Refiguring Prose Style

Refiguring Prose Style PDF Author: T. R. Johnson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
For about two decades, say Johnson and Pace, the discussion of how to address prose style in teaching college writing has been stuck, with style standing in as a proxy for other stakes in the theory wars. The traditional argument is evidently still quite persuasive to some-that teaching style is mostly a matter of teaching generic conventions through repetition and practice. Such a position usually presumes the traditional view of composition as essentially a service course, one without content of its own. On the other side, the shortcomings of this argument have been much discussed-that it neglects invention, revision, context, meaning, even truth; that it is not congruent with research; that it ignores 100 years of scholarship establishing composition's intellectual territory beyond "service." The discussion is stuck there, and all sides have been giving it a rest in recent scholarship. Yet style remains of vital practical interest to the field, because everyone has to teach it one way or another. A consequence of the impasse is that a theory of style itself has not been well articulated. Johnson and Pace suggest that moving the field toward a better consensus will require establishing style as a clearer subject of inquiry. Accordingly, this collection takes up a comprehensive study of the subject. Part I explores the recent history of composition studies, the ways it has figured and all but effaced the whole question of prose style. Part II takes to heart Elbow's suggestion that composition and literature, particularly as conceptualized in the context of creative writing courses, have something to learn from each other. Part III sketches practical classroom procedures for heightening students' abilities to engage style, and part IV explores new theoretical frameworks for defining this vital and much neglected territory. The hope of the essays here-focusing as they do on historical, aesthetic, practical, and theoretical issues-is to awaken composition studies to the possibilities of style, and, in turn, to rejuvenate a great many classrooms.

Refiguring Prose Style

Refiguring Prose Style PDF Author: T.R. Johnson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
For about two decades, say Johnson and Pace, the discussion of how to address prose style in teaching college writing has been stuck, with style standing in as a proxy for other stakes in the theory wars. The traditional argument is evidently still quite persuasive to some—that teaching style is mostly a matter of teaching generic conventions through repetition and practice. Such a position usually presumes the traditional view of composition as essentially a service course, one without content of its own. On the other side, the shortcomings of this argument have been much discussed—that it neglects invention, revision, context, meaning, even truth; that it is not congruent with research; that it ignores 100 years of scholarship establishing composition's intellectual territory beyond "service." The discussion is stuck there, and all sides have been giving it a rest in recent scholarship. Yet style remains of vital practical interest to the field, because everyone has to teach it one way or another. A consequence of the impasse is that a theory of style itself has not been well articulated. Johnson and Pace suggest that moving the field toward a better consensus will require establishing style as a clearer subject of inquiry. Accordingly, this collection takes up a comprehensive study of the subject. Part I explores the recent history of composition studies, the ways it has figured and all but effaced the whole question of prose style. Part II takes to heart Elbow's suggestion that composition and literature, particularly as conceptualized in the context of creative writing courses, have something to learn from each other. Part III sketches practical classroom procedures for heightening students' abilities to engage style, and part IV explores new theoretical frameworks for defining this vital and much neglected territory. The hope of the essays here—focusing as they do on historical, aesthetic, practical, and theoretical issues—is to awaken composition studies to the possibilities of style, and, in turn, to rejuvenate a great many classrooms.

Refiguring Prose Style

Refiguring Prose Style PDF Author: T. R. Johnson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

Get Book Here

Book Description
For about two decades, say Johnson and Pace, the discussion of how to address prose style in teaching college writing has been stuck, with style standing in as a proxy for other stakes in the theory wars. The traditional argument is evidently still quite persuasive to some-that teaching style is mostly a matter of teaching generic conventions through repetition and practice. Such a position usually presumes the traditional view of composition as essentially a service course, one without content of its own. On the other side, the shortcomings of this argument have been much discussed-that it neglects invention, revision, context, meaning, even truth; that it is not congruent with research; that it ignores 100 years of scholarship establishing composition's intellectual territory beyond "service." The discussion is stuck there, and all sides have been giving it a rest in recent scholarship. Yet style remains of vital practical interest to the field, because everyone has to teach it one way or another. A consequence of the impasse is that a theory of style itself has not been well articulated. Johnson and Pace suggest that moving the field toward a better consensus will require establishing style as a clearer subject of inquiry. Accordingly, this collection takes up a comprehensive study of the subject. Part I explores the recent history of composition studies, the ways it has figured and all but effaced the whole question of prose style. Part II takes to heart Elbow's suggestion that composition and literature, particularly as conceptualized in the context of creative writing courses, have something to learn from each other. Part III sketches practical classroom procedures for heightening students' abilities to engage style, and part IV explores new theoretical frameworks for defining this vital and much neglected territory. The hope of the essays here-focusing as they do on historical, aesthetic, practical, and theoretical issues-is to awaken composition studies to the possibilities of style, and, in turn, to rejuvenate a great many classrooms.

