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Class Politics: The Movement for the Students' Right to Their Own Language (Refiguring English Studies)

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In Class Politics: The Movement For The Students' Right To Their Own Language, Stephen Parks tells the story of the founding and growth of Composition Studies, including the impact of the civil rights, black power, new left, anti-war, and women's liberation movements on the evolving curriculum. Parks includes accounts of internal struggles of such academic influences as the 1974 Conference on College Composition and Communication; the National Council of Teachers of English, and the Modern Language Association. Class Politics: The Movement For The Students' Right To Their Own Language is an informative, scholarly, exceptionally well presented contribution to the history of American twentieth century college and university academia curriculum development studies and politics.

This is an extremely well-research book about not simply the Students' Right to Their Own Language document of 1974 but also the historical, political, and institutional landscape from which that document emerged. In taking us back to the struggle of the New University Conference to influence organizations like the CCCC and MLA, Parks perceptively traces the ways in which leftist academics have attempted (albeit unsuccessfully) to revolutionize the teaching of English. And perhaps most valuably, Parks offers his own vision of how those working within the university can form political alliances that reach beyond the university. A fine book by an insightful scholar.