Victor Villanueva

Biography

1986 Ph.D. English (emphasis: Rhetoric and Composition Studies). University of Washington. A Brooklyn-born Puerto Rican high school dropout, Villanueva entered community college after the military (1968-1975). Since his Ph.D. he has worked as an Equal Opportunity Program Director, Writing Project Director, a Director of Composition, and Department Chair. He has chaired a national conference on writing and rhetoric (1998), has led the national organization (1999-2000), and was declared the Rhetorician of the Year (1999) by the Young Rhetoricians Conference.

Publications

Villanueva is the winner of two national awards for Bootstraps: From an American Academic of Color. He is the editor of Cross-Talk in Comp Theory: A Reader, with other books currently in process. He has written nearly 40 articles, one of the most recent, "On the Rhetoric and Precedents of Racism," appearing in Trends and Issues in Postsecondary English Studies (2000). He has delivered over 60 oral presentations, 35 of which have been keynote or featured addresses.

Research Iinterests

Villanueva's research concerns the interconnectedness among rhetoric (in its broadest sense), ideology, and racism, and their manifestation in literacy and literacy practices. To this end, his research takes him through classical and contemporary rhetoric, cultural studies, world-systems theory (as an approach to political economy), critical race theories, and composition studies (particularly contemporary theory).

Graduate Teaching Interests

Villanueva's research interests are reflected in his graduate teaching: composition theory, the teaching of writing to nontraditional students, and contemporary rhetorical theory (in its next iteration to be a study of the rhetorics of fascism and racism). Villanueva finds his greatest graduate teaching to be the kind of one-on-one work involved in advising graduate students through MAs and PhDs.

Links

http://www.wsu.edu/~villav/515.2000.html