Hi Cathy,
You asked whether Textual Studies in Canada got covered in U.S. indexes.
In fact, we've been accepted by both the MLA and CCCC. However, for the
MLA we had to wait a few years, ostensibly to ensure that we were
"keepers"?
However, the fact remains that the Canadian situation in rhetoric/tech
writing is difficult.
This leads me to an issue that I may have raised on this list recently,
but I'm not sure. In any case, I'd like some feedback in preparation for
the Atlanta roundtable. (For those of you that will be there, forgive me
for telegraphing my punch!)
In the history of rhetoric, it's a truism that rhetoric flourishes in a
free society but languishes in an autocratic culture. If this is true,
why has rhetoric had such a tough slog in Canada in the 20th C.? Does
the anti-rhetorical bent in post-secondary education in Canada reflect
something about a latent (to some not too hidden) resistance to free
thought and expression in Canada?
Is the resistance to rhetoric in 20th-C. Canada rooted in an
English-Canadian colonial mind? Given the English lit. curriculum through
most of the century, this is probably not a trick question.
Any thoughts on this? Any personal experience? Russ's comments on the
difference between a writer and a Writer sheds some light here. Since a
Writer is born, not made, need we bother with the writer? Whence would
such an attitude arise?
Cheers,
Henry
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Henry A. Hubert, Ph.D.
Office of the Dean of Arts
University College of the Cariboo | Phone: 250-828-5236
P.O. Box 3010 | FAX: 250-371-5510
Kamloops, B. C. | E-mail: [log in to unmask]
V2C 5N3
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