Reiff, M. & Bawarshi, A. (Eds.). (2016). Genre and the Performance of Publics. Logan, UT: Utah State University Press.

Abstract

Mary Jo Reiff and Anis Bawarshi’s edited volume, Genre and the Performance of Publics, was released during a time when I felt that Rhetorical Genre Studies (RGS) had started to stabilize in terms of advances within the field. Decades of quality research into the different genres found in various socio-institutional settings (e.g., academic, professional and community contexts) had developed many useful and insightful concepts; RGS scholars had found their “normal science”, to borrow Thomas Kuhn’s phrase. One such “normalized” concept is Anne Freadman’s notion of “uptake”. As Reiff and Bawarshi explain, uptake has been used to examine the ways that genres shape rhetorical responses and how broader discursively-constructed ideas filter into our daily lives and re-appear in unique ways, such as by shaping our behaviour.

Keywords

• review