Performance Studies Commons^™

Working Together: Examining Forensic Leadership Through Lmx Theory, Ben Walker, Julie L. G. Walker

National Forensic Journal

Forensic teams function as organizations with a variety of leadership styles used. To better understand how we lead, we need to more closely study organizational communication theory. With the ever-present need to provide links from theory to forensic practice, this paper outlines leader member exchange (LMX) theory and how it can be applied to forensic leadership for positive organizational outcomes. Implementation strategies are offered along with suggestions for future directions of research. Ideally, this paper will act as a resource for those wishing to explore LMX theory in their forensic leadership.

The “Carousel Effect” In Forensic Research, Daniel Cronn-Mills, Stephen M. Croucher

National Forensic Journal

Our purpose is to determine if an anecdotal pattern we have seen emerging at the National Communication Association (NCA) conference holds true. We have noticed that forensic panels at NCA, and specifically individual events (IE) panels, appear to revolve around similar themes. Scholars interested in IE issues may be repeating themselves. The result is a “carousel effect”: the papers/panels go round‘n‘round the same ideas. Our analysis identified two findings: (1) 25 research themes are evident in forensics and three themes comprise the focus of most of the research; (2) qualitative analysis showed repetition among the titles of forensic research. We …

Stress, Burnout, Job Satisfaction, And Intent To Leave Among Collegiate Forensic Educators, Heather J. Carmack, Todd T. Holm

National Forensic Journal

The purpose of this study is to explore how burnout, stress, and job satisfaction impact coaches‘ intention to leave forensics. Some 111 collegiate forensics educators completed a survey examining workplace stress, burnout, job satisfaction, and perceived intent to leave forensics. Coaches who had thought about leaving forensics reported being more emotionally exhausted than coaches who had not thought about leaving. Female coaches also reported more stress than male coaches. Although many educators feel stressed, burned out, and have thought about leaving, they were still satisfied with their jobs as educators. The article concludes with a discussion of the findings and …

Editor's Note, Randy Richardson

National Forensic Journal

No abstract provided.

Antidosis For A Forensics Life: An Isocratic Defense Of Modern Practices Of Competitive Forensics, Aaron Duncan

National Forensic Journal

The forensics community is under attack from inside and outside the coaching profession. It is important that we as coaches defend our practices and justify the value of the activity. Despite his prominence in his own time and his influence over the development of rhetoric, the work of Isocrates has not been utilized to craft a defense of forensics. Similar to the situation we face today, Isocrates also had to defend his practices as a teacher of rhetoric. Using his works Antidosis and Against the Sophist, I attempt to craft a defense for the practices of the modern forensics community.

Better Pleasing The Court: How The American Collegiate Moot Court Association Can Improve Its Competition, Alan R. Gray Jr.

National Forensic Journal

The American Collegiate Moot Court Association strives to educate undergraduates about the American legal system through participation in moot court, a simulated oral argument before an appellate court. Its competition structure, however, suffers from defects that undermine the educational value of the event. This article argues that the ACMCA ought to adopt certain reforms in its operational structure, including geographically locking its regional competitions, abandoning its practice of power-matching preliminary rounds, and rewriting its judging ballot. These goals would not only enhance the quality of the legal education received by its participants, but improve students’ forensic learning experience as well.

Special Section – Critical Thought In The Age Of Forensics, Bruce Wickelgren

National Forensic Journal

No abstract provided.

The Success Gap, Katie Donovan

National Forensic Journal

When Lisa Uhrig, Cathie Craig and Ruth Brisbain won Impromptu, ADS and Persuasive at the 1971 National Forensics Association National Tournament, the forensics community breathed a collective sigh of relief. These women had won three of the six events the NFA offered at the time. Apparently, the lack of women in the activity had been solved. Over the next several decades teams were encouraged to diversify and include more women. However, while these efforts brought women into the activity, they failed to create a culture of equal success between men and women in forensics. Instead, we have considered the issue …

Small World: A Forensic Dialectic, Jamie Bingham, Kylia Goodner

National Forensic Journal

No abstract provided.

