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February 2016 Vol. 53 No. 6

Never has teaching college composition been fraught with more difficulties and competing expectations than in the past decade.  With Repurposing Composition Stenberg (English, Univ. of Nebraska, Lincoln) aims to arm teachers with practical and productive ways to address a variety of pedagogical issues.  From the mandate to produce measurable outcomes in a neoliberal academic environment to the exclusionary, binary view that rhetorical studies are often reduced at the expense of the feminine, the emotional, and the marginalized, Stenberg wades into the messy business of teaching and learning in the 21st century.  She begins with an overview of feminist rhetorical studies as it relates to composition and moves into the dialogics of listening and responding.  The book is strongest when it takes the reader directly into the college classroom, revealing the various strategies employed by Stenberg and her graduate students.  Equally interesting is Stenberg’s critique of neoliberalism in the academy, especially in relation to the feminized, teaching-intensive labor of composition instruction within the larger, research-oriented university—a subject that deserves a separate book, one this reviewer hopes Stenberg writes next.

--S. Batcos, independent scholar

Summing Up: Highly recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty, professionals.