English Language and Literature Commons^™

"I Knew There Was Something Wrong With That Paper": Scientific Rhetorical Styles And Scientific Misunderstandings, Carol Reeves

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

This selection unpacks scientific prose and claim substantiation for Nobel Prize winner, Stan Prusiner, in the transmissible spongiform encephlopathies field (i.e., mad cow disease). Applying linguistic strategies such as M. A. K. Halliday's "favorite clause type," the author examines argumentative strategies in dense scientific prose both in bold and cautious rhetorical styles and invented lexical changes in new scientific development.

Messianic-City: Ruins, Refuge And Hospitality In Derrida, Puspa Damai

English Faculty Research

‘‘Listen first to those who, like myself, did not have to watch TV to know that SOME of L.A. was burning,’’ Derrida wrote to a newsletter in response to the riots triggered by the Rodney King events in 1992, adding, ‘‘L.A. is not anywhere, but it is a singular organization of the experience of ‘anywhere’’’ (‘‘Faxitexture’’ 28). At a time when one hardly needs to watch TV to know that many cities around the world are burning, or are targeted and wounded, bombed and invaded—as if the Biblical injunction, ‘‘Then ye shall appoint you cities to be cities of refuge …

An Essay On The Work Of Composition : Composing English Against The Order Of Fast Capitalism., Min-Zhan Lu

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

This is an attempt to define what being a responsible and responsive user of English might mean in a world ordered by global capital, a world where all forms of intra- and international exchanges in all areas of life are increasingly under pressure to involve English. Turning to recent work in linguistics and education, I pose a set of alternative assumptions that might help us develop more responsible and responsive approaches to the relation between English and its users (both those labeled Native-Speaking, White or Middle Class, and those Othered by these labels), the language needs and purposes of individual …

"Field Of Dreams", Ashley Kennedy

The Corinthian

In this movie, Ray, the lead character, is a Berkley University graduate from the sixties turned corn farmer in Iowa with a wife and one daughter. Ray is afraid of turning into his father. He is afraid that he will live and die and never pursue his dreams. When Ray does decide to pursue his dreams, he does so believing that he is helping others and that he is doing it for someone else, but in the end, it is his own hurt and pain that he ends up reconciling and his own dreams that he fulfills. People remember the …

Shakespeare's Bolingbroke: Rhetoric And Stylistics From Richard Ii To Henry Iv, Part 2, Deanna Faye Jenson

Theses Digitization Project

In order to contribute to the body of work on Bolingbroke and on Shakespeare's development of character, this thesis examines various rhetorical and stylistic methods used by Shakespeare in his creation of the character of Henry Bolingbroke.

“’National Apostasy,’ Tracts For The Times, And Plain Sermons: John Keble's Tractarian Prose.”, Robert Ellison

English Faculty Research

John Keble is perhaps best known for The Christian Year and his work as Professor of Poetry at Oxford from 1831 to 1841. In this essay, I argue that his prose is worthy of study as well. I focus on "National Apostasy," the sermon that John Henry Newman saw as the inauguration of the Oxford Movement; the 8 pieces he contributed to the Tracts for the Times; and his many contributions to the Plain Sermons, by Contributors to the "Tracts for the Times."

In The Person Of Mankind Attempting To Depict Womanhood, Jessica Sedor

The Corinthian

Ben Jonson was by no means a minor character of the early seventeenth century. His writings ranged from plays like Sejanus and Every Man in His Humor to poems like "Song: To Celia" and "To the Memory of My Beloved", "The Author", "Mr. William Shakespeare", and "What He Hath Left Us." He was bold in his attempts. As a result, while many of his works are extremely popular, there are several that proved to be not so successful. Jonson's attempt at speaking as a woman in his "In the Person of Womankind (In Defense of their Inconstancy)" is one example. …

Prophecy And Anti-Popery In Victorian London: John Cumming Reconsidered, Robert Ellison, Carol Herringer

English Faculty Research

John Cumming (1807-1881) was the popular minister of the Crown Court Church of Scotland in London's Covent Garden. This article examines his views on the end times and the Roman Catholic Church, two of the favorite subjects of his preaching.

