College Composition and Communication Jun 2022

Archiving Our Own: The Digital Archive of Rhetoric and Composition at the University of Texas at Austin, 1975–1995

Mark Garrett Longaker ; Nate Kreuter ; Stephen Kwame Dadugblor ; Hannah Foltz ; Tristin Brynn Hooker ; Martha Sue Karnes ; Bethany Caye Radcliff ; KJ Schaeffner ; Kiara Walker

Abstract

As the discipline of rhetoric and composition engages archival studies, we must not only theorize and narrate primary-source research, but also build archival exhibits. Describing our effort to construct a digital exhibit of primary source material relevant to the history of writing instruction at the University of Texas at Austin 1975–1995 (RhetCompUTX, rhetcomputx.dwrl.utexas.edu), we explain how this project speaks to current historiographic debates about the status and the shape of the discipline. We argue that, to make the shift towards an institutional-material perspective, historians and scholars in rhetoric and composition will need to build our own archives of primary-source material, archives that feature four types of items: items relevant to classroom practice, items documenting the institutional circumstances, items recording the disciplinary conversation, and items capturing the political situation. RhetCompUTX not only features all four types of items, but also encourages the user to see the relations among these layers of practice. By describing this exhibit, by summarizing its argument, and by explaining how we described and assembled its items, we encourage other researchers to build similar archival exhibits and to move towards institutional-material historiography.

Journal
College Composition and Communication
Published
2022-06-01
DOI
10.58680/ccc202232018
CompPile
Open Access
Closed
Topics
Export
BibTeX RIS

Citation context

Cited by in this index (1)

  1. Xin (2024)
    What Can the History of the English Language Research Offer? A Diachronic Corpu…
    Across the Disciplines

