"Into the Laboratories of the University": A Rhetorical Analysis of the First Publication of the Modern Language Association

Abstract

While disciplinary histories have traced the origins of professionalized literary study, little attention has been paid to the development of specialized rhetorical conventions in this field. This rhetorical analysis of the first publication of the MLA, Transactions of the Modern Language Association of America 1884–5, draws on "writing in the disciplines" research to categorize the stases, topoi, and sentence subject conventions developing in this publication. This analysis clarifies the longstanding and entrenched nature of some current conventions of literary scholarship despite the profound changes in the object of study this field has undertaken.