The Centrality of Style

This volume of interdisciplinary essays argues for the importance of style in composition and how we understand teaching it. The essays examine the centrifugal and centripetal forces style exerts on our understanding of language and its composition. The nineteen essays are organized into two sections on conceiving style and applying it in a pedagogic context. Both are prefaced with an introductory essay. The essays consider the deception inherent to style and its ethical implications for writers, the worthwhileness of engaging in "stylistic play," Mikhail Bakhtin's concept of "surplus of vision," and the importance of stylistic awareness beyond savviness, how to make style practically cool and theoretically hip, teaching style as a cultural practice, style in research papers, pedagogic arguments for teaching stylistic variation, using functional language analysis in college writing instruction, style pedagogy in creative nonfiction, style in the writing of Mary Wollstonecraft, psychic distance in writing pedagogy, and more. The contributors are mostly American professors and writing instructors teaching at the university level. Annotation c2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)