Questions Surrounding Questions: A Rhetorical Analysis Of The Use Of Research Questions In Academic Writing, Stephanie Orme

National Forensic Journal

The fact that researchers have begun to question the potentially unethical use of questions in research, and that the research question has become an increasing presence in all scholarly rhetorical criticism– including 99% of the speeches you will see this year– the use of the research question in a venue that has traditionally avoided it merits investigation. So in order to explore the objectivity and academic effectiveness of research questions in our field, I performed a content analysis of top rhetoric journals using Hyland’s method for analyzing questions found in the article “What do they mean? Questions in Academic 54 …

Connecting Past And Present: A Rhetorical Analysis Of How Forensics Programs Use Storytelling To Promote Team Legacy, Stephanie Orme

National Forensic Journal

Given forensics programs' status as organizations at academic institutions, these teams experience changes in membership far more often than typical organizations. Each year, a team will graduate a class of seniors who, through their four years as a competitor, have helped shape the program's culture and legacy in numerous ways. Yet this void left by the graduating members is then filled by the incoming freshman or transfer student competitors who will now play a part in reshaping the team's culture. This constant change in organizational culture makes it vital that forensic programs go to extra lengths to ensure that their …

21 Building Bridges: Connecting Performance Studies And Forensic Oral Interpretation, Alyssa Reid

National Forensic Journal

Forensic educators have faced long standing criticism, within our discipline and beyond, in regards to the true educational benefits of forensic competition with particular scrutiny towards oral interpretation events. Although forensic interpretation events may seem like fun raucous performances, they are in many ways are grounded in sound pedagogy of oral interpretation scholarship. However in recent years, forensic oral interpretation has evolved to move beyond mere rendering of a text. In many ways forensic interpretation has shifted towards a paradigm of performance studies. Therefore, I shall reexplore past criticisms of forensic interp in order to argue for new ways to …

Reframing Competitive Critical Analyses: An Argument For Education-Application Based Methods For Speech Writing In Ca And Rhetorical Criticism, Katherine L. Hatfield-Edstrom

National Forensic Journal

This project offers a contemporary exemplar that students and coaches in competitive speech, specifically in the events of rhetorical criticism or communication analysis can use to help reframe traditional notions or methods of how to write a speech for competition. I contend that the event in competition has become too “cookie-cutter” and devoid of innovation or “thinking outside the box,” which can limit the educational experience for our students. Thus, this project begins as a full critical analysis employing the theoretical framework of public memory and follows with a discussion of how a student in competitive speech could approach the …

Biological Sex As A Predictor Of Competitive Success In Intercollegiate Forensics, Kiranjeet Dhillon, April Larson

National Forensic Journal

This study examines biological sex as a predictor of the level of success in intercollegiate policy debate, impromptu speaking, and extemporaneous speaking. Secondary data analysis of tabulation sheets from NDT, AFA-NIET, and NFA, revealed three findings. First, there are more male than female competitors in policy debate and males significantly experienced more out-round success than females. Second, there are more males than females in impromptu speaking; however, there was no significance between biological sex and success in out-rounds. Third, there are more male than female competitors in extemporaneous speaking and males significantly experienced more out-round success than females.

After Dinner Speaking: Problems, Causes, And Still No Solutions, Brandi Lawless

National Forensic Journal

Since its adoption as a competitive event, After Dinner Speaking has been critiqued and criticized by several scholars. Despite the quantity of literature produced on this topic, changes to the event have been minimal. This author chooses to look at four areas of controversy including: defining the event, differentiating After Dinner Speaking from Speech to Entertain, differentiating After Dinner Speaking from other platform events, and developing a judging standard for this event. With the use of humor, this paper not only examines these problems, but also the need for discussion surrounding the pedagogical goals of After Dinner Speaking as a …

They Know What They're Doing But They Don't Know Why: A Theoretical Exploration Of Intertextuality In Interpretation Events, Megan Orcholski, Dan Cronn-Mills

National Forensic Journal

Our agenda is to offer a conceptual/theoretical understanding of the post-structural approach to literature interpretation/performance. We make a practice of the theory in the construction of the paper—we allow the text to speak for itself. We provide a juxtaposition numerous authors. We focus on the text rather than the author. We offer the following reading instructions: Please read the text as a whole and skimming the referential notations. The citations are provided for readers who wish to further the topic. We realize we depart from the traditional academic writing form. The common occurrence of the style in competition underscores the …

