Out of Style: Reanimating Stylistic Study in Composition and Rhetoric

Paul Butler

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Out of Style

Reanimating Stylistic Study in Composition and Rhetoric

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Language: English

Published/Copyright: 2008

About this book

Paul Butler applauds the emerging interest in the study of style among scholars of rhetoric and composition, arguing that the loss of stylistics from composition in recent decades left it alive only in the popular imagination as a set of grammar conventions. Butler’s goal in Out of Style is to articulate style as a vital and productive source of invention, and to redefine its importance for current research, theory, and pedagogy.
Scholars in composition know that the ideas about writing most common in the discourse of public intellectuals are egregiously backward. Without a vital approach to stylistics, Butler argues, writing studies will never dislodge the controlling fantasies of self-authorized pundits in the nation’s intellectual press. Rhetoric and composition must answer with a public discourse that is responsive to readers’ ongoing interest in style but is also grounded in composition theory.

Reviews

By offering a strategic counter reading of our discipline's history, Out of Style undertakes a much needed rehabilitation of style for scholars and teachers in rhetoric and composition. What's especially promising here is Butler's closing argument--namely, that through style, scholars in our field can find a needed entry into public discussions about writing and can influence how our work gets represented in public discourses.

Frank Farmer
Conger-Gabel Professor of English
University of Kansas

[Butler] argues that a reanimation of style would not only help form better writing, but would also reanimate invention. And in the process he reinvigorates a history that is dynamic, a Golden Age of Comp. . . . A consciousness of style, of learning about, developing an affinity for, and teaching style will give us a way to counter public arguments against what we do, for we are constantly criticized. . . . This is a call for us to be stylin in public discourse.

Victor Villanueva
Chair of English, Auburn University
College Composition and Communication, 62.4

Chapter two, “Historical Developments: Relevant Stylistic History and Theory,” is an especially important chapter for everyone—yes, everyone—in composition studies to read.
--Rhetoric Review

Topics

Literary Studies Literary Studies, general

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Front Matter
i
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Contents
vii
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Acknowledgments
ix
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1 Introduction
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2 Historical developments
25
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3 Out of style
56
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4 Style in the diaspora of composition studies
86
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5 Style and the public intellectual
114
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6 Back in style
142
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Notes
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References
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Index
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About the author
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Publishing information

Pages and Images/Illustrations in book

eBook published on:

January 1, 2008

eBook ISBN:

9780874216806

Pages and Images/Illustrations in book

Main content:

196

https://doi.org/10.7330/9780874216806

eBook ISBN: 9780874216806

Audience(s) for this book

Professional and scholarly;

Creative Commons

BY-NC-ND 4.0

Utah State University Press

Out of Style

Overview

About this book

Reviews

Topics

Table of contents

Front Matter

Contents

Acknowledgments

1 Introduction

2 Historical developments

3 Out of style

4 Style in the diaspora of composition studies

5 Style and the public intellectual

6 Back in style

Notes

References

Index

About the author

Bibliographic data