"Dust Tracks on a Road," author Zora Neale Hurston's autobiography, is not a typical black autobiography. Hurston is a complex woman and author who addresses both black and white audiences, shifting the cadences of her voice to invoke a readership that can hear the textures of many voices and respond to an underlying call to a world…

Using the historic debates as a case study, the author draws inferences about how and why conspiracy arguments become credible and concludes that Lincoln's achievement was strategic and tactical, reflecting an intuitive understanding of how political arguments involving moral questions are discussed in the public sphere. (PD)

This essay shows that Dewey's critique of Rousseau's reference to human nature as a source of educational aims fails due to Dewey's incomplete understanding of Rousseau. More broadly significant is Dewey's neglect of the crucial role assumed by the Natural in both educational theorizing and justification in general. (Author/SJL)

Identifies the characteristics of rhetoric in American justification for war and the portrayal of the enemy as a savage aggressor. Discusses the use of contrasts--force and freedom, irrationality and rationality, aggression and defense--to generate values which subordinate the ideal of peace to the necessity of preserving freedom. (JMF)

This article reviews the development, since 1900, of Irish educational history, with particular attention to the views and contributions of four historians: Timothy Corcoran, P. J. Dowling, J. J. Auchmuty, and D. H. Akenson. (SJL)

Explores the relationship between the traditional methods of teaching composition, beginning in the late nineteenth century and the cultural matrix in which it took shape. Describes the changing student demographics and the ritual mechanisms within a very well-defined sociocultural and pedagogical context. (HB)

Rachel Speght, a London (England) minister's daughter, was not yet 20 years old when she wrote her first pamphlet. In it and her other works, she attempted to transcend patriarchal discourses that sought to both define her identity and determine the limits of her rhetorical situation. Women's ontological status, as derived from orthodox…

Several implications for the understanding of the Darwinian revolution follow from an analysis of the role of colloquial language and prudential reason in Charles Darwin's quest for a theory of evolution. First, the term "natural selection" is not merely or even primarily a technical term and thus cannot be understood accurately apart…

An updated version of a bibliography which appeared in a 1982 edition of "Rhetoric Society Quarterly," this 132-item bibliography is divided into books and articles and book chapters. The selections date from 1933 through 1989. (NKA)

William G. Allen was an African-American professor at Central College, McGrawville, New York. His lecture, "Orators and Oratory," delivered on June 22, 1852, is the earliest recorded study by an American Black on the ancient art of oratory. The text of the lecture is provided. (BJV)

Examines the rhetorical role of several twentieth century historians who were opinion leaders on behalf of the American way of achieving success: by emulating the earlier qualities of our frontier and founding fathers. Discusses the role of Frederick Turner Jackson, Charles A. Beard, Carl Becker, Allan Nevins, and others. (PD)

Reviews the portrayal of Blacks in a number of films. Stresses that not only were opportunities for Black actors scarce until recently, but that those Black roles that did exist were principally fashioned from Whites' misconceptions and stereotypes of Blacks. (GC)

Traces the history of English prose from Francis Bacon to the present, commenting on the quality of various authors' writing and of fiction today. (HTH)

Argues that changes in the form and frequency of preaching in England between 1534 and 1559 were as much the result of political and ecclesiastical struggles as they were of formal developments in rhetorical or homiletical theory. (JMF)

Clive comments on the literary power of Karl Marx (The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon), Alexis de Tocqueville (The Old Regime and the Revolution), Thomas Carlyle (French Revolution), and Jakob Burkhardt (The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy); and notes Macaulay's sensitivity to the "public mind" (History of England). (SJL)