"An Introduction to Complexity Pedagogy: Using Critical Theory, Critical Pedagogy and Complexity in Performance and Literature" offers readers an introduction to the basic concepts of complexity science and how they might be applied in the teaching of composition, creative writing, performance, and literature. The book builds on Critical…

In the early 1990s, a popular American dorm-room poster luminously asserted crass materialism as "JUSTIFICATION FOR HIGHER EDUCATION". Self-consciously premised on the paradoxical success of my failure or failure of my success as a professor of Renaissance literature and culture, this essay draws on Erasmus's educational theory of…

Given what seems a constant barrage of criticism aimed at the academy from politicians and the public--and the great concern for buzz words like accountability and transparency--it has become fairly routine to see a defense of the humanities in opinion pieces in "Inside Higher Education," "The Chronicle of Higher Education,"…

This article describes a self-study pursuant to a clash between a lecturer and a student concerning the teaching of literature in a politically fraught context. The learning group is composed of Arab and Jewish teachers at a college in northern Israel. The work read by the group expresses a Palestinian perspective. The incident, discussed with…

This article presents an approach to literary texts that develops students' language proficiency, content knowledge, and analytical skills through the interweaving of three content areas--literary analysis, stylistics, and culture--at the beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels of the foreign language curriculum. Consistent with…

Martin Buber, widely recognized as a philosopher and theologian, frequently lauded as a prophet, said at a celebration of his 80th birthday, "I am no philosopher, prophet, or theologian. I am simply a man who has seen something and who goes to a window and points to what he has seen." In this article, Spencer Dew calls that statement a…

Three papers, all concerned with literary analysis, are presented in this book. The first essay, "How Ordinary Is Ordinary Language," (Stanley E. Fish) argues that a distinction between literature and other uses of language leads logically to an impoverished conception of both rather than insuring literature's status as a repository of value.…

Even the best university students reject serious modern literature in favor of science fiction and other popular fictions that present favorable, heroic versions of mankind. (JH)

Analyzes the literary theory of E. D. Hirsch in light of the theory of Jacques Derrida, a "Cognitive Atheist." (DD)

Examines literary theory's displacing of "method" in the New Historicist criticism. Argues that Stephen Greenblatt and Lee Paterson imply that no objective historical truth is possible and as a result do not give methodology its due weight in their criticism. Questions the theory of "truth" advanced in this vein of literary…

Proposes that deafness can be seen as an avenue into a theoretical discourse rather than either the infirmity that blocks communication or a subject for a simple thematic exposition as would be found in an analysis of "deafness in literature." Looks at the deafened movement as it dialectically approaches the critic, the reader, and the text. (TB)

To parallel Lester Asheim's doctoral thesis that compared the endings of 24 novels with their 1935-1945 filmed adaptations, this study examined the endings of 88 films produced between 1946 and 1977, comparing the literary endings with the filmed endings by the same criteria that Asheim used. The data indicate both similarities and differences to…

A dialectical heuristic that can be used to guide students through the stages of writing about a literary experience is discussed in this paper. The first section of the paper provides a working definition of literature as an area of discourse and divides the process of reading and writing about literature into three general phases: progressive,…

The best literature dealing with the Holocaust assumes the worthwhileness and preciousness of human life. (JH)