-1-
Chris Gallagher, in a 2005 article in JAC titled "We Compositionists: Toward Engaged Professionalism" offers various suggestions on how the field of composition can, for wont of better terms, remain relevant. The term relevant appears to bother Gallagher, however, given that he throws relevant in (mildly ironic) quotation marks in his discussion that compositionists seem to be bereft of an audience other than themselves and seem to be constantly worrying that what they are doing is irrelevant: "And it's consisten with a whole range of efforts to make composition and rehtoric more 'relevant,' including various calls for 'public intellectuals'...the study of 'everday literacies...' and service learning....What is behind this fear of not mattering?" (76)
All of this worry about relevance seems to come from a certain worry that what we are doing as compositionists just doesn't matter; that it is unimportant; that it is a waste of …
Chris Gallagher, in a 2005 article in JAC titled "We Compositionists: Toward Engaged Professionalism" offers various suggestions on how the field of composition can, for wont of better terms, remain relevant. The term relevant appears to bother Gallagher, however, given that he throws relevant in (mildly ironic) quotation marks in his discussion that compositionists seem to be bereft of an audience other than themselves and seem to be constantly worrying that what they are doing is irrelevant: "And it's consisten with a whole range of efforts to make composition and rehtoric more 'relevant,' including various calls for 'public intellectuals'...the study of 'everday literacies...' and service learning....What is behind this fear of not mattering?" (76)
All of this worry about relevance seems to come from a certain worry that what we are doing as compositionists just doesn't matter; that it is unimportant; that it is a waste of …