Unlike the criticism of the literary arts and the spoken word, rhetoric, television criticism is in its infancy. The styles suggested for television criticism have primarily been drawn from modern drama, literature and semiotics. Today, television critics of the scholarly sort are looking at a variety of styles to see if they can tell their…

Three position papers, originally presented at a special symposium of economists and educators, are presented concerning the policy impact that the changing economic environment will have on colleges and universities in the financing of higher education in the United States. The position papers are: "The University and the Reemergence of…

Literary sociology is a multifaceted process of analyzing texts. It moves beyond traditional literary criticism to incorporate such varied approaches as: appreciating literary schemata; textual analysis; seeking form, sound, and content regularities; examining the lasting values of the work; and contemplating the reader's own authentic life-world…

Followers attribute authority to charismatic leaders through their faith and belief in them and in their mission. Charismatic authority in organizations involves an interaction of leader, followers, and moral order; in the eyes of the followers, the leader personifies that order. Authority must come from below because the ultimate decision to…

During the past 15 years, a fundamental change has taken place in literary criticism, with a decline in New Criticism (literature viewed as a public object) and an increase in reader response criticism (literature viewed as a private experience). New Critics considered the meaning of a literary text to exist within the text as an independent and…

For the generation of Americans who witnessed and perhaps even fought against the Hitler regime, the consequences of his political manipulation had a significant and tangible impact on their lives. For younger generations it is necessary to work to understand how Hitler constructed his appeals to the German people. While a great deal of his…

Fifty-five million people were transfixed before their television sets in July 1987 by the agonistic 21-minute summation of Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii of the events of the congressional inquiry into the Iran-Contra scandal. Senator Inouye's text summarized and characterized split national purposes that collided, in which norms and codes of…

To find out whether the portrayal of mothers in young adult novels reflects real-life mothers and the many social and political changes of the past 20 years, a study examined 33 books selected from Booklist. The books had to have realistic and contemporary settings and include a characterization of a mother. They were examined for attributes that…

This survey of audiovisual productions on the topic of youth suicide identified all available audiovisual productions in the area of adolescent suicides through existing catalogs and reviews, contacts, and specialized database searches; 99 films or videotape productions were then screened and reviewed as part of the development of a catalog by the…

A study examined the effects of published film reviews on viewers' interest in and evaluation of the reviewed film. In the film interest experiment, 89 undergraduate students were randomly assigned positive, mixed, or negative reviews of a British film. The control group received a review of a different film. Subjects were asked to read the…

Intended as a guidebook for high school English teachers, this book contains analyses of American novels commonly read in high school English classes. Each chapter is divided into two sections: an analysis of the novel, including discussions of story and setting, characters, themes, and language and style; and a guide to teaching the novel in the…

Since performance is the main difference between drama and fiction, it should be included in drama instruction in order to give students a complete view of what drama really is. Accordingly, a series of theatrical techniques to teach four elements of drama--plot, character, setting, and mood--were elaborated. Improvisations, pantomimes,…

Akira Kurosawa, the most popular Asian film maker with audiences in the United States, has found in William Shakespeare's plays themes and plots that resonate within Japanese culture. While the translations of "Macbeth" into "Throne of Blood" and "King Lear" into "Ran" are quite direct and literal with only…

The rhetorical functions of history depend on the domain in which history is used, with no connotations of interpretive priority attaching to the social or the academic realm. The appropriation of history in support of social causes as radically opposed as socialism and fascism fuels the temptation to subsume history under ideology, with the…

Plato's "Republic" and George Orwell's "1984" both posit visionary worlds, one where humans are virtuous and understand what Plato refers to as "the Good," and the other where citizens are pawns of a government which uses language as a form of tyranny and control. Despite these overarching differences in philosophical…