Whether writing from the perspective of rhetoric or political science, scholars of presidential communication often assume that the ultimate meaning of presidential rhetoric lies in whether it achieves policy success. In this book, David Michael Ryfe argues that although presidential rhetoric has many meanings, one of the most important is how it rhetorically constructs the practice of presidential communication itself. Drawing upon an examination of presidential rhetoric in the twentieth century from Theodore Roosevelt to Franklin D. Roosevelt, from Ronald Reagan to Bill Clinton Ryfe surveys...

The Theater of Trauma is a groundbreaking rereading of the relations between psychology and drama in the age of Eugene O Neill, Susan Glaspell, and their many brilliant contemporaries. American modernist Theater of Trauma drew its vision from the psychological investigation of trauma and its consequences among them hysteria and dissociation made by French and American psychiatrists such as the great Pierre Janet, Alfred Binet, William James, Morton Prince, and W.E.B. Du Bois; the European and American -dissociationist culture- that developed around their work; and the resulting trauma...

There is a profound and deepening crisis afflicting secondary schools in most parts of the world - but at its essence it is a crisis of a very different kind from the one portrayed by the media, the business community, politicians, and policy makers. Just what constitutes the crisis is highly problematic. What is being constructed for us through a concerted conservative assault and a new authoritarianism is one of failure by young people, their schools, and their teachers. But as with any moral panic, there are undisclosed interests and agenda operating, and they are not those of the people...

Delving into the often unexplored areas of class, race, and power struggles, The Power of Parents poses a unique and original critical examination of the relationship between bicultural parents and the school system. Written with students and practitioners in mind, it challenges past research that has traditionally argued bicultural parents are incompetent, apathetic, and do not value education, hence the cause of their children's academic underachievement. This book sheds new light on why bicultural parents often mistrust the school system and uncovers the contradictions inherent in...

This book is mainly an English translation of Jon Magnusson s A Story of Sufferings. Magnusson, a seventeenth-century Lutheran priest in Iceland, endured intense physical and mental sufferings, which he attributed to the black magic of three alleged sorcerers. The two male sorcerers were tried, convicted, and burned to death, but the third (a woman) was acquitted. The work may have been written as material for appealing the acquittal of the woman to a higher court. This book also includes a historical introduction, a chronology of Jon Magnusson s life, and the rulings from the trials....

From unraveling the confusion surrounding digital TV to revealing the inner workings of Nielsen ratings Broadcast Television: A Complete Guide to the Industry takes an impartial and in-depth look at the business of commercial television. Unlike many books addressing this topic, the purpose of this primer is not to support a partisan opinion about what is right or wrong with television but rather to provide objective information from which the reader can make his or her own judgments. To that end the organization and presentation style is also unique in that the industry is explained as...

Wolf Krotke is widely acknowledged to be the most important theologian to emerge from the struggle of the churches in the former East Germany. Working creatively in the tradition of Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, he reconsiders the contours of Christian faith in face of the challenges posed by the regnant atheism and cultural disestablishment that continue to shape the cultural landscape of Eastern Germany. This book explores in detail Krotke s contributions to contemporary reflection upon the identity of God, humanity, and the Christian church and, in so doing, sheds light upon...

This book, based on years of research, including extensive work in Guatemalan archives, illuminates the social, political, and cultural life of Guatemala and Central America during the nineteenth century through the lens of the University of San Carlos, Guatemala, the period s only institution of higher learning in Guatemala and the most prestigious one on the Central American isthmus. The major issues addressed include the relationships between institution-building and state formation; between the university and the development of a national and regional identity; and between modernism and...

Sport films have been central to American cinema, playing an increasingly important role in the communication of a commonsense understanding of race, gender, class, history, and social relations. Oddly, scholars have neglected sport films and their significance. Offering a comparative, theoretically grounded, and interdisciplinary approach, Visual Economies of/in Motion marks a novel and important point of departure in sport studies and cultural studies. It brings together a dozen essays on feature films and documentaries to probe the articulation of ideologies and identities, play and...

Literary and Cultural Images of a Nation without a State applies Benedict Anderson s theory about the coherence of imagined communities by tracing how Galicia, the heart of Polish culture in the nineteenth-century which would never be an independent nation-state emerged as a historical and cultural touchstone with present-day significance for the people of Europe. After the Three Partitions and Poland s complete disappearance from Europe s political map, images of Poland arose to replace the lost kingdom with a national identity grounded in culture and tradition rather than in...