Postpostmodern Compositionist

A young person might look at the tumultuous state of the world and wonder, what can I do to improve things? Of the many ways that one might respond to this noble call, such a young person could decide to become a teacher. The position comes with a lot of power, though one might initially question this assertion: Writing instructors are only in charge of 25 students per class. In the grand scheme of the U.S. population, isn't this just a drop in the bucket?  While a teacher's influence is admittedly limited to the students in their classroom,  a lifelong teaching career allows for more influence than one might think. For example, I have been teaching composition since 2021 and have so far had the opportunity to influence hundreds of students. Not only this, but another source of teacherly power comes from the fact that t eachers have much freedom (at least in higher education) in choosing what knowledge they want to impart to students. Considering the power we hold as teachers,...

I am aware of NCTE's decision last month to dissolve 4Cs, and as a scholar just starting their career, this obviously saddens me, as I greatly enjoyed my own experience at the two 4Cs I was able to attend in 2025 (Baltimore) and this year in 2026 (Cleveland). I am also aware that more experienced members of the field are mobilizing to address the situation, and while there is a lot of uncertainty, I feel optimistic that the field will be able to reconfigure itself and make up for what is a large loss to the discipline.  I am a lowly graduate student and try not to involve myself in the greater politics of the field.  I will not posit any grand opinions or make any declarations for what direction the field should take, however, this whole situation has awakened me to a larger question of who we are as a discipline. What is composition? How do we quantify it? What should come to mind when one thinks about composition studies? Perhaps everyone might agree that composition means d...

I have had quite the peripatetic summer, and I am finally back in Davis and ready to return to this blog. I feel guilty for not posting as regularly as I should, but now I'm back and have quite the lineup for features going forward. See the picture below for some books I picked up at the library, which I will be writing about over the next few weeks: Books.  a. Whatever (1994)   by Michel Houellebecq: There is more to life than rhetoric and composition. There is more to life than the PhD. For this upcoming school year, my goal is to do more reading that is not related to my academic work. My inclusion of this book in this list reflects this effort. The book so far is a pretty short and light read, but articulates a rather bleak worldview, in the sense that the protagonist doesn't really care about anything. This is my first time reading Houellebecq, and I think this is a regular theme in his works, or the phenomenon of how people in late-stage capitalist societies confront a l...