Experimental Writing in Composition: Aesthetics and Pedagogies

201 Pages·2012·1.022 MB·English

by  Patricia Suzanne Sullivan

Experimental Writing in Composition
Pittsburgh Series in Composition, Literacy, and Culture
David Bartholomae and Jean Ferguson Carr, Editors
Experimental Writing
in Composition
Aesthetics and Pedagogies
Patricia Suzanne Sullivan
University of Pittsburgh Press
Published by the University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, Pa., 15260
Copyright © 2012, University of Pittsburgh Press
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Printed on acid-free paper
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sullivan, Patricia Suzanne.
Experimental writing in composition : aesthetics and pedagogies / Patricia
Suzanne Sullivan.
p. cm. — (Pittsburgh series in composition, literacy, and culture)
ISBN 978-0-8229-6208-3 (pbk.)
1. English language—Rhetoric—Study and teaching (Higher) 2. Literature,
Experimental. I. Title.
PE1404.S857 2012
808’.0420711—dc23 2012022371
To my sister, Catherine, who shared her writing with
me and wanted to know what I really thought.

Contents
acknowledgments IX
introduction 1
chapter 1. Experimental Expressivism: Autonomy and
Alienation 17
chapter 2. Experimental Writing and the Politics of Academic
Discourse: Composition’s Institutions 45
chapter 3. The Crisis of Judgment in Composition: Evaluating
Experimental Student Writing 76
chapter 4. Collage: Pedagogies, Aesthetics, and Reading
Students’ Texts 103
chapter 5. Postscript: Toward a Multimodal Composition 147
notes 161
works cited 175
index 185

Acknowledgments
It isn’t possible to thank everyone I need and want to thank, but I will at-
tempt to do so. I would like to thank some of my colleagues and friends
who first explicitly welcomed me into the field of composition when they
invited me to contribute to proposals for a panel for the Conference on
College Composition and Communication: Angie Farkas, Jean Grace, and
Linda Huff. Keely Bowers, Juli Parrish, Lisa Schwartz, Chris Warnick,
Mari Pena-Jordan Xenakes, and many others provided smart conversation
and friendly, often humorous support.
Jonathan Arac, Dave Bartholomae, Kathryn Flannery, Catherine
Gammon, Joseph Harris, Paul Kameen, John Poulakos, and Mariolina
Salvatore were models for me as thoughtful teachers, curious intellectu-
als, rigorous readers, and kind colleagues. I especially would like to thank
Jim Seitz for being an amazing teacher, administrator, reader, writer,
mentor, colleague, and friend and for holding hands with me and chant-
ing the alphabet when it was about the most awkward thing for the both
ix