In his novel "Small World," David Lodge lampoons the professional conference experience and satirizes the academic participants. One real-life conference-goer identifies herself with one of the main characters of the novel: she is a conference and professorial novitiate but a quick study. After attending a few conferences, she found…

this paper uses an interdisciplinary research methodology to engage the resources provided by the humanities and the liberal arts in a discourse analysis of Unitarian Universalism. The paper describes Unitarian Universalism as a contemporary religious-rhetorical movement and distinctive persuasion which nurtures an evolving, enriching religious…

Aristotle's four virtues of style--clarity, propriety, dignity, and purity--can serve as a useful model for teaching and for research in linguistic style. These virtues reflect the writer's careful consideration of the subject, the audience, the writer's voice, and the linguistic community for the writing. Unfortunately, these virtues have fallen…

Literary works should not be used as platforms on which teachers can espouse their own social, political, or religious prejudices; but should be taught as works of art with their own integrity. (JH)

Problems involved in teaching the Chinese language through literature include: the difficulty of the language; the lack of good anthologies of Chinese literature for classroom use; the question of original works vs. abridgements; lack of good critical introductions and studies and Chinese approaches to philosophy and literary construction. (CHK)

Critiques the National Association of Social Workers policy statement on manpower and contends that it is essentially useless to the social work educator seeking greater specificity regarding the competencies to be developed at each level of the educational continuum. (Editor/PG)

Spanish foreign language teaching should aim at the following: 1) adequate reading-comprehension ability; 2) fluency in spoken and written Spanish; and 3) ability to recognize linguistic characteristics in literature, which would serve as a basis for further graduate stylistic research. (Text is in Spanish.) (Author/DS)

Presents an overview of social class theory and its measurement by discussing several stratification theories, clarifying definitions of terms, tracing the measurement of social status as a construct, and evaluating the utility of various measurement scales. Suggests that each dimension of social status be separately identified and investigated.…

Article evaluated the place of structuralism as a mode of literary criticism. (Author/RK)

A study of rhetorical behaviors in mass movements. (CH)

Discusses how to deal with "The Lord of the Rings" by J. R. R. Tolkien as a centerpiece for a course in science-fiction and fantasy literature. (RB)

Describes a method of teaching form in literature by having students write about the point of view, the setting, or the person in a story or poem.

An illustrative rather than an exhaustive bibliography on approaches to rhetorical criticism, this update of an earlier publication lists more than 150 selections. The bibliography is divided into sections on: (1) discussions of the Burkean approach; (2) applications of the Burkean approach; (3) discussions of the fantasy theme approach; (4)…

Using rhetorical and historical approaches, this paper examines speech excerpts of four speakers active during the civil rights movement in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The paper's first section discusses Malcolm X and a speech delivered two months before his assassination; the second section studies James Allen speaking on…