Although much attention has been paid to issues of contingent faculty in the university (American Association of University Professors [AAUP] position statements) and, more specifically, in composition studies (Schell; Bousquet, Scott, and Parascondola; Miller), the matter of contingent faculty in technical and professional communication (TPC)…

The emergent field of translation studies is still struggling to find a home in American universities in a time of severely strained budgets and overextended departments. Drawn to the issue, by the experience of a successful inaugural introductory course at the University of Alabama, these authors have found that a fruitful place for translation…

Many teachers have known of (or been members of) departments in which all of the potentially successful chairs--after having proven themselves by running subunits or graduate programs--have decided to devote themselves solely to research or teaching, and to leave department administration to whoever is willing to do it or whoever can be talked…

Originally published in a 1984 issue of "College English," Stephen North's article "The Idea of a Writing Center" has over the years been much cited in writing center scholarship. Even so, this scholarship as a whole did not proceed to gain much presence in "CE" and other broadly-oriented composition journals. Reconsidering North's piece, the…

2009 is the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth. Naturally, historians are thrilled. But what about their discipline? Why and how might Lincoln matter to English studies? In this article, the authors reflect on Lincoln and his influence on English studies. They argue that Lincoln has played or can play an important role in the college English…

This essay provides an account of The Ohio State University's (OSU) rhetoric department during the tenure of Joseph Villiers Denney, arguing that he appropriated and repurposed national trends in education and rhetoric in ways that complicate the narrative of rhetoric and composition's decline in the late nineteenth century. In this essay, the…

Traditional priorities of English as a discipline are now significantly at odds with the material circumstances of college English departments. To address these realities, college English needs to become literacy studies rather than literary studies.

The authors describe their individual and collective experiences reconstructing their New Orleans-based university composition program in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. They emphasize how the concept of "floating foundations" helps account for changes in their students' interests, and they suggest that this idea is applicable to the…

A symposium in the November 2006 issue of "College English" addresses the question, "What should college English be?" In this article, the author presents his answer to this question--it should be a functional approach to English studies. By English studies he means everything that is done in English departments. Most English departments teach…

Describes a successful linguistics program and suggests that linguistics can make a substantial contribution to the college English department. (DD)

Three ways that English department Web sites express, lost-island rhetoric, the rhetorical tropes on these sites, which express an ironic, dialogical tension between being lost and being found in the global economy is discussed. Lost-island rhetoric expresses the profession's own contradictory impulses considering the network, the desire to…

A discussion on creative writing's newly improved status in English departments and what its improved status can tell us about disciplinary matters as a whole is presented. There is a need to prepare creative writers not only for their careers as writers, but also for their careers as teachers of creative writing.

The reforms of both literary studies and composition are essential if English department wants to remain integral to the liberal arts curriculum. English studies integrates work in literature, language studies and culture with horizontally writing instruction and not hierarchically.