JAC Volume 16 Issue 3

John Schilb starts from the premise that "English departments should engage in civic education, applying both composition theory and literary theory to this end" (5). He determines that English departments are falling short of this goal and that their misuse of contemporary theories is a principal reason why. Charging that composition and literature scholars have used theories for narrow disciplinary ends—to sustain composition's service ethos and o maintain the dominance of literary explication—his analysis focuses on two senses of discipline: as a verb—practices that form subjects (disciplining); and as a noun—the abstract organization of subject matter (discipline). Throughout his analysis, he urges readers to imagine social roles (subject positions) for students and teachers other than the ones valued by current composition and literary theories. And he implies that the resources for this reimagining are close at hand if only scholars would read and learn the lessons of each discipline's theories about writing and its role in human life.

The book is divided into three sections. Part One compares how composition and literary studies have used the term rhetoric. Along with a number of recent scholars (e.g., Corbett, Crowley, Halloran, Kennedy, and Eagleton), Schilb values the (sometimes) Classical presumption that citizens should deliberate collectively on public issues and that rhetoric offers the artistic resources for doing so. To establish that contemporary scholars have largely repressed the political dimension of rhetoric as civic discourse, Schilb examines (in Chapter Two) two conferences where the term played a prominent role: the 1963 Conference on College Composition and Communication and the 1966 Johns Hopkins symposium on "The Languages of Criticism and the Sciences of Man." In noting that the CCCC participants emphasized rhetoric as persuasion and the Hopkins participants emphasized rhetoric as the "destabilizing interplay of tropes," he argues (in Chapter Three) that these two meanings work to preserve existing disciplinary boundaries and practices. Compositionists have put too much faith in the "whole man's" ability to know (one's intentions, how language works) and to wield this knowledge deliberately. The literati have continued to emphasize textual explication. Schilb argues that the two fields have theoretical resources that could help each move more toward a civic sense of rhetoric. Literary scholars could learn (through attention to persuasion) that language has political and material effects, and composition scholars could learn (through attention to processes of figuration) that writers, texts, and audiences are not the certain and stable entities assumed by many textbooks.

Noting that postmodernism "is becoming the term of choice for theorists who at least claim to be interested in epistemological, institutional, and/or political change" (83). Part Two considers how composition and literary studies have grappled with it, according to an "increasingly standard" taxonomy, Chapter Five looks at postmodern critiques of epistemology, Chapter Six looks at postmodern art and artistic practices, and Chapter Seven considers postmodernism and politics. In each case, Schilb argues that both fields have "[made] postmodernism fit their traditional agendas" (83) and in so doing have not only effaced possibilities for general political change but have further entrenched literary studies as the dominant partner in English departments.

Part Three takes up three issues—personal writing, collaboration, and the use of theory—that have been especially prominent in composition discussions. Chapter Eight considers some pros and cons of personal writing by means of Jane Tompkins' recent criticism and Schilb's own upper-division course in autobiographical writing. Chapter Nine addresses the ethics of collaboration by juxtaposing Paul de Man's wartime activities (writing Nazi-sympathizing articles for a Belgian newspaper) with Karen Burke LeFevre's advice to corporate-based technical writers. Schilb argues that composition teachers who champion "initiation theories" of discourse community have been too sanguine about the value of collaboration while literature teachers holding on to a "modernist scene of writing" have unduly scorned its benefits. Chapter Ten compares Stanley Fish's theoretical arguments against theory with composition scholars' pragmatic objections to it. Against both sets of objections, Schilb argues for doing a particular kind of teory, one that "questions the academy's current structures, values, and demands [and that] assumes that students should learn how to address abuses of power they face not only in school but in society at large" (215).

