Writing Centers’ Entanglements with Neoliberal Success

Authors

Crystal Bazaldua, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
Tekla Hawkins, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
Randall W. Monty, The University of Texas Rio Grande ValleyFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2024

Abstract

Throughout the 2010s, “success” became a common descriptor in writing centers, academic units, and student services. While the term carries connotations of professional achievement and economic improvement, it is rarely explicitly defined. This ambiguity is an example of how the interests of public institutions of postsecondary education are entangled with neoliberalism. Using a corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis approach, this essay examines uses of the ideograph “success” within an original mini-corpus comprising the webspaces of eight writing centers from one large state university system in the United States. The analysis considers how writing centers contribute to neoliberal discourses of “success” that are defined by specific political and business ideologies, reinforce white supremacist ideology, and require students, tutors, and others associated with writing centers to adopt those same perspectives.

Comments

Copyright the Authors. Licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

Recommended Citation

Bazaldua, Crystal, Tekla Hawkins, and Randall W. Monty. "Writing Centers' Entanglements with Neoliberal Success." Praxis 21.2 (2024).

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Publication Title

Praxis: A Writing Center Journal