Sem Composition (Writing in Globalization) (CR)

This course assumes that applying our critical capacities to the
policies and practices of globalization opens up possibilities
for critique, resistance, and/or negotiation within the field of composition
studies. It interrogates the role of globalization in composition research
and teaching in order to find the openings for active participation in shaping
its meanings by examining how daily lives are impacted by global decisions.
Required course readings take into account the complex operations of globalized
power at work in economic, political, cultural, biopolitical, disciplinary,
and rhetorical forms and mixtures; this work aims to critically and assiduously
account for the local and global circumstances in which people act, speak,
communicate, negotiate, and struggle, from Washington, DC to New Zealand, IMF/World
Bank/APEC protests to WPA work. From the specific contingencies of their own
selected situations, students will, in their final seminar papers, propose
possibilities for critique, resistance, negotiation, and agency within specific
material and rhetorical circumstances.

Pedagogical Approach

The course will involve students in a combination of collective inquiries and individualized scholarship; we will study the material and analyze the interconnections among globalization, writing, and the teaching of writing evolution/maintenance
through lectures, discussions, presentations, online participation, and sustained scholarly projects. Most in-class time will be devoted to seminar-style discussions.  Students will have common readings to write about through a series of posts to an interactive
class website, as well as separate monographs/collections to summarize, reflect
upon, and present to the class in preparation for the final seminar paper. In
the second half of the course, each student will work on a scholarly, thesis-driven seminar paper that aims to analyze the effects of  globalization on the field of composition, the process of writing, or writing pedagogy.

Likely Texts

A course packet of relevant readings on globalization, writing, and the teaching of writing.

  • Desser, Daphne and Phillip Darin Payne. Teaching Writing in Globalization: Remapping
    Disciplinary Work.
    Lexington, 2012.
  • Downing, David B., Claude
    Mark Hurlbert, and Paula Mathieu, eds. Beyond
    English Inc.: Curricular Reform in a Global Economy.
    Portsmouth, NH:
    Boynton/Cook, 2002.
  • Chomsky, Noam. Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for
    Global Dominance
    . New York: Metropolitan Books, 2003.
  • Hauser, Gerard A., and Amy
    Grim, eds. Rhetorical Democracy:
    Discursive Practices of Civic Engagement
    . Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum,
    2003.
  • Ryder, Phyllis. Rhetorics for
    Community Action: Public Writing and Writing Publics
    . Lanham, MD:
    Lexington Books, 2011.
  • Smith, Neil. The Endgame of Globalization.  Routledge,
    2005.