Robert Eddy

Biography

Eddy’s PhD is from the University of Durham, England, where he studied the rhetorics of politics, science, and religion. He has directed writing programs in China and Egypt, and he is the department's current Director of Composition, having come to Washington State University in 2002. He won the University of North Carolina Board of Governors' Award for Excellence in Teaching, 2001.

Publications

Eddy’s Reflections on Multiculturalism appeared in 1996. This book is described in the May, 1998 issue of College Composition and Communication as “essential for teachers and administrators who face the challenge of a multicultural society.” He is co-author, with Victor Villanueva, of Racism and Representations: A Reader of Language and Power, 2008. This book prompts teachers and students to ask if alternative discourses can or should begin to change the academy, discourse communities, and the country in subtle but substantial ways. Eddy's current two book projects are a study of rhetorics of renaming in Malcolm X, and a rhetoric textbook for McGraw-Hill on racialized dimensions of writing from sources. His essay "Writing: the Interpreter of Desires,” originally published in Writing on the Edge, has been reprinted. He is a co-author of “Should We Invite Students to Write in Home languages? Complicating the Yes/No Debate,” published in Composition Studies. It has been reprinted in Second Language Writing in the Composition Classroom: A Critical Sourcebook. Eds. Paul Kei Matsuda and others. Bedford/NCTE, 2006.

Research Interests

Eddy has two research obsessions. One involves an analysis of the interrelationships of the rhetorics of science, religion, and politics, which is the source of his commitment to the study of rhetoric and race, and which inspires his work on rhetorics of change in Malcolm X. Eddy believes the United States must learn from Malcolm how to transform its identity. In the final chapter of his autobiography, composed shortly before his murder, Malcolm wrote as follows:

"I've had enough of someone else's propaganda," I had written to these friends. "I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I'm a human being first and foremost, and as such I'm for whoever and whatever benefits humanity AS A WHOLE." (Chapter 19: "1965.")

Eddy's second research obsession embodies ideological and representation issues connected to writing across cultures, which is the focus of his alternative discourse work, and is the basis of his research in composition theory and practice and in the rhetorics of racism.

Graduate Teaching Interests

Eddy offers graduate seminars on rhetoric and racism, especially connected to Malcolm X, on alternative discourses, and on the teaching of writing to nontraditional students. He regards the one-on-one work he does with MA and PhD students as a crucial site for attentiveness and political work.

Email

eddyr@wsu.edu