〈ハーバード・ナラティヴ〉の行方

―米国における修辞学・作文史研究の課題と展望―

抄録

 In recent years, Japanese higher education has increasingly drawn on U.S. models to reform academic writing instruction. However, these reforms often lack rigorous historical understanding of the field. In this paper, I explore the historiography of Rhetoric and Composition Studies in the United States from the mid-20th century to 2025, focusing on historians' interpretations of the “Harvard Narrative,” a seminal historical framework originating from Albert Kitzhaber's 1953 dissertation. The paper categorizes this historiographical reception into three distinct phases: the Traditional Period (up to the mid-1980s), the First-Wave Revisionist Period (mid-1980s to early 2000s), and the Second-Wave Revisionist Period (late 2000s to the present). The analysis reveals that first-wave revisionists sought to “rewrite” the “Harvard Narrative” to enhance its theoretical robustness, whereas second-wave revisionists have shifted toward “adding” marginalized voices through local and micro-histories. Although this expansion successfully recovered the experiences of minority groups and non-elite institutions, it also led to pronounced fragmentation of the field and stagnation in critical reevaluation of the dominant narrative itself. As a way forward, I suggest integrating perspectives from the history of higher education to investigate “regional networks” of pedagogical influence.