FOREWORD TO THE CYBER-EDITION

 

This monograph was first published in 1979, and is a revision of my Master's Thesis at Kansas State University, written under the direction of the late Dr. Donald Stewart. I owe Dr. Stewart a great deal, not the least of which is my understanding of rhetoric as a profoundly moral and humanistic art; I continue to build on the foundation of his rich understanding of the diversity and historical context of rhetorical studies in the U.S. in the 19th and 20th Centuries. The profession lost a great thinker and humanitarian when Dr. Stewart died.

 

From this early consideration of the role and promise of tagmemics, I have continued to write and teach about tagmemics and have bequeathed to a number of graduate students a love and respect for tagmemic discourse theory. Several of them have written doctoral theses on one or more aspects of tagmemic discourse theory and its role in shaping the profession at large, informing our pedagogy, and providing innovative ways of producing and understanding texts.

 

Except for a few minor places, this text represents the original 1979 manuscript. I would change a number of things in the text were I to do it again; however, it seems to me a useful historical document, capturing the spirit and optimism of one era in the contemporary history of composition history, theory, and pedagogy, and I invite the cyber-reader to explore it in that context.

 

My thanks to my doctoral student, Joe Wilferth, for scanning, editing, and formatting my text for web publication. 

(c) 1997, Bruce L. Edwards. All Rights Reserved.