Everything I Always Wondered about Rhet/Comp but Never Asked

[Cotton Joe]

What do Rhet/Comp folks do? Is a Rhet/Comp PhD always focused only on college writing and literacy issues like WPA and writing center work? If I am interested in studying propaganda, advertising, and political rhetoric, is a Rhet/Comp PhD right for me? Do I really have a better chance of finding tenure-line work with a Rhet/Comp degree than with a Lit degree? Am I more likely to find a standard classroom teaching gig as a Rhet/Comp, or am I more likely to work in administrative roles like WPA or writing center director? Why do some universities (looking at you Vanderbilt) not offer Rhet/Comp as a potential focus? If I am interested in literacy research, what are some reputable institutions with decent funding packages that I might look into? If I am interested in rhetoric research (history, propaganda, online and tech writing [like Reddit or Facebook], etc.), what are some institutions I should look into? 

What are some specializations or subfields in Rhet/Comp that are especially popular right now? What are some subfields that I might not know about (given that I clearly know very little to begin with)? What kind of non-academic work does a Rhet/Comp degree open me up to that a Lit degree might not?

And, what other aspects of Rhet/Comp am I clearly trampling over in my ignorance in this post?

[orphic_mel528]

Since no one else is answering, I will!

Keep in mind, I'm about to start a PhD in lit, but here's what I surmised after a bit of Googling:

If you want to study things like propaganda, advertising, and political rhetoric, you might be better off pursuing a PhD in Communications. Universities like USC, NYU, and University of Washington, to name just the first few that came up, all offer coursework in those areas, and have faculty who can support your studies. 

Going off of the description of the Rhet/Comp PhD at my university, that field seems much more focused on literacy in practice and pedagogy, which doesn't seem like what you're looking for. 

[renea]

Rhet/Comp person here. There are lots of questions here so I'm going to answer a few I know answers to and direct you to some ways to find out if rhet/comp is right for you.

 

What do Rhet/Comp folks do? Well it depends on what type of program you're in. Some rhet/comp folks focus more on traditional aspects of rhetoric (think the classics, aristotle, theory, writing, and communication), other programs are more interdisciplinary and their departments may overlap with other programs at their university (Womens studies departments, English lit, digital humanities, ect), some simply have their own specializations (MSU for example has strong Cultural Rhetorics and Digital Humanities tracks). Mostly though some common themes you'll find in rhet/comp lit is writing (surprise!), community, stories, literacy, persuasion (through rhetorical devices), and communication.

Is a Rhet/Comp PhD always focused only on college writing and literacy issues like WPA and writing center work? If I am interested in studying propaganda, advertising, and political rhetoric, is a Rhet/Comp PhD right for me? See above- of course not! If you are interested in WPA or FYW then you will find it much easier to find programs (and faculty) that fit your interests. Most rhet/comp people who end up as adjuncts or in early faculty positions do serve as college writing instructors. However, many serve as WPA, program directors, or in positions in other fields (digital humanities, Arts & Sciences programs, or within smaller sister departments within their research interests- think a rhet/comp degree holder whose thesis was on indigenous methods of storytelling may serve in an Indigenous Studies programs). For your second response: there are many programs that would have faculty studying propogand and political rhetoric (especially in light of the recent election! search CFPs for special election issues and you'll be pleasantly surprised), but your interests would also fit within a communication program or a media studies programs (it just depends on where you think you fit best based on region, finances, and faculty).

Do I really have a better chance of finding tenure-line work with a Rhet/Comp degree than with a Lit degree? This is tricky, so I will leave this to lit people to discuss the job market in their field, but I will say Rhet/Comp (just like many humanities programs) can provide training in areas that will help you get a degree (such as professional writing, website design, coding, technical writing, ect). I have seen many of the people from my program leave with jobs in hand and our department has only grown. I realize though that this is not the case everywhere. Jobs are hard to find in any field right now, so if tenure-track is your goal, ask programs about their graduate's record in receiving these positions.

Am I more likely to find a standard classroom teaching gig as a Rhet/Comp, or am I more likely to work in administrative roles like WPA or writing center director? This will depend on your research, focus, and GA position. If you don't want to be a WPA no one will make you. I will say though just in terms of job availability there will always be less WPA positions than teaching positions. Most universities have 1-3 admins in a writing center whereas they may have 20-30 teach positions for "standard classroom teaching" (note: I'm talking about FYW, rhetoric/comp, and potentially English class positions since let's face it most Rhet/Comp people end up in an English department not in a stand alone Rhet/Comp department).

