Jane Marcet's Conversations on Political Economy: a new interpretation

William Torrey Harris and John Dewey were the two most important philosophers of education in America at the fin de siècle. This paper discusses their rival idealisms through an examination of their philosophical and educational pronouncements. As I will show, both are indebted to, and align themselves with, Hegel. However, each manifests his Hegelian reading in a particular way, leading to very different consequences for education. What these manifestations are, and how two very different understandings can be drawn from a similar source, constitute the matter of the paper.     

Archiving the feminist self: reflections on the personal papers of Merle Thornton

Over the last couple of decades, the modern Australian women’s movement has been the subject of history, which includes the creation of feminist archives in various locations This essay analyses one particular collection – the personal papers of the feminist activist, Merle Thornton – as an account of the making and meaning of a feminist archive. I wish to explore the ways in which the feminist subject impacts on the archive. Accordingly, I analyse the archival process, as well as the contents of Thornton’s personal papers. What emerge are the difficulties of negotiating the public–private divide for this feminist activist.     

Expanding Library Support for Faculty Research in Historically Black Colleges and Universities

ABSTRACT

The Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Library Alliance conducted a study to assess library services in support of faculty research. Funded by an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant, and with support from LYRASIS, the study involved two different assessments. The first assessment was of faculty members and their support needs for research. The second assessment was of librarians to understand current capacity and needs related to support libraries provide to faculty. While the HBCU Library Alliance acknowledges that libraries do not have the capacity to address all the challenges to faculty research, the results from this study can serve as a tool to augment the academic infrastructure to support research.     

More on Cinema

Robert M. Henderson's D.W. Griffith: His Life and Work ( New York: Oxford University Press, 1972—$10.95)

Fred Silva (ed.) Focus on The Birth of a Nation (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971—$2.45, paper)

David Mayer's Eisenstein's Potemkin: A Shot-By-Shot Presentation (New York: Grossman, 1972— $10.00/4.50)

Cinemabilia Catalogue of Film Literature (New York: Cinemabilia, 10 Cornelia St., 1972—$2.50, paper)

Lawrence Alloway's Violent America: The Movies 1946-1964 (Greenwich, Conn.: New York Graphic Society, 1971—$7.95)

Roger Kahle and Robert E.A. Lee's Popcorn and Parable: A New Look at the Movies (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1971—$2.95, paper)

Hugh B. Churchill's Film Editing Handbook: Technique of 16 mm Film Cutting (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1972—$4.95, paper)

Tony Miller and Patricia George Miller's Cut! Print! The Language and Structure of Filmmaking (Los Angeles: O'Hara Publications, 5650 West Washington Blvd., 1972—$5.50 with 20% discount to schools, paper)     

Motion Pictures: Theory and Criticism

Richard Taylor, The Politics of Soviet Cinema, 1917 - 1929 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979 -- $19.95)

S.S. Prawer, Caligari's Children: The Film as Tale of Terror (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980 -- $19.95)

Thomas Sobcheck and Vivian C. Sobcheck, An Introduction to Film (Boston: Little Brown, 1980 -- $10.95 with instructor's manual)

Brian Henderson, A Critique of Film Theory (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1980 -- $8.95 paper)

Two more volumes have appeared in the Wisconsin/Warner Bros. Screenplay Series (both Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1980 -- $12.50/ $4.95 paper)

Paul Seydor, Peckinpah: The Western Films (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1980 -- $12.95 hardcover)

Vivian Carol Sobcheck, The Limits of Infinity: The American Science Fiction Film ( South Brunswick: A.S. Barnes, 1980 -- $14.50)

Richard Meyers in The World of Fantasy Films (South Brunswick: A.S. Barnes, 1980 -- $17.50)

Michael Chanan, The Dream That Kicks: The Prehistory and Early Years of Cinema in Britain (London: Routledge Kegan Paul, 190-- $32.50)     

Computerised screening for visual stress in reading

Visual stress is the experience of unpleasant visual symptoms when engaged in reading and some other visual tasks. There is currently no objective diagnostic test for this condition, which affects a substantial proportion of the population and which can disrupt development of reading skills. The reliability of subjective reports of symptoms has been questioned, especially where children are concerned. Diagnosis by positive response to the preferred treatment method, either the sustained voluntary use of a coloured overlay or immediate improvement in reading rate when using an overlay, is usually regarded as the best option. Recent research has reported that children who are significantly impaired by a visually stressful pattern during reading‐like visual search are more likely to show significant improvement in reading speed when using an overlay. This study was designed to evaluate a prototype computerised visual stress screener that incorporated visual search. The results confirmed that primary and secondary school children who were classified by the screener as having high susceptibility to visual stress had larger percent increases in reading rate with an overlay compared with those with low visual stress. The results also indicated that subjective reports of symptoms may not always be diagnostically effective with younger populations. It was concluded that screening for visual stress in reading using a computerised visual search task is an educationally promising development.     

Education Alone is not the Answer: The Specter of Right-Wing Authoritarianism for Criminal Justice Majors at Three Institutions

There have been a number of studies of right-wing authoritarian (RWA) attitudes among criminal justice majors and nonmajors. The prevailing supposition is that the attainment of higher levels of education reduces the negative traits associated with authoritarianism. A major assumption is that such improvements will occur regardless of the type of academic environment where the student is enrolled. This study examines whether educational attainment has the same impact on authoritarianism for criminal justice majors at a military academy, predominantly Caucasian rural teaching college, and a historically black college (HBCU). The results indicate RWA was highest for majors attending the military college. Moreover, unlike the findings for the teaching college and HBCU, RWA scores did not significantly decrease for seniors at the military college. This paper discusses whether differences in the organizational environment across the academic institutions explain the results.     

Assessment leaders’ perspectives of institutional cultures of assessment: a Delphi study

Institutional cultures of assessment are praised as beneficial to student learning. Yet, extant studies have not explored the theoretical foundations and pragmatic approaches to shaping cultures of assessment. The researchers used the Delphi method to explore 10 higher education assessment leaders’ attitudes and theoretical perspectives regarding cultures of assessment. These expert assessment leaders were iteratively surveyed until a reasonable threshold of consensus was reached. Study participants viewed buy-in as a necessary component of a positive campus culture of assessment, and advice on reshaping negative cultures was offered. Assessment leaders’ guiding theoretical frameworks were implied and loosely defined with metaphors. Finally, advice is offered for improving cultures of assessment by symbolically connecting assessment to student learning through dialogue.