In 1997, Cornell University's John S. Knight Institute for Writing in the Disciplines (formerly the Knight Writing Program) established a center for research and exchange concerning questions of writing and disciplinarity. This book is the result of the Institute's encouragement of greater self-understanding within specific fields at all levels as well as enhanced dialogue across the disciplines.


Writing and Revising the Disciplines records the reflections and experiences of distinguished academic thinkers and practitioners in the humanities, social sciences, and physical sciences. Attending to the ways their respective disciplinary contexts and practices have changed in the recent past and continue to evolve, the book's contributors explore key issues in the current state of their disciplines in light of crucial moments in each discipline's recent or longer-term history. Each chapter provides a sense of what its author considers exemplary and crucial to the development of his or her academic field.


The shape and form of each chapter, as well as its content, depend on its author's own priorities, investments, goals, and life-history. Each author maps out and investigates continuities and shifts in the field he or she represents while considering the parameters of the discipline's self-definition and the diversity of its writing practices.