March 26, 2007
Books published by SIU Press capture awards
CARBONDALE, Ill. — Two books published by the Southern Illinois University Press have won awards from national professional organizations in the authors' fields.
"Rhetorical Listening: Identification, Gender, Whiteness," written by Krista Ratcliffe and issued in 2005, received one of two Outstanding Book Awards from the National Council of Teachers of English during the Conference on College Composition and Communication, which ends Saturday in New York City. Awards go to books published two years previously that contribute substantially to the study and teaching of composition and communication. This marks the third consecutive year an SIU Press book has won a prize from this group in this category.
The other book, "Archives of Instruction: Nineteenth-Century Rhetorics, Readers, and Composition Books in the United States" by Jean Ferguson Carr, Stephen L. Carr and Lucille M. Schulz, also published in 2005, won the Modern Language Association's Mina P. Shaughnessy Prize, presented in December 2006 at the group's annual convention in Chicago. The award honors outstanding work in language, culture, literacy or literature, especially as these apply to the teaching of English.
"These awards to me underscore the fact that we're the top university press publisher in the rhetoric and communication area," said SIU Press director Arthur M. "Lain" Adkins.
"It's nice to be No. 1 in something — it brings a lot of recognition to the University."
The SIU Press, which last year celebrated its golden anniversary, publishes works primarily from the humanities and social sciences with specialty niches in theater, film and regional history. Visit it on the Web at http://www.siu.edu/~siupress/.