States that composition studies cannot agree upon a common nomenclature for categorization of methodologies. Claims that discrete institutional communities can be defined and that the standard discursive practices and values of such communities function in a pattern of exclusion. Suggests that pedagogies reified from discourse community theory…

Shows how the textuality of the United States Constitution, the most venerable of classic democratic icons, might be exploited to nurture postmodern ethics. Shows how Kenneth Burke's reading of the Constitution accords with and augments the postmodern theories of J.-F. Lyotard and S. Jarratt. Discusses a postmodern Constitution and the…

Argues for a view of technical communication as authorship--as the mediation of articulated meanings, as opposed to the mere transmission of a message from writer to sender. Draws on practitioner research to present some of the facets of this new understanding of technical communication. (TB)

Discusses philosophical and pedagogical commonalities in the fields of composition and women's studies by examining the work of Ann E. Berthoff and Susanne K. Langer. (RS)

Suggests that composition theorists broaden interdisciplinary conversation to include new, less reductive concepts of the self and its relation to society and tradition. Discusses the self and concord individualism, the self and Parisian constructivism, and the recent work of Donald Davidson. (PRA)

Considers story writing: beginnings of stories, a handful of perfect sentences, truisms about writers and writing, and the quintessential U.S. sentence. (SR)

Discusses writing with Calvin Trillin, journalist, humorist, and writer of fiction and nonfiction. (SR)

Relates an interview with "the contemporary sophist" Stanley Fish, where he discusses John Milton, composition theory, and his role as a social constructionist. (PRA)

Describes the problems faced by community college students as they begin to write an essay. Notes that a writer must trust the sense of the work and be secure that no one will laugh or sneer. Notes also that teachers must not get too confident--diligent students taking notes may still not be able to start an essay. (RS)

Explores some of the ambivalent dynamics of asking students to join teacher's academic discourse communities. Notes that the dynamics are simultaneously oppressive and emancipatory: oppressive because the students are enjoined, emancipatory because the students' and teacher's discourse communities change as they join. (MG)

Shares how the author developed as a writer through examples using literature and philosophy. Discusses her thoughts on the National Writing Project. (MG)

Discusses such matters as "queer" and queerness; keeping issues of sexuality raised in critical studies; encouraging experimental critical writing; gay/lesbian activism; separatism and "I hate straights" discussions; effects of homophobia; complications associated with empowerment; and Sedgwick's current interests. (RS)

Explores the complex linkages between K. Burke and F. Nietzsche, particularly regarding Burke's concept of perspective by incongruity, motive, terministic screens, and dramatism. Focuses on how Nietzsche's philosophy helped shape Burke's views on the nature of language and the effects language produces. Considers Nietzsche's influence on Burke's…

Discusses the controversy of mistrusting memory. Considers how the body gives form to memorial categories whose manifestation emerges in the metaphors of everyday use. Shows that the conception of memory model bears no relationship to a faculty that the brain sciences now conceive as a dynamic maker of meaning defined by temporality and…

Supplements existing rhetorical scholarship by returning to the notion of invention as general preparation of the communicator. Explores the need for invention in technical communication and summarizes Kenneth Burke's theories of dialectic and rhetoric. Presents strategies for invention, and offers advice for incorporating them into teaching…