DawgNotes

I am intrigued by the idea of editing Porter Perrin's dissertation, but don't feel I could pull it off in a semester otherwise filled with reading and writing. I am interested in analyzing his body of work, because I never heard of him and find that interesting.

I'm interested in some kind of history about the separation of composition and rhetoric in the American university. My starting point here is Berlin, Rhetoric and Reality, but I have on my desk right now at least four books that are histories of rhetoric in the American university prior to 1950 (with start dates in various point of the 19th century). Since rhetoric is my track, but comp is this course, this disconnect seems compelling.

Or there's the original idea I had about archival research in the journals of the field, particularly the CLA, in dialogue with the "mainstream" journals of the time. I suppose I could do that, but I've lost some of the steam it takes to actually pull such a project off.

So the long and short of life this evening is I don't have clarity on what my project can or should be, and sometime between tonight and Thursday morning, I will try to fix that. Meanwhile, comments and suggestions are welcomed.