Genre: An Introduction to History, Theory, Research, and Pedagogy
by Anis S. Bawarshi and Mary Jo Reiff · Parlor Press / The WAC Clearinghouse
Free full-text scholarly survey covering genre across literary theory, systemic functional linguistics, English for Specific Purposes and rhetorical genre studies, from Bakhtin and Carolyn Miller onward. Includes a glossary and annotated bibliography for further reading. The only genuinely comprehensive, genuinely free map of the field — it covers the traditions Frow compresses and the ones purely literary treatments ignore (linguistics, workplace and public genres).
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Frow traces genre from Aristotle through structuralism, Bakhtin's speech genres and rhetorical genre studies, arguing that genres are frameworks generating meaning rather than fixed classes. Compact, heavily referenced, and the standard graduate entry point to contemporary genre theory.