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Composition
Memoirs of a First Generation
Letizia Guglielmo and Sergio C. Figueiredo, editors This collection of essays shares the experiences of firstgeneration immigrant scholars in rhetoric, composition, and communication and how those experiences shape individual academic identity and, in turn, the teaching of writing and rhetoric. In addition to exploring how literacy is always complex, situational, and influenced by multiple and diverse identities, individual essays narrate the ways in which teacher-scholars negotiate multiple identities and liminal spaces, while often navigating insider/outsider status as students, teachers, and professionals. Extending current and ongoing conversations within the field, contributors consider how these experiences shape their individual literacies and understanding of literacy; how their literacy experiences lie at the intersections of gender, race, class, and public policy; and how these experiences often provide the motivation to pursue an academic career in rhetoric, composition, and communication.
195 pp. | 2019 | College | ISBN 9780814117392 $27.96 member/$34.99 nonmember ebook: ISBN 9780814117408
Cross-Talk in Comp Theory
A Reader, Third Edition
Victor Villanueva and Kristin L. Arola, editors For the third edition of Cross-Talk in Comp Theory, Victor Villanueva recruited the expertise of colleague Kristin L. Arola in order to flesh out the discussion on composition and technology. The quick movement of the paradigm—from the personal computer to local-area networks to the rise of social networking—suggests the need to recall the talk and the crosstalk concerning computers and their products for composition. The award-winning Villanueva and his coeditor Arola have dropped nine essays from the second edition, reoriented others into new sections, and added eight new essays, including six in the new technology section, “Virtual Talk: Composing beyond the Word.”
Amid these changes, the third edition maintains the historical perspective of previous editions while continuing to provide insights on the relatively new discipline of composition studies. Landmark contributions by major figures such as Donald Murray, Janet Emig, Walter Ong, Sondra Perl, Mike Rose, and Patricia Bizzell remain. They are joined by the works of other trailblazing scholars such as Peter Elbow and Richard Ohmann. This edition also incorporates texts by key names within comp’s conversations on technology, including Adam Banks, Cynthia Selfe, and Kathleen Blake Yancey. The result is a collection that continues to provide new and experienced teachers and scholars with indispensable insights into the challenges, controversies, and ever-shifting currents within our rich and ever-evolving field.
899 pp. | 2011 | College | ISBN 9780814109779 $39.96 member/$49.99 nonmember
Just Theory
An Alternative History of the Western Tradition
David B. Downing Just Theory offers an alternative history of critical theory in the context of the birth and transformation of the Western philosophical tradition. But rather than providing a summary survey, it situates the production of theoretical texts within the geopolitical economy of just two pivotal cultural turns: Cultural Turn 1 (roughly 450–350 BCE) looks at the Platonic revolution, during which a new philosophic, universalist, and literate discourse emerged from what had long been an oral culture; Cultural Turn 2 (roughly 1770–1870) investigates the Romantic revolution and its nineteenth-century aftermath up to the Paris Commune. While focusing on the quest for social justice, David B. Downing situates the two cultural turns within deep time: Cultural Turn 1 gave birth to the Western philosophical tradition during the Holocene; Cultural Turn 2 witnessed the beginnings of the shift to the Anthropocene when the Industrial Revolution and the fossil fuel age began to alter our complex biospheres and geospheres. As described in the epilogue, the aftereffects of Western metaphysics have dramatically shaped our twenty-first-century world, especially for teachers and scholars in English and the humanities.
459 pp. | 2019 | College | ISBN 9780814125304 $39.96 member/$49.99 nonmember ebook: ISBN 9780814125328
Bootstraps
From an American Academic of Color
Victor Villanueva, Jr. Bootstraps is an unusual book: at one level it is autobiographical, detailing the life of an American of Puerto Rican extraction from his childhood in New York City to an academic post at a university. At another level, Villanueva ponders his experiences in light of the history of rhetoric, the English Only movement, current socio- and psycholinguistic theory, and the writings of Gramsci and Freire, among others. David H. Russell Award for Distinguished Research in the Teaching of English
151 pp. | 1993 | College | ISBN 9780814103777 $23.96 member/$29.99 nonmember
Strategies for Teaching First-Year Composition
Duane Roen, Veronica Pantoja, Lauren Yena, Susan K. Miller, and Eric Waggoner, editors This book offers guidance, reassurance, and thoughtful commentary on the many activities leading up to and surrounding teaching firstyear composition:
● What preparation do I need to teach first-year comp? ● How do I construct a syllabus? ● How do I develop effective writing assignments? ● Why am I teaching writing at all? ● And what’s the place of writing in a university education?
