I continue to negate the negation/negativity of the so-called science of philology. Following Werner Hamicher’s recent publication of “95 Theses on Philology,” I agree that philology is not a science in any sense of modernity’s object of study. I challenge the presumed law of chronological time (origins, cause/effect, periodization). I re-begin with a remembrance of the struggle between Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff and Friedrich Nietzsche. I continue with help from Vilém Flusser and Jean-Luc Godard. For the future anterior, I have given myself an assignment—virtually, an assignation, of re-making this article into a book (chapters with excurses, shooting scripts, and storyboards) and, yes, re-making it into a film.

The phenomenon of the Octalog came into being at the 1988 CCCC when James J. Murphy, with support from Theresa Enos and Stuart Brown, proposed and chaired a roundtable composed of eight distinguish...

After the first issue of PRE/TEXT appeared in 1981, a colleague told Victor Vitanza, the creator, editor and publisher of the journal, how disgusted she was by it, how unreadable it was, how devoted to self-aggrandizement-and how much she enjoyed two articles in it. Devoted to exploring and expanding the field of rhetoric and composition by publishing articles considered inappropriate by other journals in the field, PRE/TEXT has, from its inception, made people angry. Yet it has survived, and thrived. This collection of essays pays tribute to the first ten years of the journal, and each reprinted article is paired with a short comment by the author. Also included is Victor Vitanza's retrospective history of the journal and prospectives for the future.

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.

Rhetorical history as a guide to the salvation of American reading and writin James J. Murphy -- Remarks on composition to the Yale English Department / E Hirsch, Jr. -- Restoring the humanities / James Kinneavy -- The Phaedrus idy as ethical play / Virginia N. Steinhoff -- Classical practice and contempora basics / Susan Miller -- Ciceronian rhetoric and the rise of science / S. Michael Halloran and Merrill D. Whitburn -- John Locke's contributions to rhetoric / Edward P.J. Corbett -- Rhetoricin the liberal arts / Winifred Bry Horner -- Nineteenth-century psychology and the shaping of Alexander Bain's English composition and rhetoric / Gerald P. Mulderig -- Three nineteenth-century rhetoricians / Nan Johnson -- Two model teachers and the Harvardization of English departments / Donald C. Stewart -- Concepts of art and the teaching of writing / Richard E. Young.