Words and Work: An Economic History of Composition: 1960-present

Open Access
- Author:
- Lotier, Kristopher Michael
- Graduate Program:
- English
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- April 23, 2014
- Committee Members:
- Debra Hawhee, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Jeffrey Nealon, Committee Member
John Philip Christman, Committee Member
Mya Poe, Special Member - Keywords:
- composition
economics
historiography
critical pedagogy
critical theory
postprocess
invention
corporate university - Abstract:
- The entry of composition studies into its “disciplinary” or “research” era coincides with a set of large-scale shifts in the nature of Western, capitalist economies—commonly understood as the transformation from a manufacturing to a service economy, from Fordism to post-Fordism, or from industrialism to post-industrialism. Taking quite seriously the now common suggestion that universities are corporate entities, this dissertation examines the ways in which trends affecting the majority of employers (and their employees) have become manifest in one branch of higher education: composition studies. Of course, each composition subfield relates to economic conditions in complex, individualized fashion. Process methods of writing pedagogy decentralize classroom authority; force students to write innovative, unique, personalized accounts rather than replicating conventional forms; and remove standard measures of excellent, thereby forcing students to improve their work indefinitely. In all of these ways, Process approaches mimic shifts in post-industrial managerial logic. Given that critical pedagogies often act in direct resistance to capitalist, instrumental logics, they tend to become out-dated rather quickly. But, since capitalist systems tend to incorporate the demands of those who oppose them, resistance movements encounter an ambiguous form of success/failure. Surveying the history of expressivism along that of cultural studies composition, one witnesses a surprising, though largely unremarked, set of similarities. By tracing the history of critical pedagogy after expressivism, one may imagine avenues out of the present impasse. The recent history of inventional theory evidences a consistent “externalization” in underlying theories of “mind”—a transformation enabled and accelerated by the development of relatively inexpensive information technologies and the worldwide web. This dissertation concludes with a meditation on methods for improving working conditions in composition studies that work on and through corporate techniques, rather than by opposing them outright.