The Nativity by Arnoul Greban is a fifteenth-century French Christmas play, based on an orthodox interpretation of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke that is part of Greban's vast cyclic drama in verse, The Mystery of the Passion. Greban's masterpiece (circa 1450) calls for hundreds of characters and requires several days for its production as it ......
Ronald E. Day provides a historically informed critical analysis of the concept and politics of information in the twentieth century. Analyzing texts in Europe and the United States, his critical reading method goes beyond traditional historiographical readings of communication and information by engaging specific historical texts in terms of ......
Hermann F. Eilts, former Ambassador to Egypt and Saudi Arabia, takes a broad look ahead: "The Middle East in 1985--Through a Murky Crystal." Eric Rouleau, Le Monde, discusses "Prospects for Instability and New Leadership." Michael Sterner, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, counters with "Prospects for Stability and New Leader-ship." ......
In this first sustained critique of current-traditional rhetorical theory, Sharon Crowley uses a postmodern, deconstructive reading to examine the historical development of current-traditional rhetoric. She identifies it (as well as the British new rhetoric from which it developed) as a philosophy of language use, not a rhetorical theory, and she ......
Janice Schuetz investigates the felony trials of nine American women from colonial Salem to the present: Rebecca Nurse, tried for witchcraft in 1692; Mary E. Surratt, tried in 1865 for assisting John Wilkes Booth in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln; Lizzie Andrew Borden, tried in 1892 for the ax murder of her father and stepmother; Margaret ......
A teenaged Helen Stephens stunned the crowd at the 1936 Berlin Olympics when she emerged from obscurity to run the 100 meters in 11.5 seconds, setting a world record that wouldn't be beat for twenty-four years. But her career or her notoriety didn't peak there. She sued Look magazine for insinuating she was a man and won. She was the first woman ......
Ruth Draper (1884-1956) was an internationally famous monologist who charmed audiences around the world with her "cast of characters" in some sixty sketches. Using no scenery, no props, and only an occasional shawl or other wrap over a simple dress, she was able to people the stage with a great variety of characters and move her audiences to ......
The plays are Concord, a comedy based on Kleist's The Broken Jug; The Fall of the Amazons, a tragedy from the Kleist Penthesilea; and Wannsee, a tragicomedy, Bentley's rendering of Das Katchen von Heilbronn. Concord is set in a courthouse during the early days of the Republic. Convened to discover who broke an irreplaceable jug symbolic of the ......
Movies are both art and commerce, creative expressions of national/cultural interests and preoccupations and part of a global entertainment market. The 20th century witnessed a transformation of the movies from popular novelties to highly valued cultural icons and commodities that have promoted national identity and specific political agendas, ......
