Gives reasons for using "anti-utopian" texts in foreign language teaching. Shows how Orwell's "1984" can be used to make clear the significance of history, language, education, sex and love, and mass manipulation, and of how fictional texts deliver their message. Practical teaching suggestions are given. (Text is in German.)…

Describes the advantages of students' free discussion groups in literature classes. Provides a transcription of five students discussing a poem. (RL)

Notes that Borgatta is not overly concerned about the discrimination that forms the background to current efforts at cultural recompense for historic exclusion and neglect of disadvantaged groups. (Author/AM)

Comments on Keller's response and notes that concern about discrimination is not the issue, but the recent development and informal acceptance of benign quotas and preference as a form of discrimination that is justified in the name of eliminating discrimination. (Author/AM)

Suggests that educational reform should not be undertaken because of external pressures, out of anguish or expediency; it should, rather evolve out of a realization that answers are needed to meet essential societal needs. (Author/AM)

Considers three works by black authors, all dealing with lynchings, that may be used in a black literature course to introduce students to the esthetic dimension of black literature, as well as to its cultural and racial significance. (GW)

Examines a representative selection of novels by black authors that illustrate the tension that exists in black Americans who have cut themselves off from their historical roots by moving north, leaving behind communal values, and assimilating the values of the northern environment. (GW)

Examines the "Evagoras" from the perspective of contemporary narrative theory, inquiring into internal adjustments that the encomium underwent as epideitic rhetoric sought to play a role in state affairs. Claims uniqueness for the narrative structure of Isocrates's encomium: a combination of fictional narrative (quest for virtue) with…

Looks at Melville's narrative construction of "onion-like...layers of truth" that combine romance and textbook, presents critics' discussion and scholars' treatment of the cetological information present in the text, offers an explanation for the lack of recognition due to the nonfictional parts of "Moby Dick." (JK)

Discusses T. Eagleton's view of rhetoric as a study of the political power of discursive practices, comparing it to views of other theorists. Argues that composition faculty should welcome Eagleton's socialist-inflected revival of rhetoric because he embeds it in a deconstruction of the polarities that marginalize writing teachers and empower the…

The study and appreciation of literature should retain its traditional position at the center of foreign language study. A "problem-centered" model is described for teaching literature in the undergraduate foreign language classroom using texts organized around a series of complex critical problems. (CB)

A foreign language professor makes a case against the tendency of college faculty to conduct research or publish work which is highly specialized and typically useful to only a very small segment of the population. Scholars must increase the breadth of vision, not reduce it. (CB)

Describes a discussion model based on the reader-response approach which thrives on controversy and encourages students to become an active, responsible "community of interpreters." (MM)

Argues that computers offer a means of integrating literary analysis, imaginative writing, and expository writing by both professional and student writers. (JAD)

The English Department at Carnegie Mellon believes they are creating a new-wave curriculum. Theoretical questions are becoming the center of undergraduate study. Scholars want students to think about the political, social, and historical forces that end up shaping a writer's vision, the written work, and the reader's interpretation. (MLW)