What are some specializations or subfields in Rhet/Comp that are especially popular right now? What are some subfields that I might not know about (given that I clearly know very little to begin with)? Just to name a few that I know of from my department's subfields: pedagogy, literacy, teaching, visual rhetoric, digital rhetorics, cultural rhetorics, disability studies, indigenous studies, chicano/a studies, trauma studies, queer theory, environmental studies, African American studies, multi-modal composition, accessibility, professional writing, rhetorical theory/historiography, and technical writing (these are literally just some of what people in my department study- find a department that is flexible and enthusiastic and they will help you find spaces for your work)

 

And, what other aspects of Rhet/Comp am I clearly trampling over in my ignorance in this post? This is not your ignorance, but a lot of people think rhet/comp is just writing, or just like the field of English because we are so often housed in English programs. However, Rhet/Comp is a very growing and changing field. There is also a great divide in the field between more traditional programs and more "progressive" programs. Where you do your MA/PhD will greatly influence what you will read, how you will be trained, and the programs you will be able to more easily network with. Rhet/Comp is a lot more diverse and nuanced that just writing, but writing is at the heart of what we do. If you want to focus more on literature, history, or a particular time period literature may be a better fit for you, if you want to focus more on theories of communication then communication may be better for you. It just depends on your resources, desires, and focus. I highly recommend searching through a department's website and looking at what their graduate students are focusing on. Their research interests will show you what is more popular/available in their department and you will often see common themes. Taking a brief look through their list of courses is also a good start. I chose Rhet/Comp because I always enjoyed theory and persuasion over literary analysis, as an undergraduate I had the opportunity to take rhetoric classes that really made me think about my position, power, and motives (in fact we talked quite a lot about propoganda and power). Overall I found a place in the field that was open to me really exploring my identity, power, and position and overall challenges me to write (and discuss other's writing) from a place that questions those priveleges. However, rhet/comp isn't the only place you can do that work and our field is smaller than lit. Our field is growing because we are able to secure some funding through digital humanities programs, Writing Centers, and First Year Writing pedagogy/labs (something some more traditional programs/english programs may not be able to). 

 

PS: Online writing is a very hot topic right now so there is space for that interest as well.

Edited August 8, 2017 by renea

[rhetoricus aesalon]

+1 to all the wonderful work renea has done writing their response. Answering big questions like this about an entire field -- especially one that has pretty much been in flux and trying to define itself since its start 60-130 years ago (for modern composition) and 2500+ years ago (for rhetoric) is hard. So I totally want to echo renea -- it isn't your ignorance but the how-do-you-hold-a-moonbeam-in-your-hand way in which rhet/comp is always anything and yet not everything.

I think the best way to really get a sense of the field is to either (1) take a class in it if you can, or (2) take a look at Views from the Center, which is a collection of chairs' addresses from the Conference on College Composition and Communication, which is the largest conference in the field, from 1977 to 2005. You should be able to Google more recent addresses, but my recommendation is to try and look at a good range because in general a chair's address will try to account for where the field currently is and where it needs to go.

That isn't to say that's going to be a whole picture of the field -- just an idea of its core in a certain place in time. To add to renea's long list, there's work being done in rhetorics of labor, feminism, historiography, ecocomposition, posthumanism, ambient rhetoric, sonic rhetoric, object oriented ontology, feminist new materialism, feminist technoscience, writing centers, crip theory, etc., etc. 

One other way you might want to think about your questions is to think about what classes you want to teach. You could certainly study propaganda, advertising, and political rhetoric in many, many rhet/comp programs (though they would probably stylize it as "visual rhetoric"). But in just about every rhet/comp program, and in every rhet/comp job, you will teach composition. Usually first-year composition. A lot. You will probably have to direct or oversee a writing program or writing center at some point in your career, even if you aren't hired as a writing program administrator or writing center director. You will be a go-to person for anyone who has questions about the teaching of writing, and you will be expected to be an expert in the theory and practice of writing instruction, no matter your sub-area of study. If that doesn't sound appealing to you, then I would say rhet/comp is probably not the right fit. Even tenured professors in rhet/comp at R1 institutions who teach graduate seminars in courses that align perfectly with their subfield will at times be expected to teach intro-level composition courses. And just about all of them love it.

Edited August 9, 2017 by Chadillac

[Cotton Joe]

@renea Thanks so much for the detailed response. I learned a lot from your post, and I appreciate the time you put into compiling the information for me.

@Chadillac I have done some work in writing centers and have presented at writing center and WPA conferences as an undergrad. I enjoy my work, and I do not see myself losing interest in teaching writing or teaching English anytime soon. However, I also want to do some work outside of literacy research. I am interested in bettering myself as a teacher and an instructor, but I am content to follow the field and take the best training and advice on teaching that I can find. However, I want my own research to focus mostly on issues outside of classroom writing. As I stated, I am interested in analyzing and writing about propaganda and political rhetoric. What I am struggling with is finding English departments with rhetoric/composition scholars working in this area. Mostly what I find is those working in literacy and writing program research. I am somewhat constrained geographically right now. Is it possible to do the work I want to do in a graduate program where the faculty mostly works with literacy and classroom writing?

[bhr]

On 8/8/2017 at 1:37 PM, renea said:

PS: Online writing is a very hot topic right now so there is space for that interest as well.

Here's the thing I'll tell you as someone deep into an R/C program with some study of programs under my belt. R/C programs, particularly dedicated tracks (like OSU or Purdue) or independent programs (like TTU or MSU) will often offer more courses that concentrate on research methods and/or pedagogical practice. Something like digital pedagogy, which is "hot" right now, may be offered by a r/c program as a focus, or at least as an area with some support. 

