While social values outside of academia are changing from nationalism to globalization, much of English studies remains entrenched in nationalist discourses. Editor Bruce McComiskey and his contributors argue that English studies must shift from a national (petrified, zombified) to a global (cosmopolitan, planetary) orientation in order to remain…

The English teaching profession, spurred on by media and federal politics, has tended to construct aesthetic reading and political reading within a dichotomous conceptual framework (Morgan, 1997; Devine, 2004; Donnelly, 2007). The article argues that this need not be so, and that the two apparently opposed modes of reading can be performed not…

Contends A. Gramsci can provide a perspective on the cultural dominance of rhetoric and formation of a critical "telos"--his work can contribute to understanding critical rhetoric. Demonstrates that Gramscian notions can extend critical rhetoric into an enterprise that permits critical self-reflexivity and praxis and create new…

Maintains that the value of both critical theory and textual criticism derives from the extent to which they inform discussable practice and advance understanding of rhetorical communication; and that criticism can contribute to rhetorical theory. (SR)

As a writer and critic, Kenneth Burke defies convenient pigeonholing. Even if just one segment of Burke's public writings is considered, the 40-plus critical essays of the post-Libbie (his Muse and secretary), post-LSA ("Language as Symbolic Action") era, the difficulty of categorizing him remains. The earlier periods of his life are…

Documents and criticizes the idealism and relativism of the materiality of discourse idea in postmodernist and post-Marxist rhetorical theories. Illustrates the critique with an extended critical analysis of Persian Gulf War news coverage, and defends materialist ideology criticism as an alternative to a critical rhetoric that has become…

More than any other recent social theorist, constructing a disquisition on Butler's ideas draws the writer into speculating on the formation of their own intellectual grammar, perhaps to confront the disconcerting truth of how often their own cherished analytical rationality is broken up by glimpses into the imagination of more provocative…

Locates the tensions of disciplinary turf, professional allegiances, and unexamined teaching practices that intersect in first-year, writing-with-literature courses. Examines confusions that surround these courses for new teachers and for English departments in general. Suggests changes to be made. (TB)

The "learning turn" that has occurred in discussions of education and training is here subject to critique. The change of discourse signifies more than mere change of linguistic style, with claims being made to a new paradigm by proponents of what may be termed "learnerism". The claims made by the advocates of learnerism for…