A decade after Mary Louise Pratt advanced the notion of “contact zones” as “social spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple,” Professing in the Contact Zone brings together Pratt’s original essay and fourteen compelling responses that interpret, extend, and challenge Pratt’s work. These essays examine how contact zone dynamics play out in various pedagogical spaces: two-year and four-year institutions, composition and literature classrooms, teacher education settings, writing centers, a community outreach project, and faculty/administrative meetings. Taken as a whole, Professing in the Contact Zone encourages us to respond meaningfully to multiple literacies, to negotiate thoughtfully the power differentials in which we play a part, and to engage substantively with questions of what, how, and why we teach.
312 pp. 2002. College. ISBN 0-8141-3740-7.
No. 37407