Although we use the term author on a daily basis to refer to certain individuals, bodies of work, and systems of ideas, as Michel Foucault and other critics have pointed out, attempting to answer the question "What is an Author?" is by no means a simple proposition. And, starting from the position that there is no single, or definitive answer to this complex question, my dissertation seeks to contribute to the ongoing discussion of the genealogy of authorship by investigating the ways in which conceptions of the author have informed models of the writing subject in the field of rhetoric and composition and the ways in which composition students define and relate to these models.; Drawing on the work of literary critics, cultural theorists, legal scholars, and book historians, the dissertation first reviews the major theoretical frames offered by to interpret the unique status and history of the term author, and the ways in which rhetoric and composition scholars from a range of theoretical positions---current-traditional, expressionist, cognitivist, new rhetorical/social-epistemic---have relied on models of the author to describe student writing subjects.; Secondly, the dissertation presents and analyzes the findings from a 2005 qualitative study of ten composition students at The City College of New York. Key issues that are investigated include: (1) How students define the terms author and writer; (2) The reasons why students consistently apply, or do not apply, these terms to themselves; (3) If those students who conceive of themselves as writers or authors have a different relationship to writing, or various aspects of writing, than students who do not, i.e., a different relationship to audience, rhetorical strategies, technical writing issues; (4) Specific moments in which students achieve an authoritative relationship to writing and how they describe the conditions and circumstances of such moments; (5) If publication and distribution of student work may facilitate a change in a student's relationship to writing, or the conception of him- or herself during the writing process.
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