"Voice, yes, that's what I want in my students' writing," many teachers say.

"Voice? Doesn't exist—an anachronistic, romantic concept of the self in writing that fails to account for what we know of the postmodern self," some scholars assert.

"Oh, yes, voice—that's what the teacher says he wants but that he won't let me keep in my writing. He wants voice, all right—his own," the student explains.

What is voice? Is it compatible with postmodern views of the self and of writing and reading? And if so, how can it be translated in ways that both respect students and challenge them? Those are the questions and issues that Voices on Voice: Perspectives, Definitions, Inquiry seeks to explore from a diversity of perspectives—from that of writers such as Toby Fulwiler; from readers such as Carl Klaus and Laura Julier; from scholars such as Peter Elbow; from teachers such as Paula Gillespie; from cross-cultural rhetoricians such as Gwen Gong and John Powers; and from the "unvoiced" world of the deaf. Other perspectives—the feminist, the Natvie American, and the postmodern electronic—situate voice differently still. That is, in part, the point of this work: We all hear voices, those we admit, acknowledge, and can construct. How we listen to those voices—as individuals, in communities, as writers, and as readers—is the point of departure of Voices on Voice.

363 pp.1994. College. 0-8141-5634-7.
No. 56347