Jarratt, Susan C. (Susan Carole Funderburgh Jarratt)

views updated

Jarratt, Susan C. (Susan Carole Funderburgh Jarratt)

PERSONAL:

Education: University of Texas at Austin, B.A., 1971, Ph.D., 1985; University of Texas at San Antonio, M.A., 1978.

ADDRESSES:

Office—University of California, Irvine, 500D KH, Mail Code: 2650, Irvine, CA 92697. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Educator and writer. Thomas Edison High School, San Antonio, TX, teacher, 1974-80; University of Texas at San Antonio, teaching associate, 1980-82; University of Texas at Austin, assistant instructor, 1982-85, assistant director of Freshman English Program, 1983-84; Miami University, Oxford, OH, assistant professor, 1985-90, associate professor and director of College Composition, 1990-93, director of Women's Studies, 1994-98, professor, 1997-2001; Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, professor and Lillian Radford chair of rhetoric and composition, 1993-94; University of California, Irvine, professor of comparative literature and campus writing coordinator, 2001—.

MEMBER:

International Society for the History of Rhetoric, Modern Language Association, National Council of Teachers of English, Rhetoric Society of America, Writing Program Administrators.

AWARDS, HONORS:

University fellow, University of Texas at Austin, 1984-85; Summer Research Award, Miami University, 1986, 1998; Hampton Fund for Faculty International Initiatives Award, spring, 1997, for travel to Argentina; James L. Kinneavy Award, 1998, for outstanding article published in JAC: The Journal of Advanced Composition; National Endowment for the Humanities fellow, 1998-99.

WRITINGS:

Rereading the Sophists: Classical Rhetoric Refigured, Southern Illinois University Press (Carbondale, IL), 1991.

(Editor, with Lynn Worsham) Feminism and Composition Studies: In Other Words, Modern Language Association of America (New York, NY), 1998.

Contributor to books, including Rhetoric, Pragmatism, Sophistry, edited by Steven Mailloux, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1995. Contributor to professional journals, including the Journal of Second Language Writing, Rhetoric Society Quarterly, and JAC: The Journal of Advanced Composition. Has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Advanced Composition, PRE/TEXT, and Queen: A Journal of Rhetory and Power, and as coeditor of the Peitho newsletter, 1996—. Also reader for journals and publishers.

SIDELIGHTS:

Susan C. Jarratt is an expert in rhetoric whose interests include histories of rhetoric, ancient Greek rhetoric, rhetorical theories, feminist theory and pedagogy, and gender and writing. In an interview with Sherry Angel on the Today@UCI Web site, the author noted that "we are all rhetorical beings for whom effective writing and speaking not only shape our ways of learning in the university and determine our success in the world of work, but also enable us to participate responsibly in public life." Jarratt's book Rereading the Sophists: Classical Rhetoric Refigured discusses the link between ancient sophists and politically correct pedagogy (the principles and methods of instruction) and specifically focuses on the sophists Protagoras and Gorgias. She also presents her view of a link between ancient sophists and contemporary feminist theory. "While most readers are likely to feel that Jarratt stretches her evidence occasionally, everyone who reads the book is likely to learn about the sophists, the history of rhetoric (as well as historiography itself), and composition theory," wrote Jasper Neel in JAC: The Journal of Advanced Composition. Noting that parts of Rereading the Sophists are "spectacular" and that it is a "quite well-written book," Neel went on to write that "all readers of the book will take from it a more sophisticated, if more problematic, notion of how we can write our history and construct our canon. "Writing in Philosophy & Rhetoric, Nola J. Heidlebaugh noted: "Jarratt's examination of Sophistic history and its application to contemporary concerns succeeds in provoking thought along some important new lines."

Jarratt is also editor, with Lynn Worsham, of Feminism and Composition Studies: In Other Words. According to Susan Brown Carlton, writing in the Journal ofWomen in Culture & Society, the book "maps the intersections of feminism, writing pedagogy, and the politics of difference." Carlton went on to write: "This volume will become the standard account of the intersection of postmodern feminism and the cultural studies paradigm in rhetoric and composition studies."