The transformation of higher education provision by neoliberal values has been well documented. However, recent criticisms and even attacks upon higher education indicate a new politics extending beyond neoliberalism. This article draws on the sociology of conventions to unpick the distinctions at work in these new criticisms of universities. By…

Julian of Norwich (1342-1416), was a Christian mystic whose writings, "Revelation of Love" and "A Book of Showings," are the earliest surviving texts in the English language written by a woman. The question that has puzzled scholars for centuries follows: How could a woman of her time express her vision in such innovative and…

PowerPoint has received much criticism regarding excessive use of text and the lack of contact with the audience. Why presenters use PowerPoint in this way has not been studied so far. Our study using interviews with beginning and advanced presenters shows that some use the program as a speaking note and as a means to draw the attention away from…

As the scope of rhetorical inquiry broadens to cover intersemiotic and intertextual phenomena, scholars are increasingly in need of new, defensible analytic procedures. Several scholars have suggested that methods of discourse analysis could enhance rhetorical criticism. Here, I introduce a discourse-based method that is empirical, delicate, and…

Western teachers working in China often experience cultural conflicts arising from, for instance, the ways that Chinese students perceive face and express criticism. To better understand these face-concerned conflicts, this paper explores the role and significance of email for a group of Chinese students to communicate pedagogical criticism with…

Although Namibia has been independent for more than two decades (1990--2014), the school curriculum remains essentially Eurocentric despite rhetoric on educational reform. Similar to other African countries, Western ideological power continues to dominate postcolonial education, even though political power rests in the hands of African leaders.…

This article presents a critical rhetorical analysis of the governing and reform ideology of the Norwegian school system of the 1990s. It uses Karl Popper's "The Open Society and its Enemies" as a critical resource in the reading of the reforms, and discusses some of the consequences of the regime's models of leadership and public…

This article explores policy development for under-fives and its implementation in nursery schools in the first two decades of the twentieth century and draws parallels with current policy initiatives such as Sure Start and the "Troubled Families" programme. It interrogates how discourse on British racial health shaped policy and…

The rhetorical history of Ecuador is rife with examples of politicians, intellectuals, and artists promoting visions of national identity through images of Ecuador's indigenous population. Between the late nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries, such depictions became common and displayed increasing emphasis on the physical characteristics of…

This article presents selective findings from an ongoing study that investigates rhetorical differences in business letter writing between Vietnamese students taking an English for Specific Purposes course in Vietnam and business professionals. Rhetorical analyses are based on two corpora, namely, scenario (N = 20) and authentic business letters…

Identifying the specific complexities and historical context of post-Mao Chinese literary women's rhetoric, along with ways they have been misread, the author argues in general that Western feminist critics need to be cautious about applying their concepts to non-Western women's literature. (Contains 7 notes.)

This paper critically analyses discourses of educational inclusion in England through the lens of Derridean deconstruction. Linking Derrida's thesis on writing and speech to presence and absence, the paper contends that inclusion acts as a "suppleance" to previous policies of integration. The paper suggests that, for many teachers,…

In 1992, more than 20 artists showcased their work in a traveling exhibit, "Chicano Codex: Encountering Art of the Americas." Each piece creatively resembled Mesoamerican amoxtli, the pictographic "codex books" that were destroyed by European combatants as a strategy for subjugating indigenous minds. Spain's campaign of…

This study offers a rhetorical analysis of the 2002 South Korean Candlelight Vigils ["ch'otpul siwi"] with a focus on the role of the Internet in public opinion building, the rise in anti-American sentiment in South Korea, and rhetorical agency residing in the collective. In 2002, two South Korean schoolgirls walking along a rural road…

The "twisted cyber spy" affair began in 2010, when Google was attacked by Chinese cyber-warriors charged with stealing Google's intellectual property, planting viruses in its computers, and hacking the accounts of Chinese human rights activists. In the ensuing international embroglio, the US mainstream press, corporate leaders, and White…