On October 9-12, 1996, over 400 scholars, researchers, and teachers gathered at the University of Louisville for the first Thomas R. Watson Conference in Rhetoric and Composition. History, Reflection, and Narrative combines oral histories and reflections collected from the featured speakers at the Conference-scholars, teachers, and researchers whose work has been among the most influential in composition's development-with critical perspectives on the period from 1963 to 1983 by another generation of scholars, many of whom will play an important role in defining composition's future. This book offers an important contribution to our ongoing understanding of how composition came to be the profession it is, how the present builds on the past, and how the present may challenge the future.