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Robert Scholes. The Rise and Fall of English: Reconstructing English as a Discipline. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1998. Pp. Xiv + 203. Sharon Crowley. Composition in the University: Historical and Polemical Essays. Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press, 1998. Xi + 306 pages. W. Ross Winterowd. The English Department: A Personal and Institutional History. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1998. Xii + 261. Molly Meijer Wertheimer, ed. Listening to Their Voices: The Rhetorical Activities of Historical Women. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1997. 408 pages. $47.50 cloth; $24.95 paper. Mary Lynch Kennedy, ed. Theorizing Composition: A Critical Sourcebook of Theory and Scholarship in Contemporary Composition Studies. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1998. 405 pages. John Schilb. Between the Lines: Relating Composition Theory and Literary Theory. Portsmouth: Boynton/Cook, 1996. Xv + 247. Hephzibah Roskelly and Kate Ronald. Reason to Believe: Romanticism, Pragmatism, and The Teaching of Writing. Albany, NY: State U of New York P, 1998. xiv + 187 pages. Thomas Newkirk. The Performance of Self in Student Writing. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook Heinemann, 1997. xiii + 107 pages. Kay Halasek. A Pedagogy of Possibility: Bakhtinian Perspectives on Composition Studies. Southern Illinois University Press, 1999. 223 pages.

Reviews six books: Mina P. Shaughnessy: Her Life and Work, by Jane Maher reviewed by Judith A. (Jay) Wootten; Your Choice: A Basic Writing Guide with Readings, by Kate Mangelsdorf and Evelyn Posey reviewed by Lynn Summer; Constructing Knowledges: The Politics of Theory Building and Pedagogy in Composition, by Sidney I. Dobrin reviewed by Julie Drew; Academic Advancement in Composition Studies: Scholarship, Publication, Promotion, Tenure, ed. by Richard C. Gebhardt and Barbara Genelle Smith Gebhardt; Publishing in Rhetoric and Composition, ed. by Gary A. Olson and Todd Taylor; Writing for Academic Publication, by Frank Parker and Kathryn Riley reviewed by Cynthia Simpson.

Contends that the academy has forgotten the origin of the dissertation and has turned it from a substantive contribution of scholarship to an instrument of evaluation. Argues that continuing to treat the dissertation in this way maintains an unequal power hierarchy of “masters” and initiates–it should be seen as the first serious scholarly monograph a scholar produces.

ot so long ago we attended a meeting of our department's graduate committee, the body that sets the policies and procedures of our large graduate program in English. The typically tedious deliberations were abruptly interrupted when a senior colleague, setting aside the matters being discussed, complained vociferously about a year-old policy on doctoral dissertations. The objectionable policy encouraged dissertation directors to counsel students to think of their dissertations as scholarly books rather than as mere academic exercises. Our colleague insisted that students should not conceive of their dissertations as books because a dissertation, he claimed, is the last important exercise that students will do in their graduate careers. This colleague, an accomplished scholar himself, argued passionately that most graduate students are not yet mature enough to contribute substantively to the types of conversations that professionals engage in, that they in effect need to prove themselves before being allowed to operate on the same plane as professionals. The perspective expressed by this colleague is far from atypical; in fact, it may well be the majority opinion of the graduate faculty in most English departments. This widespread understanding of the function and purpose of the dissertation derives from a kind of collective amnesia in the academy. As we will demonstrate, the academy has forgotten the origin of the dissertation and over the years has turned it from a substantive contribution to one's field to an instrument of evaluation. We argue that continuing to treat the dissertation in this way maintains an unequal power hierarchy of masters and initiates-one that is self-serving at best and unethical at worst. We argue further that it is incumbent upon those of us who direct dissertations to return to the practice of treating the dissertation as the first serious scholarly monograph a scholar produces. Such a practice is especially impor-

Kenneth Burke in Greenwich Village: Conversing with the Moderns, 1915–1931 by Jack Selzer. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1996; 284 pp. Narrative as Rhetoric: Technique, Audiences, Ethics, Ideology by James Phelan. Columbus, OH: Ohio State U P, 1996; pp. xiv + 237. Moral Politics: What Conservatives Know that Liberals Don't by George Lakoff. Chicago and London: U of Chicago P, 1996. 413 pp. Women Public Speakers in the United States, 1925–1993: A Bio‐Critical Sourcebook edited by Karlyn Kohrs Campbell. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1994; pp. xxiii; pp. 491. Eloquent Dissent: The Writings of James Sledd, edited by Richard D. Freed. Portsmouth, NH, Boynton/Cook 1996;188 pp.

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