Never Let The Truth Stand In The Way Of A Good Story: A Work For Three Voices, Bronwyn T. Williams

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Describes how the author's habit of fabrications and stories as a 10-year-old became a source for writing fiction. Notes how he pursued journalism as a profession, but was frustrated by its limitations. Considers how as a professional field, composition continues to contemplate and struggle with issues of power and representation in research and writing. Addresses the issues of power and representation and the ethical concerns that such issues entail.

English Only And U.S. College Composition., Bruce Horner, John Trimbur

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

In this article, we identify in the formation of U.S. college composition courses a tacit policy of English monolingualism based on a chain of reifications of languages and social identity. We show this policy continuing in assumptions underlying arguments for and against English Only legislation and basic writers. And we call for an internationalist perspective on written English in relation to other languages and the dynamics of globalization.

The Old Man And The Sea: Hemingway, Heteroglossia, And The Hero's Voice, Carole Sue Spitler

Theses Digitization Project

In this subjective hero concept lies an intriguing aspect of Bakhtin's paradigm: A hero is not necessarily a living entity; a hero can be ideas, objects and locations. When viewed through the lens of traditional western rhetorical theory, Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea appears as a monologue wherein Santiago seemingly speaks for the author about the subject of doom and man's relationship to the world.

An Orthodox Heresy: Scientific Rhetoric And The Science Of Prions., Carol Reeves

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

A significant theoretical shift in the research community examining a class of terminal, infectious neurological disorders that includes Mad Cow Disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and Kuru was assisted by rhetorical production. The local rhetoric of one laboratory, that of Professor Stanley B. Prusiner, involved first situating an heretical hypothesis within the framework of the orthodox narrative and then audaciously promoting that heresy. Another aspect of rhetorical production in this case involved situating a new language associated with the heretical hypothesis. To promote their new lexicon, the Prusiner team evoked orthodox values of consistency, efficiency, and collective ratification. Eventually, what was once …

Irrigation: The Political Economy Of Personal Experience, Carol Reeves, Alan W. France

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

No abstract provided.

When Artists Fail: A Reply To Trivedi, Sheila Lintott

Faculty Journal Articles

In a recent article, ‘An Epistemic Dilemma for Actual Intentionalism’, Saam Trivedi argues that the way we ought to interpret artworks is best understood using the model proposed by hypothetical intentionalism. Trivedi alleges that actual intentionalism faces a serious dilemma, the upshot of which is that actual intentionalists must choose between redundancy and indeterminacy. Largely on the basis of this dilemma, he concludes that even if actual intentionalism is descriptively accurate, it is prescriptively untenable. In this essay, I focus on this alleged dilemma and argue that, contra Trivedi, it fails to undermine the prescriptive legitimacy of moderate actual intentionalism. …

Institutional Invention: (How) Is It Possible?, Louise Wetherbee Phelps

English Faculty Publications

(First paragraph) In this chapter I want to explore several broad questions with respect to higher education: Is institutional invention possible? What are the conditions that enable it, and how can they be created and sustained? What are the obstacles to institutional invention? How can academic leadership foster institutional invention?

The Politics Of The Personal : Storying Our Lives Against The Grain., Deborah Brandt, Ellen Cushman, Anne Ruggles Gere, Anne Herrington, Richard E. Miller, Victor Villanueva, Min-Zhan Lu, Gesa Kirsch

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

This symposium presents a written dialogue of scholars expressing not only excitement but also frustration over the ways in which current work in composition and literacy studies has explored the politics of the personal.

“Students’ Right,” English Only, And Re-Imagining The Politics Of Language., Bruce Horner

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Argues that a lack of language legislation is indicative of a pervasive, tacit policy of "English Only" in composition and of a constellation of assumptions about languages, and language users that continues to cripple public debate on English Only and compositionists' approaches to matters of "error." Proposes an approach to language and "error" considering the relations of language to power.

