Showing papers on "Criticism published in 1988"

Power and criticism : poststructural investigations in education

Abstract: Structural analyses and prescriptions have had an important influence on contemporary education. This work identifies and explores prominent structural themes in educational discourse and practice and places the ideas of Foucault, Derrida, Rorty and Habermas within the context of education.

Negative effects of destructive criticism: impact on conflict, self-efficacy, and task performance.

Abstract: In Study 1, 83 undergraduates received either constructive criticism (feedback that was specific, considerate, and did not attribute poor performance to internal causes) or destructive criticism (feedback that violated these basic principles) of their work. Those who received destructive criticism reported greater anger and tension and indicated that they would be more likely to handle future disagreements with the source through resistance or avoidance and less likely to handle disagreements through collaboration or compromise. In Study 2, 106 undergraduates who received destructive criticism of their work on an initial task set lower goals and reported lower self-efficacy on two additional tasks than did subjects who received constructive criticism or no feedback. In Study 3, 108 employees of a large food-processing company rated the importance of 14 potential causes of conflict in their organization. Poor use of criticism was perceived as a more important cause of conflict and received higher ratings than did competition over resources or disputes overjurisdiction.

Social Criticism without Philosophy: An Encounter between Feminism and Postmodernism

Abstract: Feminism and postmodernism have emerged as two of the most important political-cultural currents of the last decade' So far, however, they have kept an uneasy distance from one another Indeed, so great has been their mutual wariness that there have been remarkably few extended discussions of the relations between them2 Initial reticences aside, there are good reasons for exploring the relations between feminism and postmodernism Both have offered deep and far-reaching criticisms of the institution of philosophy Both have elaborated critical perspectives on the relation of philosophy to the larger culture And, most central to the concerns of this essay, both have sought to develop new paradigms of social criticism that do not rely on traditional philosophical underpinnings Other differences notwithstanding, one could say that, during the last decade, feminists and postmodernists have worked independently on a common nexus of problems: they have tried to rethink the relation between philosophy and social criticism so as to develop paradigms of "criticism without philosophy" On the other hand, the two tendencies have proceeded, so to speak, from opposite directions Postmodernists have focused primarily on the philosophy side of the problem They have begun by elaborating antifoundational metaphilosophical perspectives and from there have gone on to draw conclusions about the shape and character of social criticism For feminists, on the other hand, the question of philosophy has always been subordinate to an interest in

After the great divide : modernism, mass culture, postmodernism

Abstract: "One of the most comprehensive and intelligent postmodern critics of art and literature, Huyssen collects here a series of his essays on pomo... " Village Voice Literary Supplement..". his work remains alert to the problematic relationship obtaining between marxisms and poststructuralisms." American Literary History..". challenging and astute." World Literature Today"Huyssen s level-headed account of this controversial constellation of critical voices brings welcome clarification to today s murky haze of cultural discussion and proves definitively that commentary from the tradition of the German Left has an indispensable role to play in contemporary criticism." The German Quarterly..". we will certainly have, after reading this book, a deeper understanding of the forces that have led up to the present and of the possibilities still open to us." Critical Texts..". a rich, multifaceted study." The Year s Work in English StudiesHuyssen argues that postmodernism cannot be regarded as a radical break with the past, as it is deeply indebted to that other trend within the culture of modernity the historical avant-garde."

Guardians of Language: The Grammarian and Society in Late Antiquity

Abstract: What did it mean to be a professional teacher in the prestigious "liberal schools" - the schools of grammar and rhetoric - in late antiquity? How can we account for the abiding prestige of these schools, which remained substantially unchanged in their methods and standing despite the political and religious changes that had taken place around them? The grammarian was a pivotal figure in the lives of the educated upper classes of late antiquity. Introducing his students to correct language and to the literature esteemed by long tradition, he began the education that confirmed his students' standing in a narrowly defined elite. His profession thus contributed to the social as well as cultural continuity of the Empire. The grammarian received honor - and criticism; the profession gave the grammarian a firm sense of cultural authority but also placed him in a position of genteel subordination within the elite.Robert A. Kaster provides the first thorough study of the place and function of these important but ambiguous figures. He also gives a detailed prosopography of the grammarians, and of the other "teachers of letters" below the level of rhetoric, from the middle of the third through the middle of the sixth century, which will provide a valuable research tool for other students of late-antique education.