Between the Lines is an ambitious book that doesn't quite live up to its promise. We are offered critiques of many theorists and theories, but we get only a glimpse of what Schilb thinks a civic education actually entails and barely a peek at specific reasons why this should be a goal for writing courses. Time after time, Schilb faults theorists for not being critical enough of their assumptions, for ignoring the consequences of their theories, for being too comfortable with established disciplinary goals and practices. But his book could stand to consider the consequences of some of its own proposals. For example, if a Classically-grounded rhetorical theory is to be the basis of a contemporary civic education, then a lot more than the content of individual writing courses or the structure of English Studies will be affected. Richard Lanham, who calls for a renewed rhetorical paideia in The Electronic Word, notes that adopting this perspective would at the very least entail restructuring much of a college's or university's lower-division curriculum. Because a rhetorical paideia is integrative and generalist, encompassing all subject matters, teachers and administrators will inevitably ask why rhetorically-based courses should "belong" to English departments. In turn, this question will lead to more material ones about how such courses are funded, who's hired to teach them, and how these people are paid, tenured, promoted, or otherwise professionally nurtured. Schilb's descriptions of his own writing courses suggest that his vision of civic education—because it's based on critique—can be accomplished within current administrative structures. If so, the rest of the university may be content to let English become the department of civic education as long as it doesn't interrupt what they're already doing. However, since Schilb envisions his proposal having more radical effects (beyond English departments), having a more concrete sense of what these might be.

The rhetorical perspective directly conflicts with specialist inquiries favored by the disciplines. Schilb urges writing teachers to address social, political, and economic issues while acknowledging that we generally don't have social science backgrounds. He sensibly notes that writing teachers are much like other citizens—often called on to analyze and evaluate complex social events without benefit of specialist training. He's right to declare that claims of disciplinary expertise are often elitist. But one wonders how urging teachers to "forage through sections of the library they have never visited, and solicit help from people they haven't consulted before" will aid them in considering hard questions about the function of subject matter in writing courses(157). For instance, does the kind of knowledge produced in a generalist writing class differ from knowledge produced in a discipline-based class? If so, how? What are the consequences of these differences for students, teachers, taxpayers, donors, corporate patrons, and citizens? Rhetoric has always had a vexed relation to subject matters, and Schilb's discussion of a civic-oriented writing pedagogy would benefit from a more explicit treatment of the relations between subject matters and disciplines. How does the "cognitive mapping" he calls for differ from writing class to political science class? How does a writer's use of a concept like postmodernism differ from writing class to sociology class? How does a writer's analysis of corporate capitalism differ from writing class to economics class? That these questions even occur is testament to the reach of Schilb's argument, but his failure to treat them directly enhances the risk that those in English departments who teach the kind of civic-oriented course he has in mind will (continue to) be marginalized by colleagues in other disciplines.

Those wishing an accessible survey of somerecent composition and literary discussions will find it in Between the Lines. Schilb's argument that teachers and scholars in the two fields understand and use concepts like rhetoric, postmodernism, collaboration, and personal writing differently is often quite acute. In ways it reminds me of C.P. Snow's discussion of literary scholars and scientists in The Two Cultures. But focusing on intradisciplinary relations is ultimately constricting. Ironically, despite Schilb's professed intent, composition usually gets the short end of comparisons between fields. From the opening tale of two conferences to the ending chapter on the future of theory, discussion centers on how composition might better use literary theories; rarely does Schilb urge literature to pay attention to composition theories (attitudes, practices, perspectives, yes; theories, no). I agree that attention to pedagogy is one of composition's strengths and that many of us, in English departments and elsewhere, could benefit from this. But the long tradition of rhetorical theorizing, much of which in the twentieth century has been done in speech departments, is also a strength. Imagine if the book had begun with a tale of three conferences: the 1963 CCCC, the 1966 Hopkins symposium, and the 1984 Iowa Symposium on the Rhetoric of the Human Sciences (see Nelson et al.). Not only would Schilb have an expanded version of rhetoric to work with, he would also have greater warrant to discuss the effects of rhetorical theories and practices on subject matters and disciplines outside English. This expanded vision would help fulfill the book's promise, for the ultimate and laudable challenge of Between the Lines is that civic education is the responsibility of the university at large, not just writing and literature teachers.