This dissertation ("The Disciplinary Rhetoric Of The 21st Century: The Emergence of Computers and Composition") analyzes the disciplinary formation of a domain - "computers and composition" - by examining the rhetorical history of scholarship and policy among composition studies scholars. The mixed methodology uses Lloyd Bitzer's "The Rhetorical Situation" and David Shumway and Ellen Messer-Davidow's work on knowledge and disciplinarity as analytical frameworks for investigating, within composition studies, the effect of the personal computer on university writing instruction.
The analysis focuses on scholarly and organizational discourses that disclose the strength of the disciplinary bond between composition and computers and composition. The research and policy recommendations specific to the domain of computers and composition are established under the terms of a disciplinary rhetoric derived from the composition studies, a rhetoric often critical of discourses of the sciences.
I suggest that the identification, examination, and critique of a humanistic rhetoric of technology, and the corresponding rhetorical figure of the "21st century," is crucial to reframing professional development in computers and composition. Furthermore, I call for the creation of permeable, truly interdisciplinary boundaries for computers and composition. I question whether effective disciplinary boundaries between traditionally scientific and humanistic forms of inquiry are even possible or desirable between when investigating "21st century" technologies of communication.