Composition Studies through a Feminist Lens

Shari J. Stenberg Lenses on Composition Studies Edited by Sheryl Fontaine and Steve Westbrook Information and Pricing 978-1-60235-414-2 (paperback $20); 978-1-60235-415-9 (hardcover, $50); 978-1-60235-416-6 (PDF, $14.99). © 2013 by Parlor Press. 119 pages, with notes, questions for discussion, and bibliographies. Bookstores: Order by fax, mail, or phone. See our "Sales and Ordering Page" for details. About This Book Composition Studies Through a Feminist Lens offers students a lucid and engaging introduction to the discipline’s history, struggles, and accomplishments through the lens of feminism.  By illuminating a vast array of feminist contributions to the rhetorical tradition, writing theory, and classroom pedagogy, Shari J. Stenberg shows how feminist scholars have made Composition Studies a more inclusive and innovative field. Stenberg introduces Composition Studies through three of its origin stories—the Harvard exam, the rhetorical tradition, and the process paradigm—with an eye on how efforts to legitimize the field often resulted in the marginalization of women’s voices and feminist knowledge. Composition Studies Through a Feminist Lens then moves feminist knowledge to the center, showing how feminist scholars have revised these stories to offer a more expansive approach to the purposes and processes of writing and rhetoric. Part one features feminist expansions of rhetoric, showcasing how feminist scholars have revised the traditional values and practices of classical rhetoric that shape contemporary ideas about argument and writing. Part two shifts to the composition classroom, showing how feminists have revised the role of student, teacher, and researcher. Students will gain a sense of how feminist contributions have expanded possibilities for learning and writing in the composition classroom.  In addition to providing a compelling overview of feminist contributions to Composition Studies, Stenberg supplies engaging discussion questions designed to facilitate readers’ connections among the material presented, their writing lives, and contemporary culture—thereby adding their own voices to the stories of our field. Composition Studies Through a Feminist Lens is the third volume in Parlor Press’s Lenses on Composition Studies series, which features texts written specifically for upper-level undergraduate and entry-level graduate courses in Composition Studies. About the Author Shari J. Stenberg is Associate Professor of English and the Composition Program Director at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she teaches courses in writing, feminist rhetorics, and pedagogy. She is the author of Professing and Pedagogy: Learning the Teaching of English and her writing on pedagogy, teacher development, and feminist theory appears in journals including College English, College Composition and Communication, Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition and Culture, and Composition Studies.