The Case for a Major in Writing Studies: The University of Minnesota Duluth

The Major in Writing Studies (with emphases in Professional Writing and in Journalism) at the University of Minnesota Duluth marks a curricular innovation. This profile traces the intellectual arguments that created space for a Department and Major in Writing Studies at UMD. Those arguments included a
differentiation from the contested spaces of other disciplines (literary studies and communication studies) as well as from the prior disciplinary identity of the Department (composition studies). These arguments also included a positive identification of Writing Studies as one of the disciplines defined by its object (akin to
American Studies, Women’s Studies, etc.). The object of Writing Studies at UMD is writing, defined as a practice, a tool for cognition and social action, and a force for sociocultural change. These arguments are manifest in the core curriculum of the major (16 credits of courses across all four years of the students’
coursework).