L
aura
Wilder
Assistant Professor
Ph.D. University of Texas at Austin
MFA
University of Iowa
Rhetoric and composition, rhetoric of academic disciplines, history of rhetoric and literary instruction, Classical rhetoric, composition studies research methodologies, writing processes
Humanities 367
442-4129
lwilder@albany.edu
Laura Wilder joined the faculty of the English Department in 2005. Before coming to the University at Albany, she served for two years as the director of a first-year writing and argument course at Yale University. Her present book project, Critics, Classrooms, and Commonplaces: Literary Studies as a Disciplinary Discourse Community, extends “writing in the disciplines” research by examining the field of literary studies. Despite major transformations over the past century, and despite what are perceived to be enormous theoretical divides among individual scholars, this project contends that literary scholars share a core set of rhetorical strategies for effective argumentation and interpretation. Professor Wilder traces the development of these conventions over time, from the first Publication of the Modern Language Association (1885) to the present day, charting how even when—or precisely when—applied towards innovative and progressive ends, rhetorical conventions serve a necessarily conservative disciplinary function. Using ethnographic and experimental composition research methods, she also explores the often unacknowledged role of professional conventions in the undergraduate literature classroom. This project contributes to our understanding of the complex social pressures of history and hierarchy on the production of scholarly discourse while also advancing research that can be used to help students who seek to enter into, influence, and even redirect those scholarly conversations. However it also explores the broader limitations of the “writing in the disciplines” pedagogical project, which, despite recent curricular “writing intensive” initiatives at campuses across the U.S., has encountered great difficulties bridging the gap between its research agenda and classroom practice.
With funding from the Spencer Foundation and in collaboration with Professor Joanna Wolfe of the University of Louisville, Professor Wilder is currently investigating the effects, in terms of students’ rhetorical effectiveness and in terms of students’ affective engagement, of heightening students’ awareness of the rhetorical conventions of literary studies. Additionally, Professors Wilder and Wolfe are collaboratively writing a textbook, an introductory rhetoric for literary analysis. For future research projects, Professor Wilder is interested in refining the methodologies she applies to literary studies in investigations of hierarchical discourse communities outside of academia, such as transitory ones that develop around a controversial issue in our media-rich but not always interactive “public sphere.” Additionally, because her interests in rhetoric and poetics overlap, she also plans to examine the writing processes and motivations, so often shrouded in romantic mystery, of contemporary poets and novelists.
Publications
“‘Into the Laboratories of the University’: A Rhetorical Analysis of the First Publication of the Modern Language Association.” Rhetoric Review. Forthcoming.
"'The Rhetoric of Literary Criticism' Revisited: Mistaken Critics, Complex Contexts, and Social Justice." Written Communication 22.1 (2005): 76-119.
“‘Get Comfortable with Uncertainty’: A Study of the Conventional Values of Literary Analysis in an Undergraduate Literature Course.” Written Communication 19.1 (2002): 175-221.
“Daphne and Augustine” and “Cardinal Bellarmine Shown the Sun” (poems), The MacGuffin, Schoolcraft College, 16.3 (1999): 20, 150.
“Dinner at Betsy’s,” “Daises for Betsy,” and “Betsy’s Broken Heart” (poems), The Fiddlehead, University of New Brunswick, Summer 1997: 106-109.
“Betsy Breaks Up” (poem) The Iowa Review, University of Iowa, 27.2 (1997): 46.
Recent Conference Papers
“Uncommon Ground,” Nation Council of Teachers of English Annual Convention, Pittsburgh, PA, November 18, 2005.
“What the ‘Natural Student’ Knows: The Implicit Rhetorical Pedagogy of ‘Predisciplinary’ Course Work,” Rhetoric Society of American Biennial Conference, Austin, TX, May 29, 2004.
“Disciplinary Rhetoric and the Politics of Progress in Literary Criticism,” Rhetoric Society of America Biennial Conference, Austin, TX, May 28, 2004.
“The Stases of Literary Criticism and the Continued Usefulness of Classical Rhetoric in Investigations of Contemporary Disciplinary Discourse Communities,” South Central Modern Language Association Annual Meeting, Austin, TX, November 1, 2002.
“Tensions Between Common and Special Topoi: Their Relative Weight in an Undergraduate Literature Course,” Rhetoric Society of America Biennial Conference, Las Vegas, NV, May 25, 2002.
“‘Get Comfortable with Uncertainty’: A Study of the Conventional Values of Literary Analysis in an Undergraduate Literature Course,” Conference on College Composition and Communication, Denver, CO, March 16, 2001.
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