Helen Foster | Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Writing Studies | University of Texas El Paso

Current Institution	University of Texas El Paso
Current School	Liberal Arts
Department	Englidh
Disciplines	Humanities: Rhetoric and Composition
Current and Past Advisor(s)	Janice Lauer
Birthday	October 19,1712
Address	500 W. University Ave. El Paso Texas 79912 United States Phone: 915-747-6623
Office Hours	Tuesday/Thursday, 3:00 - 5:00 p.m., and by appoiontment

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Education

Purdue University, West Layfayette, IN.

Liberal Arts

Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Composition,

English

(1995 - 2000)

Work Experience

Associate Professor

University of Texas El Paso

(1999 - now)

At the undergraduate level, I have taught the following courses: • first-year composition. • honors first-year composition, • workplace writing (f-t-f, hybrid, and online), • technical writing, and • advanced composition (f-t-f and online). At the graduate level, I have taught the following courses: • composition studies (doctoral only), • postmodern in Rhetoric and Writing Studies (masters and doctoral), • visual rhetoric (masters), and • classical rhetoric (masters). Research Interests: • Rhetoric and Writing Studies (undergraduate major studies, http://www.rhetoricandwritingundergraduatemajor.org • Rhetorical Theory, Cultural Theory, Postmodern Theory • Composition Studies (history and theory) • Disciplinarity and Visibility • Neuroscience and Subjectivity/Agency Scholarship ________________________________________ This book was published in 2007, by Parlor Press as part of the Lauer Series in Rhetoric and Composition. At the website, the book is described as follows: Helen Foster’s Networked Process: Dissolving Boundaries of Process and Post-Process is a rigorous and extensive exploration of one of the dominant metaphors of rhetoric and composition, and, more broadly, of the formation and the future of an academic discipline. Foster offers an important new approach to research in the field, one that explores and moves beyond the tension between “writing process” and “post-process” positions. Her notion of networked process promotes a culture of inquiry that grapples with the complexity of writers, writing research, pedagogy, and curricular change. Central to networked process is a theory of networked subjectivity, an idea that complicates and reformulates commonplace assumptions about student, teacher, and disciplinary identities. Networked subjectivity is grounded in the material reality of writing work and a fundamental acknowledgment of multiple literacies and multiple ways of knowing and being in the world. In Networked Process, Foster offers a compelling and timely investigation of the future of the discipline, arguing convincingly for the promotion of the undergraduate writing major and for the coalescence of disciplinary identity around the increasingly complex, postmodern notion of networked process, encapsulated by the re-visioning of rhetoric and composition as rhetoric and writing studies. ________________________________________ ________________________________________ I have also published articles in Business Communication Quarterly, TETYC, and Composition Forum, and I have presented conference papers at CCCCs, The Popular Culture Association, The Association for Business Communication, and Rhetoric Society of America. ________________________________________ Current Project I am working with Dr. Beth Brunk-Chavez and Dr. Lucia Dura on a first-year composition textbook, Explorations: Guided Inquiry into Writing, to be published by McGraw-Hill. The goal with the book is to lay a groundwork for the writing students will do in a variety of rhetorical, cultural contexts: (1) in the academy, across a variety of disciplines; (2) in the course of their lives to make personal meaning through an autobiographical lens that explores and interprets their relationship to their own histories; (3) in their future professions; and (4) in the course of their civic participation as conscientious and responsible citizens. We believe a mere “how-to” book on writing in these different contexts, however, represents an impoverished view of contemporary rhetoric and writing studies scholarship and, more importantly, that it significantly diminishes students’ potential to write effectively beyond the context of the writing course, itself. Therefore, we have designed a writing textbook that goes beyond merely reflecting contemporary rhetoric and writing studies scholarship to explicitly integrate this discipline-specific content. Our goal is to create an environment that nurtures students’ mastery of the content, even as the content guides students’ practice with the process and production of writing. We believe this knowing “why,” coupled with knowing “how,” renders students more effective writers within their writing courses and, importantly, effective writers beyond, in the myriad of writing situations they will encounter in their futures.

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