As people commemorate ACT UP and examine its memory in public cultures, the 2011 revival of "The Normal Heart" (TNH) and the rhetorical labor undertaken to evoke political emotionalities inside and outside of the theater provides one site for analyzing how direct action politics, both past and present, are imagined as a kairotic response to…

Plato's "Symposium" is a significant but neglected part of his elaborate and complex attitude toward rhetoric. Unlike the intellectual discussion of the "Gorgias" or the unscripted conversation of the "Phaedrus," the "Symposium" stages a feast celebrating and driven by the forces of "Eros." A luxuriously stylish performance rather than a rational…

Applies Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of the novel to Bertolt Brecht's "Drums in the Night" to illuminate the play's dialogic structure and alienation value, and reappropriate its prerevolutionary dimensions for contemporary use. (MM)

Compares the views of Burke and Langer, emphasizing their agreement that the potential of dramatic works to elicit desired responses from audiences lies in the element of formal expressiveness, which in effect defines ideal audiences. (MS)

Presents a history of British television drama and the improvements implemented since its inception. (AN)

Presents an analysis of the rhetorical strategy of Shaw's Saint Joan" and analyses some of the qualities that serve to make the play endearing to readers and audiences today. (AN)

The rich tradition of drama as instrument, the many eloquent defenses of drama as teacher, and the structural potentialities of thought-controlled drama argue convincingly that didactic drama can be both useful and fascinating. (Author)

Defines modern tragicomedy and focuses on Henrik Ibsen's play, "Little Eyolf" as representative of this literary genre. (MH)

Examines the critical treatment of business in six late nineteenth century plays by two successful American playwrights, Bronson Howard and Augustus Thomas. Analyzes the elements of character and dramatic conflict arising from the antibusiness theme. (JMF)

A discussion of the dramas of the Norwegian novelist-playwright Knut Hamsun YKnutPedersenI (1859-1952). (RD)

The authors argue that self-report measures and transcriptions of conversations are ineffective means of gathering data about self-disclosure. Influenced by Kenneth Burke and Hugh Duncan, they illustrate--with a discussion of Shakespeare's character of Richard III--the advantages of using soliloquies as examples of self-disclosure. (PD)