To the extent that rhetoric and writing studies bases its theories and pedagogies on the self-present composing subject-the figure of the writer who exists apart from the writing context, from the world, from others-it is anti-communitarian. Communication can take place only among beings who are given over to the outside, exposed, open to the other's effraction. This essay therefore calls for the elaboration of a communitarian literacy that understands reading and writing as functions of this originary sociality, as expositions not of who one is (identity) but of the fact that we are (community).

To the extent that rhetoric and writing studies bases its theories and pedagogies on the self-present composing subject—the figure of the writer who exists apart from the writing context, from the “world,” from others—it is anti-communitarian. Communication can take place only among beings who are given over to the “outside,” exposed, open to the other’s effraction. This essay therefore calls for the elaboration of a “communitarian” literacy that understands reading and writing as functions of this originary sociality, as expositions not of who one is (identity) but of the fact that “we” are (community).

Anne Ruggles Gere. Intimate Practices: Literacy and Cultural Work in U.S. Women's Clubs, 1880–1920. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997. 367 pages. George A. Kennedy. Comparative Rhetoric: An Historical and Cross‐cultural Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. 238 pp. Cheryl Glenn. Rhetoric Retold: Regendering the Tradition from Antiquity through the Renaissance. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1997. 236 pages. Michael Bernard‐Donate and Richard R. Glejzer, eds. Rhetoric in an Antifoundational World: Language, Culture, and Pedagogy. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1998. 468 pages. $35.00 hardback. Gary A. Olson and Todd W. Taylor, eds. Publishing in Rhetoric and Composition. Albany. SUNY Press, 1997. 247 pages.