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January 26, 2005
Summary of Goggin (and so much more)
Goggin, Maureen Daly. Authoring a Discipline: Scholoary Journals and the Post-World War II Emergence of Rhetoric and Composition. Malwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, 2000.
In brief:
Goggin argues in this book for the disciplinarity of rhetoric and composition and claims that “history reveals that the social and political conditions have been created for a discipline of rhetoric and composition” (xxiv). Her goal, then, is to position rhet/comp as a valid discipline because of its history, particularly that history established in its scholarly journals between 1950 and 1990. She “idendifies major debates and controversies ignited as the discipline emerged, traces issues and principles that have been foregrounded, and analyzes how those who directed the journals and those who contributed to them helped to shape, and in tern were shaped by, the field of rhetoric and composition” (xiii). Goggin utilizes a gardening metaphor as she works through the various developments of the journals that catalogue the field. She primarily concerned with the editorial decisions, including an entire chapter focused on the editors and contributors of the nine major journals she examines, and maintains the importance of the guidelines and conventions for publication established by the various journals. Goggin also addresses potential detractors who claim that rhetoric and composition is too fragmented. Her answer is, to paraphrase it, show me a discipline that isn’t (xix).
Methodology
The methodology employed by Goggin is archival. She is returning to primary sources in her attempt to demonstrate the authoring of a discipline. To do so, she codifies her research of the journals. First, she limits her study to broad topic and audience journals (not those directed at writing centers or writing program administrators). She also limits the journals to those organized by and meant for teachers in English (as opposed to rhetoric, history, philosophy, etc). To organize her study, Goggin makes admittedly arbitrary breaks (1950-1965, 1965-1980, 1980-1990), but classifies the periods as preparatory, emerging, and legitimizing.
By way of specific methods employed, Goggin uses Textual Analysis, Biographical Research, and Statistical Analysis. There is a great deal of textual analysis in the chapters that examine the journals, but Goggin focuses the analysis on social, political, and cultural factors (such as a rise in the number of immigrant students after WWII) that shaped the field. She also focuses on the telltale editors notes that point to how decisions were made or which discussions were actually foregrounded (i.e. editors using certain scholars’ metaphors in their opening remarks, continuing along a broader theme or push toward theory or practice, etc). Goggin uses empirical studies as well, charting the number of submissions from conference papers or the yearly breakdown of women published. Most of this research appears in the chapter on the editors, which also takes into account geographical regions of editors/contributors, their schools, professional affiliations, and rank. All of this data is used to discuss general trends as the journals move the field of rhet/comp toward disciplinarity. Goggin is also very persistent in pointing out the ways that these factors tell a story about the decisions that shaped the discipline and controlled its intellectual movements.
Posted by trobryan at January 26, 2005 08:41 AM
Comments
Thanks, Ty. Two more things: go back into your entry and add the other categories; and also italicize your title.
Posted by: senioritis at January 27, 2005 06:12 AM