| This dissertation develops critical approaches for reading and teaching the form of the personal essay. Through an historical overview, I situate the personal essay, as used in the field of rhetoric and composition, within the larger context of literary scholarship on the essay form and the wide-ranging interest in the “personal” in many fields of study. I trace the rise of the essay in composition studies and show its connections to and divergences from creative writing, feminist studies, and “expressivist” pedagogies. Then, through case studies of the work of three influential practitioners—Nancy Sommers, Lynn Z. Bloom, and Wendy Bishop—I provide a focused view of specific essays and how they function rhetorically. Additionally, by demonstration, I argue for strategies of reading and response that take writer, form, style, audience, and context into account.; While many people have noted and debated the turn to the personal essay, few have undertaken careful, multi-layered studies of it within specific disciplinary contexts. As a result, while the personal essay is especially contested, we know little about the form and its functions. My dissertation investigates the question of why the nature and place of the personal has drawn so much attention, even controversy, during the latter half of the 20th century and works to define “personal” in careful rhetorical ways. As an alternative to recent characterizations of the personal essay as inherently self-indulgent or anti-intellectual, I advocate and demonstrate readings informed by rhetorical, reader response, and feminist autobiographical theory and guided by the essay form itself, arguing that such readings can help teachers and scholars better imagine the role the form can play in future pedagogy and scholarship. |
