KNOXVILLE — David Gold, a UT Knoxville assistant professor of English, has won the 2010 Outstanding Book Award from the Conference on College Composition and Communication for his recent book, “Rhetoric at the Margins: Revising the History of Writing Instruction in American Colleges, 1873-1947.”
Gold’s book examines how African American, female, and working-class college students were schooled in rhetoric in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The work draws on archival materials to study three types of institutions historically under-represented in disciplinary histories: a black liberal arts college in rural East Texas; a public women’s college; and an independent teacher training school.
Gold writes that each of these schools championed intellectual and pedagogical traditions that differed from the Eastern liberal arts model – a model that often serves as the standard for rhetorical education. By emphasizing community uplift and civic participation, Gold argues for the importance of diverse institutional microhistories and asserts that the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries offer rich lessons for contemporary classroom practice.
Norbert Elliott, head of the book award committee, wrote that Gold’s book provided “a fascinating, nuanced archival study of institutions serving diverse student populations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries” that challenges “powerful historical taxonomies” and redefines rhetorical education.
Gold’s work has also appeared in leading journals in rhetoric and composition studies such as “College English,” “Rhetoric Review,” “MLA Profession” and “College Composition and Communication.” Gold has received several honors and awards for his scholarship, including the John C. Hodges Excellence in Teaching award from UT. He earned the masters and doctorate in English with a concentration on rhetoric and writing from the University of Texas at Austin.
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C O N T A C T:
David Gold (865-974-5401, dgold1@utk.edu)
Chuck Maland (865-974-6927, cmaland@utk.edu)