Film is not often taught for itself and by itself; it is too often viewed as the handmaiden of literature. More often than not it is taught in English departments because: (1) like novels, poems, plays and philosophical arguments, it is a humanistic text; (2) film writers and directors have historically turned to literary texts as their source…

This paper examines the charges made in the highly publicized report, "How Schools Shortchange Girls," published by the American Association of University Women (1992). The paper shows how the findings in this report are based on a selective review of the research and how findings contrary to the report's message were suppressed. The paper reviews…

It is explained how two streams of modern linguistics--stylistics and text linguistics--can be related to the study of literary texts. It is concluded that a study of the ways in which the sentences of a text are interlinked can reveal certain stylistically relevant characteristics of that text. (Available from: See FL 508 214). (RM)

In criticism, as in real life, we should take into account what the dramatic speaker is doing in the act of uttering a piece of discourse. (JH)

Attempts to find exclusively Elizabethan solutions to the human problems in Shakespeare's plays often lead us to deny our own responses. (JH)

Rhetorical theorists since Socrates have advocated a rhetoric that reveals truth and avoids concealment. This tradition rests, however on the questionable epistemological assumptions that data exist prior to the linguistic formualtion of them and that such data can be articulated in objectively verifiable discourse. In opposition to this point of…

The idea that rhetoric might operate in epistemologically significant ways was first presented by Plato. This paper argues that the heart of Plato's conception of epistemic discourse is a recognition of the centrality of intrapersonal rhetoric. Through a careful study of Platonic writing, particularly the "Phaedrus," three principal…

Transactional literary theory centers on the reader's contribution in the two-way relationship with the literary text, lifting the reader to a prominent, essential position along with the author and the text. It develops the premise that the reader evokes a literary work through selective attention to the details of the author's "paper and…

A psychological/ritual model of criticism is used to examine the movie "The Deer Hunter" as a rhetorical event in which males undergo psychological change through their war and postwar experiences. The critical model depends on understanding a Jungian interpretation of the human psyche, the form and function of initiation rituals, and…

Kenneth Burke's Dramatistic Pentad is an analytical device intended to be used by critics to discover the roots of motivation for particular acts. The five elements of the pentad are the scene, act, agent, agency, and purpose. Using the Burkean Pentad, this symposium presents the following five analyses of Watergate: "Scenic Responsibility:…

The purpose of this essay is to examine philosophy, history, sociology, and rhetoric with an eye toward demonstrating that the rhetorician is at least as well equipped to deal with the concept "movement" as other writers with different training. Rhetoricians have been preoccupied with moving men and not societies. A…

Papers delivered at the 1973 and 1974 meetings of the Conference in Rhetorical Criticism are contained in this pamphlet. These papers are preceded by a list of student and faculty participants, a list of editor-critics, and a schedule of events for each of those two years. The 1973 address to the conference, entitled "Rhetorical Criticism as…

Almost 500 students were involved in this study to determine (1) the kinds of criteria used by high school and college students for critical discrimination of poetry, (2) what changes occurred in the used of these criteria as the students progressed in their education, and (3) the relationship of the study results to the improvement of literary…