1977: A Cultural Moment in Composition

Abstract

Brent Henze, Jack Selzer, and Wendy Sharer With Brian Lehew, Shannon Pennefeather, and Martin Schleuse Lauer Series in Rhetoric and Composition Edited by Thomas Rickert and Jennifer Bay Information and Pricing 978-1-60235-040-3 (paperback, $27.00); 978-1-60235-041-0 (hardcover, $55.00); 978-1-60235-042-7 (PDF, $9.99) © 2008 by Parlor Press. 188 pages, with illustrations, notes, bibliography, and index. Bookstores : Order by fax, mail, or phone. See our "Sales and Ordering Page" for details. About This Book A product of extensive archival research and numerous interviews, 1977: A Cultural Moment In Composition examines the local, state, and national forces (economic, political, cultural, and academic) that fostered the development of the first-year composition program at one representative site, Penn State University, in the late 1970s. Sidebar commentaries from Stephen A. Bernhardt, Hugh Burns, Sharon Crowley, Lester Faigley, Janice Lauer, Elaine Maimon, Jasper Neel, and John Warnock—many of whom were just beginning in the field in 1977—enrich and complicate the story. In the emerging tradition of program-based histories, such as Barbara L’Eplattenier and Lisa Mastrangelo’s Historical Studies of Writing Program Administration (Parlor Press, 2005), 1 977: A Cultural Moment in Composition offers a counterpoint to broader institutional histories of composition by investigating how local phenomena can be explained by larger movements and how larger movements can be understood through local contexts. About the Authors Brent Henze is Associate Professor of English at East Carolina University. His research on the rhetoric of science, reporting genres in ethnological science, scientific institutions, and the scientific treatment of racial difference has appeared in Technical Communication, Technical Communication Quarterly, Rhetoric Review, and elsewhere. Jack Selzer is Professor of English and Associate Dean for Graduate and Undergraduate Studies in the College of the Libe