The Official Language Of Academic Debate, Marcus Paroske

National Forensic Journal

Academic debate continues to face the long term issue of how to reconcile competing philosophies of argument pedagogy and competitive practice, especially between adherents technical and civic debate theories. Using the theories of Pierre Bourdieu, this essay offers an analysis of this division, focusing on the role of dominant language formation and the role fluency plays in constituting power dynamic in the activity. The conception of a translation approach to judging is offered as a remedy for the exclusionary effects of technical language use in debate.

Circus: An Integrated Curriculum Unit, Institute For The Development Of Gifted Education, Ricks Center For Gifted Children, University Of Denver

Ricks Curriculum Units Series

An integrated curriculum is an instructional approach that connects the disciplines to an underlying theme or topic. Immersing students in an integrated-thematic unit provides the backdrop for experiences to occur across the disciplines. Shaping coursework around integrated themes is especially appropriate for gifted students, however using an integrated-thematic curriculum is appropriate for all learners as it develops students' abilities to make connections, to solve problems by looking at multiple perspectives, and to integrate information from different fields of experience. An integrated-thematic curriculum permits students to be active participants in their own learning as they design their own explorations and take …

Wow Cafe Theater Unveils 30th Anniversary Festival After Three Decades, Fierce Performers Prove The Show Will Go On, Esther Zinn

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

WOW Cafe Theater, a collective for female and and trans performance artists, strutted its stuff during its Pearl festival in May by celebrating thirty years of producing risk-taking, genre-defying theatre during the entire month of May 2010. Featuring more than twenty performances and fifty artists spanning a broad spectrum of music, dance, and multi-media, the Pearl festival was arguably the biggest and longest running theatrical event for women in New York during this summer, made possible by a generous grant from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.

“Legal Or Illegal? Documented Or Undocumented?” The Struggle Over Brookhaven’S Neighborhood Preservation Act, Jackson B. Miller

Faculty Publications

This critical essay applies the concept of “presence” as a theoretical lens for explaining the rhetorical efficacy of protest events surrounding a contemporary debate about immigrants’ rights in a suburban New York township. Specifically, the protests surrounding the town board meetings regarding Brookhaven’s “Neighborhood Preservation Act,” a piece of legislation geared toward making rental laws more stringent, are examined. A group comprised largely of white, upper middle-class citizens voiced their support for the proposed legislation, while a group of day laborers and those sympathetic with their cause characterized the proposed legislation as a form of racial discrimination disguised as a …

The Mind Museum: Rudolf Schwarzkogler And The Vienna Actionists, Philip Barnes

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[Sixth paragraph]

In the following essay I discuss the Austrian artist Rudolf Schwarzkogler. I have enjoyed the process of ferreting out articles and references to him, although these are seemingly as scarce as his own artistic output. Schwarzkogler spent just 2 years staging performance-actions in his apartment in the 1960s. These methodically photographed scenes involved sliced fish, bandages, light bulbs, razor blades, foodstuffs and surgical apparatus, all manipulated by anonymous figures. The photographs, works of art in their own right, have since toured internationally. Schwarzkogler was the least outgoing of a group called the Viennese Actionists, whose orgiastic, bloody Happenings …

On Guillermo Gomez-Peña's El Mexterminator And Cyber Vato, Michael Benton

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

While attending Bowling Green State University in 1997 I had an experience that changed my worldview. I was a teaching assistant in the Popular Culture department and part of my responsibilities included teaching Introduction to Popular Culture (POPC 100) and Introduction to Mass Media (POPC 165). I had been struggling to engage my students in examining the way in which social reality is represented to them through popular entertainments [2]. The majority of my students were white, middle class students from the surrounding Northern regions of Ohio. My students were well-versed in the ongoing controversy over whether or …

“Indians,” “Braves,” And “Redskins”: A Performative Struggle For Control Of An Image, Jackson B. Miller

Faculty Publications

Native American groups across the country have been protesting the use of their symbols and heritage in sports arenas for over a decade. Yet, particularly in the realm of professional sports, these protests have not generated significant changes in attitudes and practices. This critical essay examines several Native American protest events to reveal the factors contributing to the failure of the reform movement and to suggest some strategies for rhetorically reformulating the campaign.

