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"Contemporary Composition is still inflected by the epistemic turn taken in the 1980s, convincing me that we need to remember what we've forgotten—namely, how impassioned resolves and thrilling discoveries were abandoned and why. I'd like to retrace the road not taken in Composition Studies, to salvage what can still be recovered... I want to inspect the wreckage, in order to show what was the promise of the Happenings for Composition, as well as the huge gray longueur of its pale replacement, Eighties Composition. In so doing, I hope to begin a reconfiguration of our field's pre- and after history."

What happened to the bold, kicky promise of writing instruction in the 1960s? The current conservative trend in composition is analyzed allegorically by Geoffrey Sirc in this book-length homage to Charles Deemer's 1967 article, in which the theories and practices of Happenings artists (multi-disciplinary performance pioneers) were used to invigorate college writing. Sirc takes up Deemer's inquiry, moving through the material and theoretical concerns of such pre- and post-Happenings influences as Duchamp and Pollock, situationists and punks, as well as many of the Happenings artists proper.

Table of Contents

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  1. Cover
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  1. Frontmatter
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  1. CONTENTS
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  1. 0 THE STILL-UNBUILT HACIENDA
  2. pp. 1-32
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  1. 1 “WHAT IS COMPOSITION . . . ?” AFTER DUCHAMP (Notes Toward a General Teleintertext)
  2. pp. 33-68
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  1. 2 THE AMERICAN ACTION WRITERS
  2. pp. 69-120
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  1. 3 SCENES FROM LATE SIXTIES COMPOSITION
  2. pp. 121-184
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  1. 4 WRITING CLASSROOM AS A & P PARKING LOT
  2. pp. 207-234
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  1. 5 NEVER MIND THE TAGMEMICS, WHERE’S THE SEX PISTOLS?
  2. pp. 235-262
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  1. 6 ENGLISH COMPOSITION AS A HAPPENING II
  2. pp. 263-294
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  1. REFERENCES
  2. pp. 295-310
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  1. Bonus Track FUNERAL CEREMONY OF THE ANTI-PROC
  2. pp. 311-313
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  1. INDEX
  2. pp. 314-318
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  1. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  2. p. 319
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