Christine R. Farris: Emeriti Faculty: About: Department of English: Indiana University Bloomington

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Emeriti Faculty
Christine R. Farris

Christine R. Farris

Professor Emeritus, English

crfarris@indiana.edu
Office Hours
M-F
By Appointment Only

Education

Ph.D., University of Washington, 1987

About Christine R. Farris

My scholarship and pedagogy focus on analysis of how language, visual, and cinematic representations in texts invite us to occupy various positions as readers and rhetors.

My work has also addressed the delivery and politics of writing instruction, particularly efforts to reconfigure divisions and hierarchies across academic disciplines and within English studies.

Over my 29 years at IU, I have taught courses in writing, rhetoric and composition theory, and literature. I served as director of composition, associate and acting department chair, and faculty coordinator of the dual enrollment composition course offered through IU’s Advance College Project. An NCTE volume I co-edited, College Credit for Writing in High School: the “Taking Care of” Business, which explores the complexity of issues involved in outsourcing writing instruction, won the 2012 Best Book Award from the Council of Writing Program Administrators.

In 2014-15 I co-directed a project supported by the Indiana Commission for Higher Education that paired university and high school English faculty working on strategies for integrating literary and non-literary texts to best foster students’ critical thinking, reading, and writing in preparation for college courses.

Journal Articles and Other Publications

Selected Articles and Chapters:

“Possibilities Rather than Certainties: William Irmscher’s ‘Finding a Comfortable Identity.’” Lost Texts in Rhetoric and Composition, edited by Deborah Holdstein. Modern Language Association (MLA), in press.

“Reclaiming English’s Disciplinary Responsibility in the Transition from High School to College.” Improving Outcomes: Disciplinary Writing, Local Assessment, and the Aim of Fairness, edited by Diane Kelly-Riley and Norbert Elliot. Modern Language Association (MLA), 2021, pp.121-132.

“The Help as Noncomplicit Identification and Nostalgic Revision.” Rhetorics of Whiteness: Post-Racial Hauntings in Popular Culture, Social Media, and Education, edited by Tammie Kennedy, Joyce Middleton, and Krista Ratcliffe, Southern Illinois UP, 2017, pp. 42-53.

“Literature and Composition Pedagogy.” A Guide to Composition Pedagogies, edited by Gary Tate, et al. Oxford UP, 2014, pp.163-176.

“Managing the Subject of Composition Studies: Review Essay.”College Composition and Communication, vol. 65, no. 1, 2013, pp. 209-216.

“The Maternal Melodrama of Writing Program Administration.” Performing Feminism and Administration in Rhetoric and Composition Studies, edited by Krista Ratcliffe and Rebecca Rickly. Hampton Press, 2010, pp. 67-75.

“Minding the Gap and Learning the Game: Differences that Matter Between High School and College Writing.” College Credit for Writing in High School The “Taking Care of” Business, edited by Kristine Hansen and Christine R. Farris. NCTE, 2010, pp. 272-282.

“Inventing the University in High School.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 61, no.1, 2009, W410-417.

“Crash Course: Race, Class, and Context.” College English, vol. 69, no. 4, 2007, pp. 354-359.

Selected Honors and Awards:

Improving Teacher Quality Grant Award, Writing and Reading Alignment Project. Indiana Commission for Higher Education, 2014-2016.
WPA Best Book Award, Council of Writing Program Administrators, 2012.
George Pinnell Award for Outstanding Service, Indiana University (system-wide), 2012.
Distinguished Service Award, Indiana University-Bloomington, 2012.
President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching, Indiana University, 1998.
Provost’s Outstanding Junior Faculty Teaching Award, University of Missouri, 1990.

Department of English