In a number of Western nations, concern over literacy and numeracy standards has put huge political pressure on education systems to improve the situation. Here in New Zealand, the government has recently introduced literacy and numeracy standards designed to improve basic skills in these key fields of achievement. What is perhaps less evident is…

In "The Politics of Inquiry", Benjamin Baez and Deron Boyles critique recent trends in education research to argue against the "culture of science." Using the National Research Council's 2002 report "Scientific Research in Education" as a point of departure, they contend that the entire discourse on education science…

"Education and Gendered Citizenship in Pakistan" challenges the uncritical use of the long held dictum of the development discourse that education empowers women. Situated in the post-structuralist feminist position, it argues that in its current state the educational discourse in Pakistan actually disempowers women. Through a systematic…

The problems created by the competing claims of various schools of criticism for a unified view of meaning are examined in this book. Chapters deal with the following topics: the problem of the plurality of modes, Ronald Crane and the pluralism of discrete modes, Kenneth Burke's multiplication of perspectives, history as criticism and the…

Reacting to the tradition which has reduced rhetorics to summaries of rules and principles, this book presupposes that Plato's "Phaedrus," Aristotle's "Rhetoric," and Cicero's "De Oratore" cannot be reduced to summary information or pedagogical advice. The book considers that these works, on the contrary, along with…

This book reflects upon the ways in which contingencies of identity and location shape the writing of academic argument and the living of an academic life. Experimenting with a mode of writing called "narrative criticism," the book interweaves the personal and the theoretical, anecdote and text. It is organized around a number of…

Working from both literary and composition theory, this book argues that American composition theory and pedagogy of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is founded on the Platonic view that invention is a solitary act in which the individual, drawing upon innate knowledge and mental structures, searches for the truth, using introspective self…

Although it is difficult to write well even in one language, a rich body of translingual literature--by authors who write in more than one language or in a language other than their primary one--exists. This book is a study of the phenomenon, which is as ancient as the use of Arabic, Latin, Mandarin, Persian, and Sanskrit as "lingua…

This book explores postmodern critique in scholarly inquiry in the context of the philosophies of Jean-Francois Lyotard, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Richard Rorty, and Calvin Schrag. Claiming that the overall course of inquiry is characterized by basic theoretical deficiencies, postmodern critique suggests a rethinking of the nature and aims…

Including speech transcripts and judges' critiques, this book presents the results of the 1986 (1) National Debate Tournament Final Debate, sponsored by the American Forensic Association, including the affirmative and negative presentations; (2) National CEDA Tournament Final Debate, sponsored by the Cross-Examination Debate Association, including…

This anthology is both a history of the avant-garde film genre and a compendium of theories of cinema articulated by major filmmakers. The 33 selections include several previously unpublished theoretical and critical articles and many articles that were especially translated into English for this collection. Other selections were drawn from…

Hypothesizing that the tendency to define postmodern culture negatively derives from overliteral and undercritical responses to European theorists, this book of essays identifies the wide parameters of postmodernism. The book demonstrates that the literary and artistic temper of the postmodern condition in Europe and America cannot adequately be…

Offering a poetics for myth in 20th century fiction, this book argues that the nature of myth is to inspire interpretation, that every myth carries with it an intertextual body of theories regarding its meaning and yet remains capable of evoking new meaning. The book further argues that myth, when used in fiction, functions like a language, with…

This centrally focused collection of articles and lectures examines literary interpretation and the relation of literature to language. The first of the book's three parts introduces the distinction between natural discourse and fictive discourse (verbal structures that function as representatives of natural utterances). It also deals with the…

This book presents a critical analysis of the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE). This accreditation organization has been in existence for 50 years and claims to accredit approximately 700 teacher education programs that prepare two-thirds of the nation's teachers. There is no convincing research, however, that…