The Centrality of Style

The Centrality of Style PDF Author: Mike Duncan
Publisher: Parlor Press LLC
ISBN: 1602354251
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 351

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Book Description
In The Centrality of Style, editors Mike Duncan and Star Medzerian Vanguri argue that style is a central concern of composition studies even as they demonstrate that some of the most compelling work in the area has emerged from the margins of the field.

Style

Style PDF Author: Brian Ray
Publisher: Parlor Press LLC
ISBN: 1602356149
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
Style: An Introduction to History, Theory, Research, and Pedagogy conducts an in-depth investigation into the long and complex evolution of style in the study of rhetoric and writing. The theories, research methods, and pedagogies covered here offer a conception of style as more than decoration or correctness—views that are still prevalent in many college settings as well as in public discourse.

Style and the Future of Composition Studies

Style and the Future of Composition Studies PDF Author: Paul Butler
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
ISBN: 164642011X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
Style and the Future of CompositionStudies explores style’s potential for informing how students are taught to write well and its power as a tool for analyzing the language and discourse practices of writers and speakers in a range of contexts. Many college writing teachers operate under the belief that style still refers primarily to the kinds of issues discussed in Strunk and White’s popular but outdated book The Elements of Style. This work not only challenges this view but also offers theories and pedagogies from diverse perspectives that help teachers and students develop strategic habits and mindsets to negotiate languages, genres, and discourse conventions. The chapters explore the ways in which style directly affects—and is affected by—multiple sources of shifting disciplinary inquiry, contributing new insights by drawing on research in cultural studies, sociolinguistics, discourse studies, translingualism, and writing across the curriculum, as well as new approaches to classical rhetorical theory. The reemergence of stylistic inquiry can be used dynamically to produce new insights not only about emerging disciplinary interests but also about the study of style as a kind of language in and of itself. Style and the Future of Composition Studies demonstrates that style deserves to be a central focus of writing teaching. More than just the next style collection, the book advocates for style’s larger prominence in composition discussions generally. It will be of interest to a broad range of students and scholars of writing studies, as well as a wider set of readers in academe. Contributors: Cydney Alexis, Laura Aull, Anthony Box, Jimmy Butts, Mike Duncan, William FitzGerald, Melissa Goldthwaite, Eric House, TR Johnson, Almas Khan, Zak Lancaster, Eric Leake, Andrea Olinger, Thomas Pace, Jarron Slater, Jonathan Udelson

Refiguring the Map of Sorrow

Refiguring the Map of Sorrow PDF Author: Mark Allister
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813921945
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 213

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Book Description
Recent decades have witnessed an explosion of interest in both autobiography and environmental literature. In Refiguring the Map of Sorrow, Mark Allister brings these two genres together by examining a distinct form of grief narrative, in which the writers deal with mourning by standing explicitly both outside and inside the text: outside in writing about the natural world; inside in making that exposition part of the grieving process. Building on Peter Fritzell's thesis in Nature Writing and America that the best American nature writing blends Aristotelian natural history and Augustinian confession, this work of literary interpretation draws on psychoanalytical narrative theory, studies of grieving, autobiography theory, and ecocriticism for its insights into how nature writing can become an autobiographical, healing act. Allister examines works by Terry Tempest Williams, Sue Hubbell, Peter Matthiessen, Bill Barich, William Least Heat-Moon, and Gretel Ehrlich in order to demonstrate the difficulty of hearing nature speak, and of translating terrain and self into language and form. As he focuses on the many ways in which humans connect—often deeply and urgently—to animals or the land, Allister vastly extends our understanding of "relational" autobiography.

