling-class consciousness” and maintain their legitimacy in an ostensibly democratic form of government by promoting themselves as models of behavior, promulgating an ideology that justifies their rule through their control of the media, and accepting new members from the lower classes. Reading these novels through a socio-political lens, David Smit offers suggestions for ways to work for a more just and equitable society in light of what this analysis reveals about the “culture” that produces our political elites.
The Political Fiction of Ward Just
The Political Fiction of Ward Just: Class, Theories of Representation, and Imagining a Ruling Elite uses three theoretical frameworks of representation—literary, political, and diplomatic—to demonstrate how the upper-class status of the ruling elites in Ward Just’s political fiction influences the way they govern. He illustrates how Just’s ruling elites develop a coherent “upper class” form of consciousness that limits their ability as elected officials to adequately represent the interests of all the nation’s citizens domestically—especially the poor and working class—and their ability as diplomats to adequately represent the interests of the nation as a whole internationally. In his conclusion, the author offers suggestions for ways to make our ruling elites more representative of the interests of the working class and underprivileged groups at home and more sensitive to the cultures of the countries in which they serve abroad.
The Language of a Master
Smit addresses the abstraction and complexity of Henry James' late style through three basic critical approaches: style as identification, as expression, and as imitation. Those critics who focus on James' style as identification are concerned with the unique or distinctive elements of his prose. Smit argues that the basis for choosing these features is subjective. The features studied are not evenly distributed in James' work, and at the level of most literary analysis the perception of the style varies from one reading to the next. Style as expression stresses the aesthetic quality or personality of the writer. Smit compares five kinds of writing James produced during the winter of 1899-1900 and shows that the variety of his writing cannot be correlated with any specific expression of personality. Smit surveys the Jamesian devices for representing mental activity and concludes that they are independent of his style. The most convincing explanation for James' style is psychological. As a shy man, James developed a way of talking that kept people at a distance, and this carried over into his writing.
Ingrid Bergman
Smit studies the woman behind the public image as a natural, wholesome, even saintly person, an image carefully crafted by Bergman's first producer David O. Selznick. Bergman hid behind that image to live her life on her own terms. That life included three difficult marriages, numerous lovers, and a major scandal that stained her reputation but which she survived by creating her own legend. Bergman was filled with contradictions: she was dependent upon men and chafed under their control; she loved her children but constantly left them to perform; she longed for romance but walked away from her affairs without looking back; she desired to make great films but settled for being an entertainer; she hated the scrutiny of the media but learned to charm reporters. The author also assesses Bergman's artistry--her star qualities and her acting skills. She did her best work in Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious, Roberto Rossellini's Voyage in Italy, and Ingmar Bergman's Autumn Sonata. Her life and image were the inspiration for these films in the first place.
Authoritarianism and Class in American Political Fiction
This book analyzes what many critics consider to be the three best examples of modern American political fiction—Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men, Edwin O’Connor’s The Last Hurrah, and Billy Lee Brammer’s The Gay Place—to address a specific problem in American governance: how the intense competition for power among elite factions often results in their ignoring major groups of their constituents, thereby providing political bosses with a rationale to seize authoritarian control of the government in the name of constituent groups who feel ignored or neglected, promising them more democratic rule, but in the process, excluding other groups, so that the bosses themselves become elitist, ruling only for the sake of some constituents and not others.
Wildlife Abstracts
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The Kinneavy Papers
Documenting an era of dramatic change and growth in the sophistication of scholarship in rhetoric and composition studies, this book includes essays which find in contemporary theory the language to ask new questions, to reframe existing problems, and to move beyond current impasses in thought and action. The different perspectives offer a stand against current backlash theory, as seen in the reassertion of expressivism and creative writing as the antidote to the difficulties wrought by too much theorizing. All the essays included are winners of the James L. Kinneavy Award and celebrate the award's tenth anniversary as well as its founder, one of the discipline's most learned and beloved scholars. Contributors include David Bleich, Richard M. Coe, William A. Covino, Reed Way Dasenbrock, Sidney I. Dobrin, Lester Faigley, Pamela K. Gilbert, Susan C. Jarratt, Bruce McComiskey, Michael Murphy, Richard E. Miller, Jasper Neel, Gary A. Olson, Joseph Petraglia, George L. Pullman, Joy S. Ritchie, Phillip Sipiora, David W. Smit, Patricia A. Sullivan, John Trimbur, Nancy Welch, and Lynn Worsham.
