Discusses texts that provide current thinking about and by women actors regarding the intersections of feminism and theatre. Focuses on the works' discussions of the Stanislavsky system and the Method as technique for actors and on the sense of these techniques' impact on feminist performance practice. Concludes that only by examining the dynamics…

Comments on the mistrustful attitude toward feeling and the biological body in feminist theories of performance. Proposes that recent developments in cognitive neuroscience and neurophysiology can provide a way to reengage issues of feeling, consciousness and performance. Calls for feminists to reconsider not only Stanislavsky-based approaches to…

This article reviews the research suggesting gifted girls are motivationally disadvantaged as well as research on the task, social, and motivational conditions that may explain these differences. A feminist critique of the gender differences research suggests some research strategies that can address and redress some of the problems in research…

Documents the author's interpretation of Frances Hodgson Burnett's "The Secret Garden." Explores a series of questions dealing with issues such as sight, speech, power, gender construction, and symbolism. Reveals the positive and potent ways women subvert the hegemony of patriarchal society and the celebration of the divine feminine…

Proposes that in addition to entertaining, film offers up subject positions; mobilizes desires; influences its audience unconsciously; and helps construct the landscape of American culture. Notes that film can provide a pedagogical tool for offering students alternative views of the world. Concludes that as a form of public pedagogy, film combines…

Explores how oral and print characteristics mesh or clash in "words-in-freedom," a form of visual poetry invented by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. Analyzes Marinetti's poster-poem "Apres la Marne, Joffre visita le front en auto," highlighting the different natures of the two media and the coding difficulties occasioned by…

Uses Emmeline Pankhurst's speech "The Importance of the Vote" to analyze how a speaker may utilize the discourse of the dominant culture to force revolutionary change within that culture. (MG)

Defines and analyzes the ideological conditions which motivate a writer to conclude a screenplay with an open ending. Questions whether screenwriting instructors in the 1990s should encourage their students to write nonclassical Hollywood cinema endings. (KEH)

Contends that "disillusionment novels" are characterized by a circumscribed vision of the world which itself is a function of limits set upon the authors by the historical situation of their position in society. Analyzes two Nigerian classic examples of the genre, Chinua Achebe's "A Man of the People" and Wole Soyinka's…

Calls for the application of traditional tests of evidence and argument to the conspiratist discourse. Demonstrates through the example of the Korean Air Lines 007 incident that conspiratist critics must develop an evaluation system to explain their arguments. Suggests that conspiratist strategies can limit real communication. (SG)

Uses a pragma-dialectical analysis to argue that the legal process is rational. Suggests that the legal system's own rules guarantee that the conditions of rational and efficient discussion are present. Describes the Netherlands' civil procedure rules and shows how such rules help ensure that legal discussions are rational. (SG)

Concludes through an examination of recent criticism of William Blake's works that the literary canon is subject to change over time. Suggests that this is true because of both new critical developments and accumulations of new information through research. Argues that even critical theory is affected by such research. (SG)

Discusses the findings of a content analysis of reviews of picture books that examined whether: a vocabulary for describing illustrations exists; reviewers respond to elements of art techniques; media used for illustrations are discussed; equal attention is given to text and illustrations; and reviewers relate text and art to each other. (four…

Examines Susan Sontag's February 1982 Town Hall Address as a case study of strategies and constraints associated with contextual reconstruction (whereby rhetors address perceived conflicts between text and context). Traces the development of these concepts in Sontag's writings. Discusses the counter-intentional understanding of Sontag's speech by…

Examines possible causes and consequences of the growth of English literary criticism. Asserts that the current mass of publication is inappropriate to literary criticism, and damages the status of the discipline as well as the development of the individual critic. Calls for a reappraisal of the role of critical publication. (MM)