Culture and Government: The Emergence of Literary Education

Abstract: Preface - Acknowledgements - Introduction - PART 1 ENGLISH - Government - Culture - English - PART 2 CRITICISM - Two Models - The Pedagogical Imperative - Exemplary Knowledge - Conclusion - Notes - Bibliography - Index

The company of critics : social criticism and political commitment in the twentieth century

Abstract: The Company of Critics provides a fascinating survey of the terrain of social criticism in the last century. Organizing the book as a series of eleven intellectual biographies, Michael Walzer tells not just the dramatic story of the cultural and political radical but also the more personal story of the meaning of criticism to the critic. By looking at the life and work of Julien Benda, Randolph Bourne, Martin Buber, Antonio Gramsci, Ignazio Silone, George Orwell, Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvoir, Herbert Marcuse, Michel Foucault, and Breyten Breytenbach, Walzer explains the role of the public intellectual in the context of what he identifies as "the triumphs and catastrophes of our time: the two world wars, the struggles of the working class, national liberation, feminism, totalitarian politics."The new edition, featuring a new preface, contains Walzer's thoughts on his own role as a public intellectual and, most important, the challenges that lie ahead for the engaged social critic. With its unique emphasis on life as a proving ground for thought, The Company of Critics is a necessary addition to the literature of social and political engagement both within and outside of the academy.

The Women Who Knew Too Much: Hitchcock and Feminist Theory

Abstract: Originally published in 1988, The Women Who Knew Too Much remains a classic work in film theory and feminist criticism. The book consists of a theoretical introduction and analyses of seven important films by Alfred Hitchcock, each of which provides a basis for an analysis of the female spectator as well as of the male spectator. Modleski considers the emotional and psychic investments of men and women in female characters whose stories often undermine the mastery of the cinematic "master of suspense." The third edition features an interview with the author by David Greven, in which he and Modleski reflect on how feminist and queer approaches to Hitchcock studies may be brought into dialogue. A teaching guide and discussion questions by Ned Schantz help instructors and students to delve into this seminal work of feminist film theory.

Contingencies of value

Abstract: It is a curious feature of literary studies in America that one of the most venerable, central, theoretically significant, and pragmatically inescapable set of problems relating to literature has not been a subject of serious inquiry for the past fifty years. I refer here to the fact not merely that the study of literary evaluation has been, as we might say, "neglected," but that the entire problematic of value and evaluation has been evaded and explicitly exiled by the literary academy. It is clear, for example, that there has been no broad and sustained investigation of literary evaluation that could compare to the constant and recently intensified attention devoted to every aspect of literary interpretation. The past decades have witnessed an extraordinary proliferation of theories, approaches, movements, and entire disciplines focused on interpretive criticism, among them (to recite a familiar litany) New Criticism, structuralism, psychoanalytic criticism, reader-response criticism, reception aesthetics, speech-act theory, deconstructionism, communications theory, semiotics, and hermeneutics. At the same time, however, aside from a number of scattered and secondary essays by theorists and critics who are usually otherwise occupied,' no one in particular has been concerned with questions of literacy value and evaluation, and such questions regularly go begging-and, of course, begged-even among those whose inquiries into other matters are most rigorous, substantial, and sophisticated. Reasons for the specific disparity of attention are not hard to locate. One is the obvious attachment of problems of interpretation and meaning

The beauty of inflections : literary investigations in historical method and theory

Abstract: Part 1: Keats and the historical method in literary criticism. Part 2 Textual studies and practical criticism: the monks and the giants - textual and bibliographical studies and the interpretation of literary works shall these bones live? the text, the poem and the problem of historical method. Part 3 Interpretation and critical history: "The Ancient Mariner" - the meaning of the meanings Tennyson and the histories of criticism. Part 4 Problems of canon and periodization - the case of Christina Rossetti: Christina Rossetti's poems - a new edition and a revaluation the religious poetry of Christina Rossetti. Part 5 Literature and the critique of history: the book of Byron and the book of a world the anachronism of George Crabbe Rome and its Romantic significance. Conclusion: imaginative belief and critical commitment. Theses on the philosophy of criticism.

Relativism and the Search for Human Rights

Abstract: The theory of ethical relativism has been the subject of much misunderstanding. It is argued that the central insight of relativism is enculturation and not tolerance. Relativism is characterized as a metaethical theory about the nature of moral perceptions. As such it is logically consistent, permits moral criticism, and is compatible with cross-cultural universals. The existence of universals may indicate global support for particular human rights.

