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The constitution of "rhetoric and composition" as a discipline is the subject of a long-standing and ongoing debate that grapples with what each of the terms might be said to signify in relation to the other, and why. Given the multiple meanings of rhetoric and composition, as well as the vexed history of institutional relationships between these two terms, it is important for scholars to trace how they are "worked"--that is, how they materially function--in a variety of specific circumstances. In this article, the authors begin by mapping the main questions embedded in particular definitions they see operating in common discourse about "rhetoric and composition." They delineate the ways in which specific definitions address some of these questions in light or disregard of others; the material conditions shaping particular notions of rhetoric and composition; and the ways in which individual notions impede or advance efforts to build more equitable and mutually constitutive relations across a rich array of strands working rhetoric and composition. Finally, they propose lines of inquiry by which such relations might be developed. These include, importantly, recognizing, and making more productive use of, relationships that "rhetoric and composition" might have with rhetorical study not affiliated with composition, and also with education and applied linguistics. (Contains 17 notes.)