The purpose of this paper is to present an alternate response to neoliberal education reforms, in the form of accelerationism, that does not rely on a return to a primitivist localism or direct action (such as that of the Occupy movement). Briefly stated, accelerationism does not try to reform neoliberal tendencies by going around them or from…

This paper critiques the debate about the purpose of HRD. Furthermore, it presents an integrative literature review that provides a meta-theory, hitherto missing, to explain the reasons for which there are endless disputes in the literature about the purpose of HRD. The synthesis explains that ideology provides the guiding meta-theoretical…

This paper discusses the misuse of historical data in attacks on educational revisionism and describes the contributions made by revisionists. Maintaining that the works of historical revisionists must be critically analyzed and their inadequacies recognized if they are to have lasting value, the author presents a textual criticism of a recent…

The concluding chapter of Tom Quirk's new book, "Coming to Grips with Huckleberry Finn," raises the question: "Is 'Huckleberry Finn' politically correct?" Quirk's book identifies acutely some of the fundamental issues regarding how racial attitudes and ideological agendas shape the way this great novel is read and taught.…

In the last 6 years, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe have been undergoing fundamental political reinvention. Scholars of language, literacy, and rhetoric can learn much from the study of rhetorical histories. Accordingly, a brief rhetorical history of these upheavals, particularly those in…

President Jimmy Carter's televised address on energy, July 15, 1979, illustrates the principle that rhetoric serves as a transformer, taking issues involving incompatible and insatiable demands and converting them to forms amenable to solutions. The address depicted three distinct yet related scenes: (1) the immediate scene of the energy crisis;…

A critical analysis and interpretation of "The Sorting Machine" by Joel H. Spring is presented. The book, which uses a historical revisionist approach to trace the development and impact of the corporate-government-foundation network on the ideological orientation of the American educational system, makes its greatest contribution by…

Provoking violent controversy, Susan Sontag's speech, "The Lesson of Poland," is an example of subversive rhetoric. Delivered at a February 6, 1982, show of support for the recently oppressed Polish people, Sontag's speech, like other modernist writing, did not seek a consensus with the audience, but challenged its whole scheme of…

Examines the symbolic oppositions that structure the "Appeal," together with its strategy of crisis taken from Puritan jeremiads. Accounts for Chase's success in pulling together disparate forces of the free North. Explores events which laid the ground for the Republican party and civil war. (RAE)

Using Jean Baudrillard's postmodernist theories, this paper analyzes how the television program, "Miami Vice," operationalizes his theory through its attention to surfaces and style. The paper notes that Baudrillard proposes life as a surface comprised of animated models indistinguishable from the reality these models represent and…

Rhetorical critics must examine terrorism to determine what contributions they can make to the understanding of rhetoric and to the evaluation of proposed responses to the terrorist threat. Not only must the rhetorical acts of crusader terrorists be viewed as rhetoric, but they must also be considered a rhetorical genre. This genre, with the…

This paper examines the conspiracy drama which characterizes the rhetoric generated by the John Birch Society. According to the Society, "innocent" America is under direct threat from some organized external and internal force that is seeking its destruction. Members are called to react in a carefully outlined manner: (1) piece together…

The role of the agitator in society and the special characteristics of women agitators--in particular, Emma Goldman, an American anarchist from the early twentieth century--are discussed in this paper. Specific examples of the rhetoric used by Emma Goldman in her speeches (supporting anarchism, against women's suffrage, against abortion control,…

An analysis of political rhetoric from a perspective suggested by the theories of Richard M. Weaver indicates that during the post-World War I and post-World War II eras, the United States experienced interplays of sociohistorical variables that prevented the nation from rapidly returning to a tension-free experience of peacetime living.…

Fifty-five million people were transfixed before their television sets in July 1987 by the agonistic 21-minute summation of Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii of the events of the congressional inquiry into the Iran-Contra scandal. Senator Inouye's text summarized and characterized split national purposes that collided, in which norms and codes of…