Introduction: Taxi Driver Forward

Provides an overview of Paul Schrader’s career, important biographical information, and a contextual reading of thematic and stylistic preoccupations of Schrader’s films. Establishes the framework for the subsequent essays through an examination of Schrader’s contributions to cinema as both a critic and a filmmaker. Begins with Taxi Driver and uses that film as a jumping off point for the remainder of his work, seeing each of the subsequent films as part of that film’s legacy. Taxi Driver is an important through line for many of the essays included in the collection, but not the focus of any individual essay. Use Taxi Driver and its many influences, including those from Schrader’s biography and his intellectual background as a critic, to craft a lens through which his other films can be viewed.

Debate académico de puertas abiertas como herramienta para estimular el pensamiento crítico y la orientación científica: una experiencia piloto

This paper aims to present a pilot experience conducted during the spring of 2018 in the Jardí Botànic (Botanic Garden) of the Universitat de València. The experience brought about 24 students from the degrees of Sociology, Primary School Education and Psychology in the same university (6 students from each degree), and 6 students from different academic backgrounds, including Master´s Degree students and one PhD student. The main goal of the pilot study is to analyze the perception and effectiveness of an academic debate seminar made outdoors and including students from different academic backgrounds. It was organized in three sessions of three hours each, with a pre-established distribution of roles between moderators and participants was pre-established. Clear rules of the functioning were also set up. The debate was structured in different parts, the duration of which had been previously established, as well as the time allocated to each intervention. Mutual trust and respect were also promoted and different dialectical positions and arguments were encouraged. At the end the students assessed the experience and had the opportunity to explain the extent to which the experience was fruitful in an individual essay, highlighting especially two positive aspects: the outdoor environment and the possibility to interact with students of other careers.

Introduction

The introduction locates Derrida's philosophical project within wider developments in philosophy, death penalty abolition, and prison abolition, making a case for the unique value of his work in the current political climate. Because Derrida is deconstructing the logic of the death penalty, rather than the death penalty itself, his seminars will prove useful to scholars and activists opposing all forms of state sanctioned killing. The introduction also provides an overview of the volume as a whole, outlining the particular emphases of the four sections ("Reading Derrida's Death Penalty Seminars," "Derrida and his Interlocutors," "Extending Derrida's Analysis," "Derrida and Capital Punishment in the United States") and introducing each individual essay.

Peer Evaluation: Enhancing learning Opportunities and Reducing Marking Effort

Evaluation of report-based assignments, especially in larger classes, adds a considerable marking load. Even with detailed rubrics, subjectivity may lead to grading variations and inaccuracies. Evaluation of others’ work can also be a very informative and educational experience, improving their skill through exposure to a broader performance range. Involving students in peer evaluation can potentially address both of these issues by reducing marking load, providing alternate (and increased number of) assessments, and by exposing students to a broader spectrum of report skills thus enhancing their own knowledge. This paper discusses the results of an experiment in peer assessment and whether it can be exploited to reduce marking effort, improve accuracy for report assignment evaluation and improve student skill. The data was gathered from assignments in two different engineering classes: a second year course on safety and environmental stewardship, and a senior course on engineering economics. For the second-year course, an individual essay assignment was marked by the instructor and two peers. The three evaluations were analyzed to assess the accuracy and assign a grade. For the senior course, a group report on a case study was self and peer evaluated. These evaluations were used to derive a grade for the report directly if the self and peer results were within a prescribed tolerance; other cases were resolved by instructor intervention. The results were analyzed considering the number of outliers, range of scores, and the number of cases which had to be resolved by theinstructor. Parameters considered in assessing the results of the experiment included: the correlation between assessments, the learning opportunities for students, and instructor marking effort required. (preliminary analysis) Results suggest positive gains in reducing effort. Improved accuracy and enhanced student learning are also expected.

