This book examines the status of composition in English studies and the uneasy relationship between composition and literature. The three parts of the book (entitled "Where the Carnival Has Been,""The Carnival in the Great American Theme Park: Established Composition," and "Alternative Entertainments") seek to clarify the historical and political contexts of composition teaching, research, and administration. Drawing on the author's extensive experience as a composition administrator, teacher, and scholar, as well as on a national survey of prominent composition professionals, the book argues that composition instructors inadvertently continue to foster the negative myth about composition's place in the English hierarchy by assuming an assigned, self-sacrificial cultural identity. An appendix contains the survey instrument and results. (KEH)