The 1979 Ottawa Conference and It\u27s Inscriptions: Recovering a Canadian Moment in American Rhetoric and Composition

[First Paragraph] In May 1979, Aviva Freedman and Ian Pringle hosted an international conference on Learning to Write at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, featuring a concentrated assemblage of eminent scholars as speakers and respondents. Those present sensed immediately that they were part of a momentous and historic event. Janet Emig, who delivered her famous Tacit Tradition speech at the conference, remembered it later as the single most electric professional meeting I ever participated in (Emig 1983, n.p.). Many delegates saw it as the rightful successor to the landmark Dartmouth Conference of 1966, and when Anthony Adams, the closing speaker, suggested it might even eclipse Dartmouth as the most important conference ever held on English education, there was a general murmur of assent (Oster 1979, 24)

Recent Trends in Computational Intelligence

Traditional models struggle to cope with complexity, noise, and the existence of a changing environment, while Computational Intelligence (CI) offers solutions to complicated problems as well as reverse problems. The main feature of CI is adaptability, spanning the fields of machine learning and computational neuroscience. CI also comprises biologically-inspired technologies such as the intellect of swarm as part of evolutionary computation and encompassing wider areas such as image processing, data collection, and natural language processing. This book aims to discuss the usage of CI for optimal solving of various applications proving its wide reach and relevance. Bounding of optimization methods and data mining strategies make a strong and reliable prediction tool for handling real-life applications

Bakhtin’s philosophy for education: Pedagogy of aesthetics and dialogism

This thesis is an attempt to analyze the philosophical ideas of Mikhail Bakhtin from the point of view of their possible implementation in educational practices. The first chapter examines the philosophy of Bakhtin\u27s aesthetics, which postulate that the perception of the surrounding world is possible through non-rational methods of phenomenological and hermeneutic reflections. Particular attention is paid to Bakhtin’s understanding of the process of cognition, where a human is presented in his/her holistic subjective being. According to Bakhtin, this idea permits the usage of subjective cognitive processes in objective reality only through an individually responsible act. The second chapter deals with the possible implementation of the Bakhtinan dialogic philosophy in the theory of knowledge. An attempt is made to trace the understanding of the essence of dialogism from the phenomenological premise that any consciousness is a text that includes the cognizer in a situation of aesthetic understanding and, as the result of such participatory thinking, triggers the mechanism of an internal dialogue. The balancing correlation between the idea of “dialogic” and the idea of “answerability” as part of the general life experience is also explored. The third chapter examines Bakhtin’s architectonics as a specific strategic tool, which allows for optimizing and effectively carrying out the many interrelationships of the participating in many educational processes. Additionally, Bakhtin’s concepts of chronotope and nonalibi in existence are considered as categories of theoretical cognition and phenomena that can help better comprehend the truth, especially in post-modern educational conditions. Together with Bakhtin\u27s ideas, the ideas of cognition specific to the neo-Kantian, primarily German, philosophical schools, are explored as well as their influence on Bakhtin and his followers. I also include some memories from my own teaching experience, which I collected for over 25 years of teaching foreign languages from K-12 to the university level

The influence of industrialism on French imaginative literature, prose, 1830-70

The state of knowledge concerning the reflection of the Industrial Revolution in French prose is at best imperfect for the subject is one that has not hitherto been investigated. Yet the effect produced by this revolution on the writers between 1830 and 1870 was not only not negligible but in many cases left a deep mark on them. After outlining the industrial progress achieved together with its social consequences, an examination is made of the reactions of the outstanding sociologists and economists to le machinisme. Next an attempt is made to show how la Bourgeoisie, with its respect for riches and social prominence, its deep preoccupation with economic interests and material prosperity would be inimical to the prolongation of the Romantic Movement. To further emphasise the role Industry was assuming in Society attention is drawn to the importance of the many Industrial Exhibitions held before l870. Then follows an investigation into the transformation of the Press by the introduction of publicity and the appearance of the roman feuilleton as being the first manifestation of the influence of Industry in literature. From the newspapers to the stage: the vaudevillistes and playwrights bear witness to the predominance of la Question d'argent and to the invasion of the Press by les hommes d'affaires

Industrial conflict in the development of technical education in England , 1850-1910, with special reference to the mechanical engineering industry.

This, study seeks to offer a sociological account of the emergence of non university technical education and its development In England in the period 1850-1910. The aim is to show that an explanation of the origin of the form and content of technical education needs to extend beyond changes In 19th century educational policies. An attempt is made therefore to trace the relationship between changes in control of the labour process as exemplified In one of the leading manufacturing industries, mechanical engineering, and developments in technical education. The argument is twofold: The forces underlying the substitution of unskilled for skilled workers and the implementation of new kinds of machines, were also those at work in the demise of the apprenticeship system and the development of a certain form of technical education. The skilled engineering workers' struggles to maintain the apprenticeship system against the employers' reluctance to support it, may be seen as also part of an explanation of the origin and development of technical education The importance of employers and skilled workers in these processes is acknowledged thereby, and a case Is argued, which existing sociological and historical accounts neglect, that the conflictual nature of the social relations of the industry represented an industrial struggle against which plans for a technical education system were being formulated. A key element is the analysis of the Great Strike and Lock-Out of 1897/1898, which is seen as the culmination of a series of conflicts originating in the 1850s. The outcome of the strike confirmed the economic 'short-termism' of employers, deriving from the dominant laissez faire doctrines of the period. Contradictions Inherent In short-term profit seeking at the level of individual employers and expectations from long term projections for a system of technical education at a national level, not only crucially influenced educational legislation, but fostered a neglect of technical education provision

I Don\u27t Want to Hurt Anyone\u27s Feelings : Using Race as a Writing Prompt in First Year Writing

First Year Composition (FYC) is one of the most important courses for any incoming college student. This course (often designated as English 101) provides students the rhetorical tools to fully engage in critical thinking and writing on the college level. One of the most common methods of organizing FYC is to use a topic as the center of all the reading and writing prompts. The use of outside subject matter to teach FYC is a common practice that is rarely interrogated for its effectiveness. However, the Hairston debate in the early 1990s opened up a public discussion of how FYC should be taught. I am arguing that this debate was never fully resolved. Instead of using this historical moment in our field to discuss how topics impact FYC instruction, the use of topics has continued to be normalized during the last twenty years with little attention given to interrogating what actually happens in a FYC course that focuses on a topic. This dissertation study examines what happens when a controversial theme like race is used as the primary organizing principle of both a day and night FYC course in a metro-St Louis area community college. Using discourse analysis, I analyze student writing to determine how the students\u27 writing is impacting by the subject matter of the course