William H. Kilpatrick is worldwide known as "Mr. Project Method." But the origin of his celebrated paper of 1918 has never been explored. The discovery of a hitherto unknown letter reveals that Kilpatrick was an educational entrepreneur who, without regard for language and tradition, adopted the term "project" and used it in a provocative new way…

Examines how, in the film "Lady of the Lake," an experiment with the conflation of the look of the camera with that of the protagonist through extended first-person camera techniques dismantles conventional voyeuristic visual pleasure, affects the representation/fetishization of women in the film, and figures into the debate on the…

This article analyzes a critique of Dewey, written in 1975 by Chou Jung-hsin, China's Minister of Education, showing that Chou was utilizing a traditional Chinese technique of "attack by analogy" and that his real target was the ultra-leftism in Chinese education resulting from the Cultural Revolution. (Editor/SJL)

Analyzes Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.'s dissenting position on Vietnam by considering it as representative of the mode of foreign policy argument called "technocratic realism." Argues that such dissent can offer only an incomplete critique of U.S. foreign policy, because it does not question the policy's underlying purposes. (SR)

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)

Sketches a brief history of the 1858 debates and analyzes their argumentative patterns. Speculates about the transformation of controversial questions through public debate. (PD)

Examines Freud's Clark Conference Lectures in which he offers a case in point of the intersection among knowledge, power, and discourse. Argues that Freud's rhetorical action constituted the "new" knowledge of psychoanalysis, while simultaneously forging relationships between the scientific and medical communities that endowed the…

This essay analyzes Kenneth Burke's speech ("Revolutionary Symbolism") to the 1935 Writers Congress, a congress intended to explore the relationship between politics and art, and controlled closely by the American Communist Party. The essay maintains that Burke was prepared to offer to the Communist Party and to all…

Examines public address in the post-bellum South (focusing on the years 1865 to 1900) as a form of epideictic speaking, in order to illuminate both the genre and the Southern mind. (SR)

Argues that Juan Luis Vives' efforts to rehabilitate the discipline of discourse may well have been the most original of the sixteenth century, and that his discussion of elecutio (the essence of rhetoric) is considerably more distinguished than that of the better known Peter Ramus. (RS)

Explores silent film actress Norma Talmadge's "star persona" in the 1920s. Focuses on the public discourses that provide the background for Talmadge's departure from the screen. Analyzes why her two "talkies" failed commercially and critically. Concentrates on promotional and publicity materials and on the films themselves. (PA)

Argues that 19th-century "declarative"/"reiterative" rhetoric derives theoretical authorization from the 82nd "Athenaum Fragment" of Friedrich Schlegel. Analyzes content and rhetorical structure of Schlegel's polemical/reiterative rejection of "philosophical and scientific demonstration." Discusses the…

Presents critical approaches to open and distance learning (ODL) and its role in modern societies based on experiences in the United Kingdom. Topics discussed include a history of correspondence education; industrial and Post-Fordist analysis of ODL; late modernity, the market, and consumerism; feminist approaches; and media and cultural studies.…

In the process of delegitimating the master narratives that have sustained Western civilization in the past, Postmodernism provoked a "crisis in narrative" which Francois Lyotard describes as narrativity that presents a sense of loss but not of what is lost. Recent histories of rhetoric have promulgated the view that rhetorical maps…

Sketches the life of Isocrates, the father of eloquence, and discusses his views on rhetorical education. (PD)