Seeking to expand program offerings and cultivate repeat visitation at a mostly volunteer-run historic site, the Harriet Beecher Stowe House has partnered with retired Xavier University professor John Getz to lead a monthly literary discussion series, "Visiting 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'." This article presents how the series has created space…

This article uses the Japanese television anime series "Puella Magi Madoka Magica" (2011) as a case study through which to problematise the relationship between two prominent traditions within children's literature criticism: narratology, with its vocabulary of implied readers and textual address; and reception studies, which typically…

This article presents an interview with the noted Nepali American fiction writer Samrat Upadhyay. Samrat Upadhyay's fiction is mostly about his native country of Nepal, but he writes mainly for an Anglo-American audience. In the interview, Upadhyay not only discusses his own work, but he also examines samples of prose by other Asian or Asian…

The primary focus for this article involves aspects of professional mathematical writing and examines the possibility of a form of literary criticism in relation to it. By means of examples from contemporary style guides for academic articles in mathematics (AMS, MAA), as well as the writing of mathematicians (Hamilton, Dedekind) from earlier…

Considers the quest for meaning to be the primary function of the rhetorical critic--meaning that goes from the text outward and that is interpreted by the reader. (RB)

Discusses the evolution of Burke's conception of form and explains how he combines form, substance, idea, and audience appeal into a single critical principle. Argues that his theory is important because it provides a rationale for combining language, idea, and appeal. (JMF)

A concept of the masses, or populace, conveyed a positive connotation in both Biblical and Renaissance literature. During Spain's Golden Age (seventeenth century) writers, especially didactic dramatists, tended to register negative and prejudiced attitudes toward the common folk and to regard them as "masa inculta" or uncultured masses. Primarily,…

Attempts to find exclusively Elizabethan solutions to the human problems in Shakespeare's plays often lead us to deny our own responses. (JH)

By locating meaning exclusively in the reader in his theory of literary criticism, Stanley Fish denies the possibility of change. (DD)

A critical analysis and rejection of Stanley Fish's reader-oriented theory of criticism. (DD)

Contends that the four major types of popular literature (science fiction, mayhem, horror, and whodunit) reveal the personalities of their readers. (DD)

Critical discussions of reader reaction are often only disguised discussions of author intention. (JH)

Although, by the time of her death, Louise Rosenblatt was highly respected in the fields of composition and reading theory, she did not enjoy the same status among literary theorists. In this article, the author argues that Rosenblatt should be taken seriously as a literary theorist. The author shares her views on Rosenblatt's "Literature as…

With the advent of the process approach to teaching writing, the use of products or models in the composition classroom has declined, replaced by heuristic exploration of the rhetorical situation, with special emphasis on audience analysis. Some researchers have emphasized the difference between internal audiences and audiences external to the…

The complex irony of Act III, Scene i, of "Richard II" indicates how Shakespeare directs audience response in the play. Understanding this process of directed response--a dialectic of alternatives--illustrates that a meaningful standard of kingship is not provided in the play by either Richard or Bolingbroke. (RL)