Explorations Into Cohesive Conjunctions In Political Speeches, Chithra Palaniandy

Student Works (2000-2009)

The present research is a study of the discourse semantic stratum within the systemic functional theory of language. It focuses on cohesion in written discourse and more specifically, on conjunctions in authentic texts. Five written­ to-be-read speech texts delivered by the then Minister of Education Dato' Sri Najib Tun Abdul Razak were chosen for the analysis of the cohesive conjunctions present in them. These texts belong to the genre of political discourse, which fall under the factual expositions of the hortatory type. Besides identifying a range of conjunctions used, and establishing the categories they belonged to, - additive, adversative, causal …

Expectations, Interpretations And Contributions Of Basic Writing., Min-Zhan Lu, Bruce Horner

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

This essay argues that Basic Writing students, teachers, and scholarship are crucial to enabling colleges and universities to live up to their ideals of diversity, interdisciplinarity, and student-centered learning. BW scholars and teachers have developed ways to work with students to better understand the different perspectives they bring to their writing and learning, and to use those perspectives to break down barriers between academic and non-academic worlds and develop "borderland" knowledge and perspectives. The authors call for more research exploring the potential of basic writing students to develop such perspectives, and for research exploring the implications of BW scholarship for …

Traditions And Professionalization : Reconceiving Work In Composition., Bruce Horner

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

The derogation of the “traditional” in the discourse of academic professionalism in composition studies overlooks practices within tradition that may be counter or alternative to the hegemonic. Aspects of the Amherst College “tradition” of English 1–2 illustrate, in idealized form, alternative practices drawing from residual elements of dominant culture.

Abstracts Of Student-Faculty Publications

The Corinthian

Abstracts of Student-Faculty Publications

Jane Eyre's Gricean Conversational Portrait, Heather Christine Castillo

Theses Digitization Project

No abstract provided.

Style Guide For Books In Comparative Cultural Studies, Steven Tötösy De Zepetnek

CLCWeb Library

No abstract provided.

Purdue Books In Comparative Cultural Studies, Steven Tötösy De Zepetnek

CLCWeb Library

No abstract provided.

Falcandus And Fulcaudus Epistola Ad Petrum Liber De Regno Sicilie Literary Form And Author's Identity, Gwenyth Hood

English Faculty Research

In Paris, in 1550, when the printing press was still relatively new, Gervais de Tournay published a medieval chronicle under the title, Historia Hugonis Falcandi Siculi De rebus gestis in Siciliae regno iam primum typis excusa [« The History of Hugo Falcandus the Sicilian, concerning things done in the Kingdom of Sicily, now printed for the first time »]. He had discovered this history, as he explains in his preface, in a codex placed at his disposal by Matthew Longuejoue, bishop of Soissons, a codex so ravaged by time that it looked repulsive enough to poison the hand that dared …

At Risk In The Writing Classroom: Negotiating A Lesbian Teacher Identity, Irene G. Meaker

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

"Education is a fearful enterprise," says teacher and philosopher, Parker Palmer. Student-centered/ processoriented pedagogy asks teachers to step out from behind the relative safety of the teacher mask and to enter the risky arena of learning. For the writing teacher, a special challenge is to help students negotiate the risks inherent in the act of writing and in sharing writing with the "Other."

To prevent fears from dominating our students, teachers must model risk-taking and risk negotiation. In my own teaching, my fears around students' reactions to learning my sexual identity meant that I more often reinforced fears than dispelled …

The Problematic Of Experience : Redefining Critical Work In Ethnography And Pedagogy., Min-Zhan Lu, Bruce Horner

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Explores the convergence between projects in ethnographic research and composition pedagogy that emphasize the critical power of experience. Argues that critical ethnography and pedagogy need to redefine "experience" and its function for research and teaching and that composition can help this redefinition by looking for ways to build and constructively use a tension between teaching and research practices.

Rhetoric And The Aids Virus Hunt, Carol Reeves

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

By comparing the papers produced by the laboratory teams of Robert Gallo and Jean Luc Montagnier during the AIDS virus hunt, we have an opportunity to discern the fine line between a bold, explicit rhetoric that may convince as well as offend and a bald, reserved rhetoric that may actually conceal important implications. Going too far in either direction may create misunderstandings and ethical dilemmas as will be demonstrated in a textual analysis deepened by an exploration of historical context and interviews with key participants. Since a public health crisis calls upon communication that thwarts misunderstandings, scientists should understand the …

Students, Authorship, And The Work Of Composition., Bruce Horner

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Reviews the dominant pedagogical strategies compositionists have devised in response to the dilemma posed by the author/student writer binary. Reviews Raymond Williams's analysis of the approaches to the "sociality" of authorship. Describes the contradictions in which dominant composition pedagogies have become entangled.

From Thought To Style: Emerson's Interplay Of Ideas And Language, Sandra Joyce Lansing

Theses Digitization Project

No abstract provided.