Department of English
RHETORIC & COMPOSITION
For more detailed information, please link to the Composition Program's website.
The Graduate Specialization in Rhetoric and Composition at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro emphasizes the social and cultural contexts of reading and composition practices. It provides a thorough background in the history of rhetoric and in contemporary theories of discourse.
The Program encourages both textual and classroom-based research from interdisciplinary perspectives. Currently, students are researching topics as diverse as feminist sermon rhetoric, eco-feminism and nature writers, Platonic rhetoric in the twentieth-century novel, the rhetoric of female renaissance humanists, ethos on the internet, and epideitic rhetoric and classroom discourse.
Interdisciplinary Studies
Graduate students are encouraged to study rhetoric and composition in connection with other related fields. In the past students have elected to take course work in Women's Studies, History, Psychology, Education, Anthropology, Communication, and Film Studies.
The Graduate Faculty
Among the graduate faculty, rhetoric and composition specialists often have interests in literature, and literature specialists often have research interests in rhetoric and composition, allowing the English Department to offer an unusually broad range of courses and scholarly expertise to its students. Although only students in the MFA program can enroll in creative writing workshops, students in other graduate programs can take literature courses from renowned novelists and poets and with a diverse group of graduate students in all the classes.
Risa Applegarth, Assistant Professor (Ph.D. University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill). Specializes in rhetorical history and theory, with particular interest in women's rhetorics, genre theory, rhetoric of science, and Writing Across the Curriculum/Writing in the Disciplines. Current research examines relationships between genre, power, and knowledge production in social scientific disciplines, particularly in anthropology. Forthcoming publication in Women and Rhetoric Between the Wars.
Professor (Ph.D. University of Michigan). Specialist in the theory and history of rhetoric, with additional special interests the history of composition pedagogy and Writing Across the Curriculum. Publications include A Pragmatic Theory of Rhetoric (1987) and articles on composition, rhetorical criticism, and cultural studies.
Professor (Ph.D. University of New Hampshire). Specializes in Rhetoric and Composition with interest in literacy, ethnography, composition theory, classroom-based research and writing across the curriculum. Her publications include Academic Literacies: The Public and Private Discourse of University Students (Heinemann) and numerous articles and chapters on evaluation, portfolios, and non-mainstream literacy.
Associate Professor (Ph.D. Texas Christian University). Specializes in classical rhetoric and in the history of the discipline. Publications include co-editing The Writing Teacher's Sourcebook, 4th ed.
Associate Professor (Ph.D. University of Illinois at Chicago). Specializes in composition studies, including basic writing, histories of the discipline, and writing pedagogy/teacher training. Publications include Before Shaughnessy: Basic Writing at Yale and Harvard, 1920-1960 (Studies in Writing and Rhetoric/SIU Press, 2009); Can It Really Be Taught? Resisting Lore in Creative Writing Pedagogy (Boyton/Cook, 2007); and articles in College Composition and Communication, College English, Rhetoric Review, WPA: Writing Program Administration, among others.
Professor (Ph.D. University of Louisville). Specialist in composition theory and practice , rhetorical theory, and American literature with special interests in pedagogy, feminist theory, and approaches to reading. Publications include Farther Along: Transforming Dichotomies in Rhetoric and Composition (1990), An Unquiet Pedagogy (1991), Reason to Believe: Romanticism, Pragmatism, and the Possibility of Teaching (1997), and Everyday Use (2005).
Professor (Ph.D. Pennsylvania State University). Specialist in critical and rhetorical theory and in American rhetorical history, with special interests in Colonial American rhetoric and in neo-pragmatic theory. Publications include Irving Babbitt (1987), Deliberate Criticism: Toward a Postmodern Humanism (1992), and Delightful Conviction: Jonathan Edwards and the Rhetoric of Conversion (1993; winner of the ECA's 1994 Everett Lee Hunt Award), and After Rhetoric: The Study of Discourse Beyond Language and Culture (1999).
Program Requirements
The Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Composition requires 36 semester hours beyond the M.A., excluding the dissertation. The Director of Graduate Studies will determine the minimum amount of course work required for students who enter with other post-baccalaureate degrees. Students must also meet foreign language and specific course requirements, pass the preliminary examination, and write and defend a dissertation.