Abstract

I think that, as rhetoricians and writing teachers, we will come of age and become autonomous professionals with a discipline of our own only if we can make a psychological break with the literary critics who today dominate the profession of English studies... [Already] we've left home in many ways, but we haven't cut the cord.... For example: We keep trying to find ways to join contemporary literary theory with composition theory. -Maxine Hairston, Breaking Bonds and Reaffirming Our Connections, CCC 36 (1985): 273-74.