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From Where I Sit
Infusing
Race, Gender, and Class into the Curriculum at Wheaton College
Paula Krebs, Professor, Wheaton College
I am in an extremely privileged position: I teach at a feminist institution.
This is something few college faculty members can say, except perhaps
those who teach at a handful of elite women's colleges. Not
so long ago, my institution staked out an identity that addressed
gender issues prominently, and that agenda has paid off for all of
us: faculty, staff, students, alumnae, and alumni.
Reading, Writing, Rhetoric (Ranting, Ridiculing) and Reassessing
Hilary Turner,
Department of English, University College of the Fraser Valley, British Columbia, Canada
Rhetoric originated in Athens in the 5th century BCE as a challenge to political authority and
a way in which private citizens could exercise power. It remains the most effective means of
asserting ourselves in the public sphere. That has been my opening speech in every Rhetoric
course I have taught over the past ten years. It is a good way to begin a course that inquires
into the connection between language and power, and to encourage questions about conventional
standards of "correctness" in a classroom setting. Unfortunately, as I discovered, such an
introduction can also be interpreted as an invitation to abuse that power.
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