Kevin J. Porter

Current Position

Assistant Professor of English

Education

Ph.D. English (Composition and Rhetoric Studies), 2002

University of Wisconsin-Madison

M.A. English, 1997

Auburn University

B.A. English, 1992

Magna cum laude

Trenton State College (now College of New Jersey)

Professional Experience

Assistant Professor, Department of English, University of Texas at Arlington (2002-present)

Publications

Books

Meaning, Language, and Time: Toward a Consequentialist Philosophy of Discourse. West Lafayette, IN: Parlor Press, 2006. (Winner of the 2006 W. Ross Winterowd Award for “most outstanding book in composition theory.”)

Articles

“Is There in Truth No Composition?” JAC 26 (2006): 299-310.

“Composition and Rhetoric Studies and the ‘Neglected’ Question of Meaning: Toward a Consequentialist Philosophy of Discourse.” JAC 23 (2003): 725-764.

“Literature Reviews Re-Viewed: Toward a Consequentialist Account of Surveys, Surveyors, and the Surveyed.” JAC 23 (2003): 351-377.

“A Pedagogy of Charity: Donald Davidson and the Student-Negotiated Composition Classroom.” College Composition and Communication 52 (2001): 574-611.

“A Pedagogy of Charity: Donald Davidson and the Student-Negotiated Composition Classroom.” College Composition and Communication 52 (2001): 574-611. Rpt. in NCTE Inbox. 10/23/01. Available online at http://www.ncte.org/inbox/pdfs/10232001/CO0524Pedagogy.pdf

“Terror and Emancipation: The Disciplinarity and Mythology of Computers.” Cultural Critique 44 (2000): 43-83.

“Tale 27.” Comp Tales: An Introduction to College Composition through Its Stories. Ed. Richard Haswell and Min-Zhan Lu. New York: Addison Longman, 2000. 35.

“Methods, Truths, Reasons.” College English 60 (1998): 426-440.

“‘Games of Perfect Information’: Computers and the Metanarratives of Emancipation and Progress.” SubStance 79 (1996): 24-45.

“‘Games of Perfect Information’: Computers and the Metanarratives of Emancipation and Progress.” SubStance 79 (1996): 24-45. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Linda Pavlovski. Vol. 103. Detroit: Gale. 2001. 272-282.

“The Rhetorical Problem of Eternity in Yeats’s Byzantium Poems.” Yeats Eliot Review 14 (1996): 10-17.

“Stylistic Considerations for There Is and It Is.” The SECOL Review 19 (1995): 171-183.

Comments and Reviews

“Review of Truth and Consequences: Intentions, Conventions, and the New Thematics.” JAC 22 (2002): 454-458.

“Review of Post-Process Theory: Beyond the Writing-Process Paradigm.” JAC 20 (2000): 710-715.

“Review of He Got Game.” Aethlon: The Journal of Sport Literature 17 (1999): 176-177 (Co-authored with Kathleen Sullivan Porter.)

“Response” to “A Comment on ‘Methods, Truths, Reasons.’“ College English 61 (1999): 623-625.

Fiction and Poetry

“The Last Great Man of Golf.” Aethlon: The Journal of Sport Literature 14 (Spring, 1997): 1-6.

“The Waterfall.” The Lion’s Eye (Spring, 1991): 25.

“Will They Love Me?” The Lion’s Eye (Fall, 1990): 55.

“The Bus Ride.” The Lion’s Eye (Spring, 1990): 44-51.

Publications in Preparation

Books

Ignorance and the (In)Dispensability of Knowledge: New Directions for Composition Studies, Critical Theory, and Rhetoric (prewriting stage)

Meaning: Essential Readings across and beyond the Disciplines, 1838-present (proposals circulating as of April, 2005)

Articles

“Pardoning Oneself from the Past: The Argumentum ab Ignorantia” (completed draft)

“The Disposition of Knowledge: On Not Reading (Žižek and Everyone Else)” (prewriting stage)

“The Meanings of Meaning in Marxism and the Philosophy of Language.” (prewriting stage)

Conference Presentations

“Who is English Studies For?” annual convention of the National Council of Teachers of English (Pittsburgh, PA; November, 2005)

“Opening a Space from which to Write: The Argumentum ab Ignorantia,” Conference on College Composition and Communication (San Francisco, CA; March, 2005).

“Opening a Space from which to Write: The Argumentum ab Ignorantia,” UTA English Department Brown Bag Lecture Series (October 25, 2004).

“Pardoning Oneself from the Past: The Argumentum ab Ignorantiam,” Conference of the Rhetoric Society of America (Austin, TX; May, 2004).

“A New Pedagogy of Identity, Perspective, and Response: A Postscript,” Conference on College Composition and Communication (New York, NY; March, 2003).

“A Pedagogy of Charity: Donald Davidson and the Student-Negotiated Composition Classroom,” Rhetoric and Composition Colloquium (Madison, WI; April, 2001). By invitation.

“Repositioning Truth and Rationality in Multicultural and Student-Negotiated Classroom Contact Zones,” Conference on College Composition and Communication (Atlanta, GA; March, 1999).

“Multicultural and Student-Negotiated Classroom Contact Zones: An Apology for Truth and Rationality,” 5th Annual Students of Education Symposium (Madison, WI; April, 1998).

“A Voice from the Underclass: TAs and the Profession,” Arizona State University Composition Conference ’96: Writing and Community (Tempe, AZ; February, 1996).

“Differences in the Actual and Theoretical Use of Expletives,” Spring Southeastern Conference on Linguistics (Athens, GA; April, 1995).

“A Sparkling, Brilliant Diamond,” Southwestern Popular Culture Association Annual Convention (Stillwater, OK; February, 1995).

“Authority and Persuasion,” Mapping Composition: Graduate Students Exploring the Territory (Auburn, AL; November, 1994).