More dialectical than the dialectic: Exemplarity in Theodor W. Adorno’s The Essay as Form

This essay presents a careful interpretation of Adorno’s classical text The Essay as Form, published in 1958 as the introduction to his Notes on Literature. Since it thickly condenses many of Adorno’s general views, the Essay poses great hermeneutic challenges to readers. The paper, first, elaborates on the essay more broadly as a genre and identifies a spectrum between science and art each individual essay draws from to forge its particular hybridity. Second, the example is discussed as an epistemologically potent trope oscillating between subsumption and singularity. This internal tension renders the example particularly qualified to serve as the conceptual basis on which interpretative themes in the essay can be discovered. Three lines of interpretation are suggested: (a) poetological for the essay/ Essay’s definition, goal, and method; (b) critical/dialectical for its treatment of concepts and in relation to content; and (c) epistemic for the modern separation of art and science. The conclusion comes back to the issue of exemplarity.

Weimar Thought

During its short lifespan, the Weimar Republic (1918–33) witnessed an unprecedented flowering of achievements in many areas, including psychology, political theory, physics, philosophy, literary and cultural criticism, and the arts. Leading intellectuals, scholars, and critics—such as Hannah Arendt, Walter Benjamin, Ernst Bloch, Bertolt Brecht, and Martin Heidegger—emerged during this time to become the foremost thinkers of the twentieth century. Even today, the Weimar era remains a vital resource for new intellectual movements. This book presents a comprehensive guide and unified portrait of the most important innovators, themes, and trends of this fascinating period. The book is divided into four thematic sections: law, politics, and society; philosophy, theology, and science; aesthetics, literature, and film; and general cultural and social themes of the Weimar period. It brings together established and emerging scholars from a remarkable array of fields, and each individual essay serves as an overview for a particular discipline while offering distinctive critical engagement with relevant problems and debates. Whether used as an introductory companion or advanced scholarly resource, the book provides insight into the rich developments behind the intellectual foundations of modernity.

A blended collaborative writing approach for Chinese L2 primary school students

<span>This paper outlines an adaptable collaborative writing approach employing a wiki to address the typical weaknesses of young Singaporean Chinese students learning Chinese as second language (L2) in Chinese writing. These students' problems in writing include limited and incorrect use of vocabulary, English-style grammar, badly structured passages, and so on. The collaborative writing approach, V.S.P.O.W., can be characterised as a recursive, bottom-up writing process that requires the students to collaboratively carry out wiki-based "word/phrase pooling" (V), "sentence making" (S), "paragraph writing" (P), and "outlining" (O); and eventually individual essay writing (W). We analysed the potential learning effects of the writing process among Primary 4 (10-year-old) students - especially in addressing and leveraging students' individual differences. Through teacher and student-initiated customisation of the original V.S.P.O.W. process, we hope to improve the students' micro-skills for writing. The results of the pilot study show that the target students' micro-skills for writing were significantly improved, which could be attributed to emerging peer coaching practices among them.</span>

Economic Change and the National Question in Twentieth-Century Europe. Edited by Alice Teichova, Herbert Matis, and Jaroslav Patek. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pp. xvi, 433. $74.95.

The connection between nationalism and economic development is an important subject, and the contributors to the volume before us are to be commended for tackling it. But the significance of contributions to edited volumes in humanities and the social sciences rarely extends beyond their symbolic function—of serving as memorabilia to the rites and ceremonies in which scholarly conviviality finds its chief expression. Thus they are forgotten almost as soon as they appear in print, similarly to the elegant menus of formal dinners and wedding invitations, and for all intents and purposes are lost to the world of learning. Their only chance to escape this sad fate in most cases depends on the clarity, originality, and persuasiveness of the editors' vision, which may claim and hold the reader's attention, while creating a conceptual framework within which each individual essay acquires an added meaning. The editors of Economic Change and the National Question in Twentieth-Century Europe fail to provide such a framework, and the result is a collection of historical trivia with no more intellectual interest than any limited amount of raw data awaiting an interpreter.