References (50) · 14 in this index

  1. (2012)
    Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Academic Research Libraries
  2. Berlin (1987)
    Rhetoric and Reality: Writing Instruction in American Colleges, 1900–1985
  3. Bessette (2018)
    Retroactivism in the Lesbian Archives: Composing Pasts and Futures
  4. Brereton (1995)
    The Origins of Composition Studies in the American College, 1875-1925
  5. Buehl et al. (2012)
    Training in the Archives: Archival Research as Professional Development
    College Composition and Communication
Show all 50 →
  1. (2015)
    Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for the Visual Arts
  2. Connors (2003)
    Selected Essays of Robert Connors
  3. Duff (2002)
    “Stories and Names: Archival Description as Narrating Records and Constructing Meanings.”
    Archival Science  ↗
  4. Ede (2004)
    Situating Composition: Composition Studies and the Politics of Location
  5. Enoch et al. (2015)
    Prototypical Reading: Volume, Desire, Anxiety
    College Composition and Communication
  6. Fitzgerald (2007)
    Local Histories: Reading the Archives of Rhetoric and Composition
     ↗
  7. Fleming (2011)
    From Form to Meaning: Freshman Composition and the Long Sixties, 1957–1974
     ↗
  8. Harris (2012)
    A Teaching Subject: Composition Since 1966
     ↗
  9. Haskins (2007)
    Between Archive and Participation: Public Memory in a Digital Age
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  10. Henze (2007)
    1977: A Cultural Moment in Composition
  11. Gaillet (2012)
    (Per)Forming Archival Research Methodologies
    College Composition and Communication
  12. Gartner (2016)
    Metadata: Shaping Knowledge from Antiquity to the Semantic Web
     ↗
  13. Glenn (2010)
    Working in the Archives: Practical Research Method for Rhetoric and Composition
  14. Goggin (2000)
    Authoring a Discipline: Scholarly Journals and the Post World War II Emergence of Rhetori…
     ↗
  15. Gold (2008)
    Beyond the Archives: Research as a Lived Process
  16. Gold (2012)
    Remapping Revisionist Historiography
    College Composition and Communication
  17. Gold (2008)
    Rhetoric at the Margins: Revising the History of Writing Instruction in American Colleges…
  18. Graban (2015)
    Rhetoric and the Digital Humanities
  19. Hayden (2015)
    “Gifts” of the Archives: A Pedagogy for Undergraduate Research
    College Composition and Communication
  20. Hoogeveen (2007)
    Local Histories: Reading the Archives of Rhetoric and Composition
     ↗
  21. Ostergaard (2015)
    In the Archives of Instruction: Writing and Rhetoric in High Schools and Normal Schools
  22. Johnson (2010)
    Working in the Archives: Practical Research Method for Rhetoric and Composition
  23. Johnson (1991)
    Nineteenth-Century Rhetoric in North America
  24. Kitzhaber (1990)
    Rhetoric in American Colleges: 1850-1900
  25. Donahue (2007)
    Local Histories: Reading the Archives of Rhetoric and Composition
     ↗
  26. Mason (2015)
    In the Archives of Instruction: Writing and Rhetoric in High Schools and Normal Schools
  27. Masters (2004)
    Practicing Writing: The Postwar Discourse of Freshman English
     ↗
  28. McKee et al. (2012)
    The Ethics of Archival Research
    College Composition and Communication
  29. Morris (2010)
    Working in the Archives: Practical Research Method for Rhetoric and Composition
  30. Mutnick (2018)
    Pathways to Freedom: From the Archives to the Street
    College Composition and Communication
  31. North (1987)
    The Making of Knowledge in Composition: Portrait of an Emerging Field
  32. (2020)
    Public Information Act Handbook, 2020
  33. Rawson (2018)
    The Rhetorical Power of Archival Description: Classifying Images of Gender Tran…
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  34. Rice (2017)
    The Rhetorical Aesthetics of More: On Archival Magnitude
    Philosophy & Rhetoric
  35. Ritter (2012)
    To Know her Own History: Writing at the Women’s College, 1943-1963
     ↗
  36. Ritter (2018)
    With “Increased Dignity and Importance”: Re-Historicizing Charles Roberts and t…
    College Composition and Communication
  37. Rivard (2019)
    Turning Archives into Data: Archival Rhetorics and Digital Literacy in the Comp…
    College Composition and Communication
  38. Skinnell (2016)
    Conceding Composition: A Crooked History of Composition’s Institutional Fortunes
     ↗
  39. Smith (2007)
    Handbook of Research on Writing
  40. Solberg (2012)
    Googling the Archive: Digital Tools and the Practice of History
    Advances in the History of Rhetoric
  41. Sullivan (2012)
    Inspecting Shadows of Past Classroom Practices: A Search for Students’ Voices
    College Composition and Communication
  42. Warnick (2010)
    Working in the Archives: Practical Research Method for Rhetoric and Composition
  43. Welsh (2007)
    Local Histories: Reading the Archives of Rhetoric and Composition
     ↗
  44. Ramsey (2010)
    Working in the Archives: Practical Research Methods for Rhetoric and Composition
  45. Yakel (2003)
    “Archival Representation.”
    Archival Science  ↗
CrossRef global citation count: 0 View in citation network → Build reading path →

Related articles

  1. Pedagogy Oct 2025
    Contributors ↗
    modern rhetorical theory rhetorical criticism genre theory cultural rhetorics first-year composition writing pedagogy advanced composition creative writing writing across the curriculum graduate education two-year college service learning teacher development technical communication professional writing labor and working conditions archival research multimodality artificial intelligence literacy studies race and writing gender and writing disability studies literary studies editorial matter
  2. Peitho Jan 2025
    Cluster Conversation: (Re)Writing our Histories, (Re)Building Feminist Worlds: Working Toward Hope in the Archives: Introduction ↗
    Ruth Osorio; Lamaya Williams; Megan McIntyre
    rhetorical criticism feminist rhetorics decolonial rhetorics writing pedagogy archival research gender and writing
  3. Literacy in Composition Studies Dec 2024
    The Decolonial Imperative in Basic Writing ↗
    Walter Lucken IV
    rhetorical criticism decolonial rhetorics writing pedagogy basic writing archival research literacy studies
  4. The Peer Review Sep 2024
    Honor Consultant Safety: A Community Contract for Better Writing Center Ethics ↗
    Liz A. W. Thomae; Aleena A. Jacob
    rhetorical criticism decolonial rhetorics writing pedagogy argument collaborative writing writing centers peer tutoring archival research social media race and writing gender and writing disability studies affect and writing literary studies editorial matter
  5. College Composition and Communication Feb 2024
    Digging the Archives in Composition Stretch Pedagogies: Reclamation of Historical Rhetorics to Support Chicanx Emotions of Belonging ↗
    Loretta Victoria Ramirez
    rhetorical criticism first-year composition writing pedagogy archival research race and writing