Reasons for Welfare: The Political Theory of the Welfare State

Abstract: Robert Goodin passionately and cogently defends the welfare state from current attacks by the New Right. But he contends that the welfare state finds false friends in those on the Old Left who would justify it as a hesitant first step toward some larger, ideally just form of society. Reasons for Welfare, in contrast, offers a defense of the minimal welfare state substantially independent of any such broader commitments, and at the same time better able to withstand challenges from the New Right's moralistic political economy. This defense of the existence of the welfare state is discussed, flanked by criticism of Old Left and New Right arguments that is both acute and devastating.In the author's view, the welfare state is best justified as a device for protecting needy--and hence vulnerable--members of society against the risk of exploitation by those possessing discretionary control over resources that they require. Its task is to protect the interests of those not in a position to protect themselves. Communitarian or egalitarian ideals may lead us to move beyond the welfare state as thus conceived and justified. Moving beyond it, however, does not invalidate the arguments for constantly maintaining at least the minimal protections necessary for vulnerable members of society.

Music as Drama

Abstract: whatever the cause, the absence of humane music criticism ... seems particularly striking against the fact that music has, among the arts, the most, perhaps the only, systematic and precise vocabulary for the description and analysis of its objects. Somehow that possession must itself be a liability; as though one undertook to criticize a poem or novel armed with complete control of medieval rhetoric but ignorant of the modes of criticism developed in the past two centuries.1

Relocating the site of the audience

Abstract: This essay analyzes the status of the audience as a theoretical construct. It discusses the contributions and liabilities of recent critical revisions of models of audience drawn from political economy, post‐structuralism, feminist reader‐response criticism, cultural studies, and postmodernism. The essay argues against the usefulness of a unified conception of audience effects. Finally, it develops an epistemological framework for reconstructive theorizations of the concrete structures and practices studied as audience issues. [A critical exchange follows the essay.]

The Utopian Function of Art and Literature: Selected Essays

Abstract: These essays in aesthetics by the philosopher Ernst Bloch belong to the tradition of cultural criticism represented by Georg Lukacs, Theodor Adorno, and Walter Benjamin. Bloch's fascination with art as a reflection of both social realities and human dreams is evident in them. Whether he is discussing architecture or detective novels, the theme that drives the work is always the same - the striving for "something better," for a "homeland" that is more socially aware, more humane, more just.The book opens with an illuminating discussion between Bloch and Adorno on the meaning of utopia; then follow 12 essays written between 1930 and 1973, on topics as diverse as aesthetic theory, genres such as music, painting, theater, film, opera, poetry, and the novel, and perhaps most important, popular culture in the form of fairy tales, detective stories, and dime novels.Ernst Bloch (1885-1977) was a profoundly original and unorthodox philosopher, social theorist, and cultural critic. The MIT Press has previously published his Natural Law and Human Dignity and his magnum opus, The Principle of Hope. The Utopian Function of Art and Literature is included in the series Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought, edited by Thomas McCarthy.

Brechtian theory/feminist theory : Toward a gestic feminist criticism

Abstract: In the 1930s, Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas, on their American lecture tour, were driving in the country in Western Massachusetts. Toklas pointed out a batch of clouds. Stein replied, "Fresh eggs." Toklas insisted that Stein look at the clouds. Stein replied again, "Fresh eggs." Then Toklas asked, "Are you making symbolical language?" "No," Stein answered, "I'm reading the signs. I love to read the signs" (Stimpson 1986:7).

In the Secret Theatre of Home: Wilkie Collins, Sensation Narrative, and Nineteenth-Century Psychology

Abstract: This book challenges conventional distinctions between serious and popular fiction through an examination of the work of Wilkie Collins. This book should be of interest to students and lecturers in nineteenth-century literature, popular fiction and feminist criticism.

Data Dredging or Legitimate Research Method? Historiography and Its Potential for Management Research

Abstract: Historiography's potential as a management research technique has not been extensively evaluated. This article describes historiography, evaluates criticism directed toward it, and assesses its usefulness for management research. It asserts that historiography can make significant contributions to variable selection and evaluation, theory building, and hypothesis generation.

Ethics and community

Abstract: conclusions cannot be practiced without concrete mediations.) All tactics are possible within the framework of ethical demands. But they may not violate ethical principles (5.3,5.6-7 ,5.9) through the utilization of the moralizing, received tactics of the day. Such tactics may not be adapted to the prevailing system. One must distinguish between the tactics demanded by the practice of prophecy or ethical criticism, and a reformist betrayal on the part of those who accept the tenets of the system of domination in the name of the reign of God.

