This course will examine the ways in which
scholars in writing studies take up various texts, tenets, or points of
critical theory. Rather than being organized around proper names, or even
around "-isms," though, this seminar will articulate itself around concepts.
In What is Philosophy?, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari attend to
concepts as jagged-edged, many-sided entities that can be sketched only
in relation to other forces—other concepts, bodies, practices, discourses.
Following this "logic," then, the class will attend to six key
concepts: writing, culture, power, performativity, technology, and ethics.
These concepts will, of course, constantly open onto issues of gender,
discourse, and identity. The seminar will move between primary theoretical or
philosophical texts and appropriations of this theoretical work under the
rubric of writing studies. Students will write weekly response papers, and
prepare a conference-length paper to present to the class. This conference
length-paper should be drawn from/turn into a seminar-length paper on a topic
chosen in consultation with the professor.