English Professor Linda Flower Wins RSA Book Award

English Professor Linda Flower is the 2009 recipient of the Rhetoric Society of America (RSA) Book Award. The RSA Book Award is given each year to the best work in rhetorical study as decided by the RSA Awards Committee.

"I saw the award from RSA (which is a sort of standard bearer for theoretical and historical scholarship) as a rather wonderful symbolic statement about the field.  It said that people saw theoretical significance in the live process of community engagement and the work of local publics, and it reasserted the value of rhetoric as not only a practice of analysis but as an art of discovery and change," Linda says.

Linda's winning submission was her book "Community Literacy and the Rhetoric of Public Engagement" (Southern Illinois University Press, 2008). It explores the critical practice of intercultural inquiry and rhetorical problem-solving that encourages urban writers and college mentors alike to take literate action.

Congrats to Professor Flower on her award!

For more information on the book awards, please visit the Rhetoric Society of America's website.