Stanford writing expert to speak at WVU Sunday

Morgantown, WV, November 3, 2006:  Stanford University professor Andrea Lunsford, a leading scholar in composition and rhetoric, will speak from 4-5:30 p.m. Sunday (Nov. 5) at West Virginia University’s Erickson Alumni Center (Evansdale Campus).

"Writing Through and Beyond the College Years" will be a multi-media presentation based on Lunsford’s long-term study of undergraduate students at Stanford University and the variety of writing that they do during their college years. The study looks at writing across the disciplines, but it also reveals how much value students attach to the writing they do outside of their classes.

The presentation will be followed by a 20-30 minute question-and-answer period. A reception will immediately follow at the Erickson Center. The event is sponsored by Bedford/St. Martin Books and WVU’s Department of English. Jay Dolmage, a WVU assistant English professor and undergraduate writing coordinator, and graduate students Lisa DeMedio and Irina Rodimtseva are also participating in the event.

Lunsford is the Louise Hewlett Nixon Professor of English and director of the program in writing and rhetoric at Stanford.

Her scholarly work includes contemporary rhetorical theory; women and the history of rhetoric; collaboration and collaborative writing; current cultures of writing; intellectual property and composing; style; and technologies of writing.

The Stanford professor has written or coauthored 14 books, including “The Everyday Writer; Essays on Classical Rhetoric and Modern Discourse;” “Singular Texts/Plural Authors: Perspectives on Collaborative Writing;” and “Reclaiming Rhetorica: Women in the History of Rhetoric,” as well as numerous chapters and articles. Her most recent books include “Crossing Borderlands: Composition and Postcolonial Studies” and “The New St. Martin's Handbook, 6th edition.”

Lunsford has served as chair of the Conference on College Composition and Communication and chair of the Modern Language Association Division on Writing, and as a member of the MLA Executive Council.

For more info about Lunsford, visit her faculty Web page: http://www.stanford.edu/~lunsfor1/

For more information about the presentation Sunday, contact Laura Brady, director, WVU Center for Writing Excellence, 304-293-3107 ext. 33438 or Laura.Brady@mail.wvu.edu.

W-V-U