Institutional critique: A rhetorical methodology for change

We offer institutional critique as an activist methodology for changing ins titutions. Since institutions are rhetorical entitites, rhetoric can be dep loyed to change them. In its effort to counter oppressive institutional str uctures the field of rhetoric and composition has focused its attention chi efly on the composition classroom, on the department of English, and on dis ciplinary forms of critique. Our focus shifts the scene of action and argum ent to professional writing and to public discourse, using spatial methods adapted from postmodern geography and critical theory.