Seeks to extend current children's literature criticism into children's plays and children's theatre. Uses Norman Lindsay's "The Magic Pudding" as a prose introduction to an idea of a theatrical carnivalesque. Develops a theory of plays-as-the-performance-of-texts, relating this to the current debate on performance and performativity.…

Analyzes Audre Lorde's speech which interweaves commentary on the silence surrounding breast cancer with insights about silence drawn from her experiences as a member of several subordinated communities. Finds she comments on silencing and power, sexism, verbal abuse, violence and sexualized aggression, shame, and hostile social environments--her…

Reviews and explains Margaret Atwood's novel "The Handmaid's Tale." Argues that Atwood demonstrates that the right reading of her novel is within the novel itself. (MG)

Traces the Romanticism in the work and persona of film director Jean-Luc Godard. Examines the contradictions posed by Godard's politics and representations of sexuality. Asserts, that by bringing an ironic distance to the works of such canonized directors, viewers can take pleasure in those works despite their contradictions. (MM)

Examines the possibility for a textually grounded inquiry of Plato's "Gorgias" and "Phaedrus" that would probe the psychic investments intrinsic to discursive phenomena. Examines the impact of the confrontation with rhetoric as the "Other" of philosophy, and explores the relations among rhetoric, philosophy, and…

Discusses inference and allusion in the dialogue in Plato's Sophist. Examines the sense in which a locution is used, distinguishing among senses of the verb to be, and sets the ball rolling for the development of logic and the whole metaphysics of categories of being. (RAE)

Examines contemporary theories of discourse production and analysis, noting that most are based on a classical paradigm of language conventions. Argues that language refutes this type of formalization. Discusses the ramifications of this perception for the discipline of rhetoric. (MM)

Examines the central communicative features of Richard Rorty's post-foundational philosophy. Argues that Rorty's commitments to edifying philosophy, the cultural conversation, ethnocentrism, and a pragmatic approach to epistemology are all best understood from the perspective of rhetorical theory and practice. (MM)

Explains how the movie "The Lion King" may be used to elucidate Shakespeare's "Hamlet," a play about a prince who does not always seem heroic to modern audiences. Gives specific points of comparison between the two works concerning heroes, characters, conflicts, themes, ending scenes, and archetypal patterns. (TB)

Suggests that a quote from the 17th-century English physician and writer Thomas Browne captures the essence of the poetry of healing. Argues that healing, at its highest calling, combines the technical mastery of the problem with the response of the whole human being to the mystery; and that this many-faceted response is poetry. (SR)

Explains how the author has been driven to search out various sights, locales, or landscapes as they are described in novels, despite the fact that New Critical and Deconstructionist theory would question the worth or relevance of her outings. (TB)

Uses the work of novelist Peter Dickinson as the primary example in exploring the growth of novels in the last 25 years that ask questions about homo sapiens, questions which most adult readers are too afraid to face. (RS)

Discusses the 1955 Vladimir Nabokov novel "Lolita," and the central theme of "Lolita" being a prize in a struggle between two men. Examines some of the moments of sadomasochism in the novel and film, and the relationship between director Stanley Kubrick and the lead actor Peter Sellers. Concludes with an analysis of Kubrick's…

Argues that the dominant themes in Bigelow's "Blue Steel" are female subservience, masculine authority, sex as economic exchange and guilty pleasure, woman as threatening and domestic, and castration anxiety. Analyzes Jamie Lee Curtis's portrayal of the protagonist, Megan Turner, as being androgynous when in uniform, and as possessor of…

Discussion of page design for desktop publishing focuses on the importance of functional issues as opposed to aesthetic issues, and criticizes a previous article that stressed aesthetic issues. Topics discussed include balance, consistency in text structure, and how differences in layout affect the clarity of "The Declaration of…