Louise Wetherbee Phelps – författare

The last twenty years have seen an explosion of writing programmes in American schools and universities. However, while composition has firmly established itself as a subject worthy of study, the major philosophical premises that differentiate a subject from a discipline have yet to be agreed upon. This book goes some way to resolving these problems.

This groundbreaking collection of essays is one of the first works to reflect directly and systematically on the conceptual and ethical basis for composition studies as a new discipline of written language. Phelps articulates a philosophy of composition generous enough to accommodate all the strands of current work without being overly eclectic--an open framework subject to modification and addition as the field develops. She draws on wide reading in the humanities and social sciences--including cognitive science, linguistics, literary theory, education, philosophy, hermeneutics, rhetoric, and psychology--to define the contribution and place of composition studies within the larger intellectual and cultural community. The book will therefore interest theorists and scholars in a wide variety of fields.