[rhetoricus aesalon]

On 8/9/2017 at 0:16 AM, Cotton Joe said:

@Chadillac I have done some work in writing centers and have presented at writing center and WPA conferences as an undergrad. I enjoy my work, and I do not see myself losing interest in teaching writing or teaching English anytime soon. However, I also want to do some work outside of literacy research. I am interested in bettering myself as a teacher and an instructor, but I am content to follow the field and take the best training and advice on teaching that I can find. However, I want my own research to focus mostly on issues outside of classroom writing. As I stated, I am interested in analyzing and writing about propaganda and political rhetoric. What I am struggling with is finding English departments with rhetoric/composition scholars working in this area. Mostly what I find is those working in literacy and writing program research. I am somewhat constrained geographically right now. Is it possible to do the work I want to do in a graduate program where the faculty mostly works with literacy and classroom writing?

Absolutely! There is a wave of rhet/comp work that fiercely advocates for divorcing rhet/comp research from writing classroom pedagogy (see: Sid Dobrin's Postcomposition). But overwhelmingly, the jobs in rhet/comp are in composition, so I find it's still very much the case that grad students -- at least in my program -- are strongly encouraged to practice articulating their work as it intervenes in composition writ large, even if it doesn't specifically take up classroom writing.

If you are geographically constrained, then I would recommend not worrying about applying to programs in your area. Rhet/comp does have a prestige hierarchy (with Midwest programs tending to be perceived as more prestigious than others -- Penn State being the one exception), but my perception is that it is not as strong a hierarchy as in other fields.

And I really don't feel I can think of any program that couldn't support your research interests in political rhetoric and propaganda, which is a staple in the history of rhetoric and also very much central to work in visual rhetorics. (Now that I think of it, Laurie Gries works a lot with images [many of them political] and developed a method for studying them longitudinally called "iconographic tracking," which may interest you. Her recent book is Still Life with Rhetoric.) 

[Cotton Joe]

@Chadillac Thanks for pointing me toward Laurie Gries and Still Life with Rhetoric. Her methodology actually would be perfect for working with how the alt-right has morphed memes like Pepe (the frog) and Daily Struggle (sweaty decision guy) into online propaganda tools. 

University of Louisville is the main school I am looking at if I decide to go the rhetoric track. Would you happen to know anything about them or about how well my interests might fit in there?

[Romanista]

On 8/5/2017 at 8:30 PM, Cotton Joe said:

If I am interested in studying propaganda, advertising, and political rhetoric, is a Rhet/Comp PhD right for me? Do I really have a better chance of finding tenure-line work with a Rhet/Comp degree than with a Lit degree?

The previous responses are excellent but I would add that the more your research is tied to pedagogy the higher the chance of getting better odds of finding a job than you would have in literature, if only because literary studies doesn't really focus on pedagogy. So even though the field is far bigger than just teaching writing, if you focus on that part of it you will likely be a more attractive TT applicant.

[Romanista]

On 8/8/2017 at 0:37 PM, renea said:

I will say Rhet/Comp (just like many humanities programs) can provide training in areas that will help you get a degree (such as professional writing, website design, coding, technical writing, ect). I have seen many of the people from my program leave with jobs in hand and our department has only grown.

Are you implying that comp rhet in particular can help you get altac jobs that actually use the skills you learned in graduate school? If so, I'd love to know where and in what sorts of jobs your program has placed graduates outside of academia. 

Edited August 17, 2017 by Romanista

[renea]

8 hours ago, Romanista said:

Are you implying that comp rhet in particular can help you get altac jobs that actually use the skills you learned in graduate school? If so, I'd love to know where and in what sorts of jobs your program has placed graduates outside of academia. 

 I was not specifically referring to altac jobs, but more digitally oriented training will lead to a greater success on the job market (and this is just in my opinion) than a lit degree would. The digital track in my program has training available on user experience, accessibility, web design, project management, ect. Many of our students learn a coding language as a substitute for the foreign language requirement. All of these skills would only add to a resume seeking positions in the tech industry or publishing. I know of program graduates (MA not PhD) who are working as editors and project managers.

 

Like I said in my response above though, this is not unique to rhet/comp, this type of training is available in many humanities programs. I just believe that rhet/comp is a particularly great place to receive this training

[communistswine]

U of Utah has a strong Rhet/Comp program with people doing crowd theory/propaganda stuff. 

[Cotton Joe]

12 hours ago, communistswine said:

U of Utah has a strong Rhet/Comp program with people doing crowd theory/propaganda stuff. 

Great, thanks. I will check them out when I start applying for PhD. Right now, I am geographically constrained to the Southeast, so Utah is out of the question for the MA.

[bhr]

7 hours ago, Cotton Joe said:

Great, thanks. I will check them out when I start applying for PhD. Right now, I am geographically constrained to the Southeast, so Utah is out of the question for the MA.

Depending on what you consider Southeast, that isn't that limiting. I'll put in a plug for Jim Ridolfo's rhetmap.org , which provides both a job list and a map of phd programs. Pretty much every SEC/ACC school has an MA in R/C program or track in English, plus there are great programs at places like ECU, USF, UCF, etc.