scholarly journals Kenneth Burke: Pioneer of Ecocriticism

2001 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 413-431 ◽  
Author(s):  
LAURENCE COUPE
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Critical Theory ◽  
North American ◽  
The United States ◽  
Kenneth Burke ◽  
Ecological Perspective ◽  
Know How ◽  
Anxiety Of Influence ◽  
De Man

Nearly every handbook of critical theory acknowledges Kenneth Burke (1897–1993) to be the twentieth-century North American critic who was most ahead of his time. Yet he seems to have been so ambitious that we still do not know how to place him. Indeed, it would require the space of a whole book to trace the extensive but scarcely documented impact which he has had. Concepts for which many other critics became famous may be traced back to him: ‘‘the order of words’’ (Frye); ‘‘the rhetoric of fiction’’ (Booth); ‘‘blindness and insight’’ (De Man); ‘‘narrative as a socially symbolic act’’ (Jameson); ‘‘the anxiety of influence’’ (Bloom). Indeed, it may well be that very anxiety which has led so many contemporary critics to repress his memory. But there is a change in the critical climate, corresponding to the global. This article is written in the hope that Burke will shortly be recognized as the first critic systematically to analyse culture and literature from an ecological perspective. As the dating of our epigraph indicates, he initiated this project over half a century before the rise of ecocriticism in the United States. Moreover, this was no passing phase for him; his whole career may be understood as a profound experiment in green thinking.

scholarly journals "I have such sad news": Loss in Finnish North American Letters

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 53-71
Author(s):  
Samira Saramo
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
North American ◽  
Life Writing ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Self ◽  
Letter Writing ◽  
North Americans ◽  
Death And Loss

Life writing has been an important tool for people to work through loss in their lives. In the context of twentieth-century migration, word of death and shared mourning occurred primarily through letters in the international post. Focusing on letters written by Finnish immigrants in the United States and Canada from the 1940s–1960s, this article analyzes some of the ways that letter writing has been used to address death and loss. Positioning personal letters within the broader field of life writing, this work examines how both loss and life writing often trigger a re/defining of the self, addressed in multiple and ambiguous ways by individual mourner/writers.  In its unsettling of life, feelings, and connections, loss is a rupture of the self. By narrating their life, writers create personal chronologies, position themselves in places and communities, and declare their values. The life writing of Finnish North Americans provides windows into the difficult work of trying to assign meaning to meaning-defying loss.

scholarly journals Comparing Brazilian and North American songs about money

2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 239-273
Author(s):  
Ruben George Oliven
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
North American ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Imaginary ◽  
The Social ◽  
American Popular Music ◽  
Intense Process

This article compares Brazilian and North American popular music. If focuses on the lyrics of songs composed mainly in the first half of the twentieth century when an intense process of national building was taking place in Brazil and the United States. Several of those compositions became classics. Those songs were and still are very popular because they echoed and continue to echo the social imaginary of both countries. It is for this reason that popular music is so crucial for the understanding of both societies.

scholarly journals The Origins of the Kenneth Burke Society

2020 ◽  
pp. 195-207
Author(s):  
Clarke Rountree
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Public Education ◽  
Future Development ◽  
The United States ◽  
Kenneth Burke ◽  
Rhetorical Theory ◽  
Literary Critic ◽  
Online Journal ◽  
Social Events

The Kenneth Burke Society was founded during Burke’s lifetime by scholars in communication, literature, sociology, and other fields to promote the study and application of Burke’s copious works and fertile ideas. Burke had become the leading writer on rhetorical theory in the twentieth century, as well as a notable literary critic, fiction writer, poet, and translator. His century of scholarly publication—including posthumous works twenty-five years after his death in 1993—have provided plenty for members of the Society to analyze, debate, and elaborate upon. The Society has sponsored triennial conferences in the United States since 1990, featuring notable keynote speakers, seminars in various topics led by Burke scholars, and social events, including music performances by Burke’s talented family. The Society also has supported an online journal, a number of edited books drawn from its conferences, a listserv, and a newsletter (now discontinued). It is affiliated with a half-dozen other scholarly organizations. Most members of the Society are in the United States and Canada, where the study of rhetoric has grown in importance particularly during the latter part of the twentieth century (with Burke’s help) and up until the present. Recently, interest in rhetoric and in Burke has returned to Europe, which developed rhetorical theory and made it a central art in public education for more than 2000 years. The first “Burke” conference in Europe was held in 2013. The Kenneth Burke Society has made outreach to Europe a central goal in its future development.

Benjamin Henry Latrobe and the nomenclature of two North American fishes

1987 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-88
Author(s):  
CHARLOTTE M PORTER
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
North American ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Shad ◽  
New Name ◽  
The Common ◽  
Fish Louse

A curious error affects the names of three North American clupeids—the Alewife, American Shad, and Menhaden. The Alewife was first described by the British-born American architect, Benjamin Henry Latrobe in 1799, just two years after what is generally acknowledged as the earliest description of any ichthyological species published in the United States. Latrobe also described the ‘fish louse’, the common isopod parasite of the Alewife, with the new name, Oniscus praegustator. Expressing an enthusiasm for American independence typical of his generation, Latrobe humorously proposed the name Clupea tyrannus for the Alewife because the fish, like all tyrants, had parasites or hangers-on.

The Insidious Momentum of American Mass Incarceration

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franklin E. Zimring
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Mass Incarceration ◽  
The United States ◽  
Next Generation ◽  
Single Generation ◽  
American Life ◽  
Peak Rate ◽  
Or Practice

The phenomenal growth of penal confinement in the United States in the last quarter of the twentieth century is still a public policy mystery. Why did it happen when it happened? What explains the unprecedented magnitude of prison and jail expansion? Why are the current levels of penal confinement so very close to the all-time peak rate reached in 2007? What is the likely course of levels of penal confinement in the next generation of American life? Are there changes in government or policy that can avoid the prospect of mass incarceration as a chronic element of governance in the United States? This study is organized around four major concerns: What happened in the 33 years after 1973? Why did these extraordinary changes happen in that single generation? What is likely to happen to levels of penal confinement in the next three decades? What changes in law or practice might reduce this likely penal future?

Assessment and Critical Pedagogy

2019 ◽  
pp. 306-324
Author(s):  
Frank Abrahams
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Critical Theory ◽  
Critical Pedagogy ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Teacher Performance ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
The United States ◽  
Summative Assessments ◽  
The World ◽  
Integrative Assessment

This chapter aligns the tenets of critical pedagogy with current practices of assessment in the United States. The author posits that critical pedagogy is an appropriate lens through which to view assessment, and argues against the hegemonic practices that support marginalization of students. Grounded in critical theory and based on Marxist ideals, the content supports the notion of teaching and learning as a partnership where the desire to empower and transform the learner, and open possibilities for the learner to view the world and themselves in that world, are primary goals. Political mandates to evaluate teacher performance and student learning are presented and discussed. In addition to the formative and summative assessments that teachers routinely do to students, the author suggests integrative assessment, where students with the teacher reflect together on the learning experience and its outcomes. The chapter includes specific examples from the author’s own teaching that operationalize the ideas presented.

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