Expel the Pretender

Expel the Pretender PDF Author: Eve Wiederhold
Publisher: Parlor Press LLC
ISBN: 1602355657
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
Political fights are not waged over who is speaking the truth but over whether any given claim seems to be authentic. Expel the Pretender: Rhetoric Renounced and the Politics of Style examines how rhetorical style influences judgments about how to communicate integrity and good will. Eve Wiederhold argues that attitudes about style’s significance to judgment are both undertheorized and over-determined, especially when style is regarded as an embellishment rather than as a constitutive aspect of language use. Examining news reports covering controversial speakers including President Bill Clinton, Linda Tripp, and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, she demonstrates how rhetorical style is both belittled and yet remains a focal point for assessing public figures who have been publicly rebuked and discredited. Expel the Pretender claims style as a conflicted site of materiality, critiquing contemporary rhetorical theories that configure style as a dependable resource for democratic inquiry. Wiederhold argues that conceptions of style’s significance to judgment must be reframed to understand how we make decisions about who and what to believe.

Refiguring Woman

Refiguring Woman PDF Author: Marilyn Migiel
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801497711
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
Refiguring Woman reassesses the significance of gender in what has been considered the bastion of gender-neutral humanist thought, the Italian Renaissance. It brings together eleven new essays that investigate key topics concerning the hermeneutics and political economy of gender and the relationship between gender and the Renaissance canon. Taken together, they call into question a host of assumptions about the period, revealing the implicit and explicit misogyny underlying many Renaissance social and discursive practices.

Re-figuring the Ramayana as Theology

Re-figuring the Ramayana as Theology PDF Author: Ajay K. Rao
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134077424
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Book Description
The Rāmāyana of Vālmīki is considered by many contemporary Hindus to be a foundational religious text. But this understanding is in part the result of a transformation of the epic’s receptive history, a hermeneutic project which challenged one characterization of the genre of the text, as a work of literary culture, and replaced it with another, as a work of remembered tradition. This book examines Rāmāyana commentaries, poetic retellings, and praise-poems produced by intellectuals within the Śrīvaisnava order of South India from 1250 to 1600 and shows how these intellectuals reconceptualized Rāma’s story through the lens of their devotional metaphysics. Śrīvaisnavas applied innovative interpretive techniques to the Rāmāyana, including allegorical reading, ślesa reading (reading a verse as a double entendre), and the application of vernacular performance techniques such as word play, improvisation, repetition, and novel forms of citation. The book is of interest not only to Rāmāyana specialists but also to those engaged with Indian intellectual history, literary studies, and the history of religions.

Traditions of Eloquence

Traditions of Eloquence PDF Author: Cinthia Gannett
Publisher: Fordham Univ Press
ISBN: 0823264548
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 426

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Book Description
This groundbreaking collection explores the important ways Jesuits have employed rhetoric, the ancient art of persuasion and the current art of communications, from the sixteenth century to the present. Much of the history of how Jesuit traditions contributed to the development of rhetorical theory and pedagogy has been lost, effaced, or dispersed. As a result, those interested in Jesuit education and higher education in the United States, as well as scholars and teachers of rhetoric, are often unaware of this living 450-year-old tradition. Written by highly regarded scholars of rhetoric, composition, education, philosophy, and history, many based at Jesuit colleges and universities, the essays in this volume explore the tradition of Jesuit rhetorical education—that is, constructing “a more usable past” and a viable future for eloquentia perfecta, the Jesuits’ chief aim for the liberal arts. Intended to foster eloquence across the curriculum and into the world beyond, Jesuit rhetoric integrates intellectual rigor, broad knowledge, civic action, and spiritual discernment as the chief goals of the educational experience. Consummate scholars and rhetors, the early Jesuits employed all the intellectual and language arts as “contemplatives in action,” preaching and undertaking missionary, educational, and charitable works in the world. The study, pedagogy, and practice of classical grammar and rhetoric, adapted to Christian humanism, naturally provided a central focus of this powerful educational system as part of the Jesuit commitment to the Ministries of the Word. This book traces the development of Jesuit rhetoric in Renaissance Europe, follows its expansion to the United States, and documents its reemergence on campuses and in scholarly discussions across America in the twenty-first century. Traditions of Eloquence provides a wellspring of insight into the past, present, and future of Jesuit rhetorical traditions. In a period of ongoing reformulations and applications of Jesuit educational mission and identity, this collection of compelling essays helps provide historical context, a sense of continuity in current practice, and a platform for creating future curricula and pedagogy. Moreover it is a valuable resource for anyone interested in understanding a core aspect of the Jesuit educational heritage.