“Anybody reading the collection will come away with fresh insights about how our field has assembled itself, where it has come from and where it now seems to be headed. I imagine that the book will be used in many graduate-level introductions to the field and also by individual readers, who will treat it as something midway between a helpful reference tool and a professional mandala.”
—Kurt Spellmeyer, Rutgers University
Keywords in Writing Studies is an exploration of the principal ideas and ideals of an emerging academic field as they are constituted by its specialized vocabulary. A sequel to the 1996 work Keywords in Composition Studies, this new volume traces the evolution of the field’s lexicon, taking into account the wide variety of theoretical, educational, professional, and institutional developments that have redefined it over the past two decades.
Contributors address the development, transformation, and interconnections among thirty-six of the most critical terms that make up writing studies. Looking beyond basic definitions or explanations, they explore the multiple layers of meaning within the terms that writing scholars currently use, exchange, and question. Each term featured is a part of the general disciplinary parlance, and each is a highly contested focal point of significant debates about matters of power, identity, and values. Each essay begins with the assumption that its central term is important precisely because its meaning is open and multiplex.
Keywords in Writing Studies reveals how the key concepts in the field are used and even challenged, rather than advocating particular usages and the particular vision of the field that they imply. The volume will be of great interest to both graduate students and established scholars.
Contributors: Steven Accardi, Anis Bawarshi, A. Suresh Canagarajah, Jennifer Clary-Lemon, Amy Devitt, Dylan B. Dryer, Cynthia Fields, Paul Heilker, Johndan Johnson-Eilola, Kathy Kerr, Karen Kopelson, Cynthia Lewiecki-Wilson, Julie Lindquist, Mark Longaker, Tim Mayers, Steve Parks, Kelly Pender, Katrina M. Powell , Paul Prior, Carolyn Rude, Stuart A. Selber, Cynthia L. Selfe, Lorin Shellenberger, Jason Swarts, Christine M. Tardy, Chris Thaiss, KT Torrey, Peter Vandenberg, Christian R. Weisser, Kathleen Blake Yancey, Melanie Yergeau, Morris Young