Professional identity in institutions of higher learning in Israel

Abstract: Members of the faculties of Engineering and Sciences were surveyed at the Israel Institute of Technology (N = 247) and Tel Aviv University (N = 112) as to identification with, criticism of, and feelings about their respective institutions, as well as recommendations for possible improvement. Findings showed that a strong professional identity coexists with a pronounced critical stance. Findings are consistent with Herzberg's two-factor theory of work motivation that views higherorder “motivators”, such as the professional identity here assessed, as relatively independent of lower-order “hygiene” needs, mainly working conditions. The strong professional identity of engineering and science faculties would seem to minimize the likelihood of a massive exodus to industry.

Whig History and Present-centred History*

Abstract: Of the many books written by the late Herbert Butterfield, the most influential by far was The whig interpretation of history. The importance of that essay is not just that it attained the status of a classic in Butterfield's own lifetime, and has continued to be reprinted for over fifty years. Its main significance is that the historical profession in Britain came to accept its polemical terminology. The phrase ‘whig history’ has long been used as a term of historiographical criticism, in such a way as to imply, firstly, that everyone knows what it means, and secondly, that nobody wants to be ‘whiggish’. This usage is much in accordance with Butterfield's intentions: he succeeded in implanting the term in the professional language of historians.

The new managerial rhetoric and the old criticism

Abstract: Rhetorical criticism developed as the consummation of the revival of the old paradigm of rhetoric, a renaissance begun during the late 1800s. Sharing the assumptions of the old rhetoric that individual speakers are the engine of social influence, that ideas and reasons are the staples of persuasion, and that society is moved through a diffusion of political ideas from elites to the general public, criticism has approached the new persuasions and propagandas of twentieth century America only with great difficulty. Greater understanding of the relationships between the new managerial rhetoric and the old criticism will facilitate a rapprochement that has been underway since the 1940s, and will both ease a persistent source of critical ferment and help resolve discrepant critical perspectives on modern social influence.

Twentieth-century literary theory : a reader

Abstract: Acknowledgements - Introduction - SECTION 1 RUSSIAN FORMALISM TO FRENCH STRUCTURALISM - Russian Formalism and Prague Structuralism - The New Criticism - Chicago Aristotelianism - Leavisite Criticism - Phenomenological Criticism - Marxist Criticism - Archetypal Criticism - Hermeneutics - Linguistic Criticism - French Structuralism - SECTION 2 POST-STRUCTURALISM AND AFTER - Post-Structuralism - Semiotics - Negative Hermeneutics - Psychoanalytic Criticism - Reception Theory and Reader-Response Criticism - Post-Althusserian Marxism - Feminist Criticism - Index

The Double Perspective: Language, Literacy, and Social Relations

Abstract: Examining the relationship between language and literacy and the societal experiences that help shape it, this political and polemical book builds on the author's previous work in reader-response criticism and challenges the now dominant assumption that language is an individual transaction independent of any social context. Moving through a series of interrelated essays, David Bleich explores topics including the social psychology of men, which he maintains exerts undue influence on everyone's education; conceptions of knowledge now offered by feminist epistemologists; social conceptions of language and knowledge found in the work of G.H. Mead, L.S. Vygotsky, Ludwik Fleck, and Mikhail Bakhtin; the influence of gender on language use; the views of current thinkers on the social character of the classroom and academic communities; and the process of individual language development.

The Crisis of Political Modernism: Criticism and Ideology in Contemporary Film Theory

Abstract: D.N. Rodowick offers a critical analysis of the development of film theory since 1968. He shows how debates concerning the literary principles of modernism--semiotics, structuralism, psychoanalysis, Marxism, and feminism--have transformed our understanding of cinematic meaning. Rodowick explores the literary paradigms established in France during the late 1960s and traces their influence on the work of diverse filmmaker/theorists including Jean-Luc Godard, Peter Gidal, Laura Mulvey, and Peter Wollen. By exploring the "new French feminisms" of Irigaray and Kristeva, he investigates the relation of political modernism to psychoanalysis and theories of sexual difference. In a new introduction written especially for this edition, Rodowick considers the continuing legacy of this theoretical tradition in relation to the emergence of cultural studies approaches to film.