Group Therapy: A Play, Eleanor L. Earl

Institute for the Humanities Theses

Group Therapy is a modem drama set in Portsmouth, Virginia, a small Naval town which is part of a larger area called Hampton Roads. Hampton Roads is best known for its Naval shipyards, Naval bases, and historic landmarks. The year is 1994.

The play focuses on interpersonal communication in a setting that serves as a surrogate family. In the play, seven men and women from varied walks of life come together and share their most intimate joys and sorrows in group therapy. Together, with the assistance of a dedicated psychologist, they struggle to confront and overcome depression and anxiety.

Ua1f Wku Archives Vertical File - Dinner Theater, Wku Archives

WKU Administration Documents

Digitized vertical file materials regarding WKU Theatre & Dance dinner theater program.

Ua37/30/2 Wku Research Notecards - P Topics, Lowell Harrison

Faculty/Staff Personal Papers

Notecards created by Lowell Harrison while researching his book Western Kentucky University. The cards transcribed below are for 134 topics beginning with P ranging from P.O.W. to Purpose.

Ua12/2/2 Talisman: A Season Of Hope Part 1, Wku Student Affairs

WKU Administration Documents

1983 Talisman yearbook pp. 1-193

• A Season of Hope Wright, Sharon. Multi-faceted Beauty
• Sandman, Ellen. Music of the Highlands – Skip Cleavinger, Bagpipes
• Cornett, Susanna. Fashion Forum
• Cornett, Susanna. Tradition & Trends Are Seen in Faculty Dress
• Grace, Lee. An Attitude of Awareness – Alcohol
• Sawyer, Janet. Double Dilemma – Twins
• Sandman, Ellen. Chance to Charm – Miss Western, Miss Black Western
• Thomas, Laura. Aerobicise
• Campbell, Marsha. Topper Trivia (1)
• Burchett, Lorri. Added Dimension – Concerts, Entertainment
• Lyly, Linda. Fine Arts – Entertainment
• Lyly, Linda. Theater
• Lyly, Linda. Childish Direction – Children’s Theatre
• Sandman, Ellen. Classic Reunion – Homecoming
• Cornett, …

A Visual Concept For Robinson Jeffers' Adaptation Of Euripides' Medea, H. Kevin Lanham

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The theatrical elements of setting, costumes, and make-up for Robinson Jeffers' adaptation of Euripides' Medea were designed and constructed in an attempt to create an effective visual concept. Through careful script analysis and close communication with the director and production staff, the designer combined the visual elements. As a record of the concept development from generalities to rough sketches and from formal drawings and diagrams to the finished product, the designer uses the accounting to trace both the artistic creation and the physical construction of each set element and costume for Medea.

The Interpretive-Rhetorical Situation: A Framework For Post Performance Analysis Of Interpretation, John Korinek

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The interpretive-rhetorical situation was formulated by blending Lloyd Bitzer's concepts of the rhetorical situation with contemporary interpretation theory. interpretation is momentary, the foundation established as The concept of as a suasory speech act in the sense that it transactional, and intentional, established for theory formation. The key concept an application for the interpretive-rhetorical situation was that it formed a cohesive framework for guiding post performance aspects of interpretation, especially performance criticism and experimental research. An experimental study was conducted, testing the newly formed breakdown of the traditional interpretation elements of writer, reader, and audience into the constituents of exigency, audience …

The Theatrical Innovations Of Charles Laughton, Gary Joseph Jones

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

In most journalistic studies the film career of Charles Laughton overshadows his theatrical activities to the extent that the reader is hardly aware of the importance of his theatrical innovations to the theater of our time. The more commercial side of Laughton’s career was publicized while his artistic efforts, as characterized by the innovations, were frequently forgotten. More people remember him as the man who played Captain Bligh in the movies than as the man who worked with Bertolt Brecht, created the First Drama Quartette and developed a new American art form, Readers’ Theatre.

The rationale of this study is …