Subverting Crisis in the Political Economy of Composition

In an era of normative austerity in US higher education, composition is being trans- formed by budget cuts, retrenchment, and marketization. Nevertheless, the field’s scholarship continues to compartmentalize questions concerning the material terms of practice away from questions of curricular philosophy. Because composition has not developed a deliberate, sustained inquiry into how scholarship and teaching are being shaped by the perpetual crisis of austerity economics, we are compelled to adopt myopic and reactionary stances toward our work. As a means of subverting composition’s perpetual crisis, Scott advocates disciplinary work that not only imagines new, globally focused, and politically conscious curricula but also actively pursues the creation of the work and learning environments that are necessary for their successful realization.