West Georgia College Review, Vols. 24-25

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WEST GEORGIA COLLEGE

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WEST GEORGIA COLLEGE

Published by

West Georgia College

A Unit of the University System of Georgia

Carrollton, Georgia

Volume XXIV May 1994

Published by
WEST GEORGIA COLLEGE

Bruce W. Lyon, Acting President
Don N. Smith, Vice President and Dean of Faculties

Learning Resources Committee
Ben de Mayo, Chairperson

Charles Beard
Bruce Bird
Mauricio Cabrera
Tim Chowns
Mary Creamer

Anita Vanbrackle

Victoria Geisler

Kathryn Grams

Javier Hasbun

Lee Jan

Wayne Kirk

Martha A. Saunders, Editor

Jeanette C. Bernhardt, Associate Editor

Joanne R. Artz, Assistant Editor

The purpose of this publication is to provide encouragement for
faculty research and to make available results of such activity. The Review,
published annually, accepts original scholarly work. West Georgia
College assumes no responsibility for contributors' views. The style guide
is MLA Handbook, Second Edition. Although the Review is primarily a
medium for the faculty ofWest Georgia College, other sources are invited.

The abstracts of all masters' and educational specialists' theses written at
West Georgia College are included as they are awarded.

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LYRASIS IVIembers and Sloan Foundation

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WEST GEORGIA COLLEGE

Volume XXIV May 1994

TABLE OF CONTENTS

"Common Meter" by Rudolph Fisher:
An Uncommon Gumbo of Prose, Blues,
Jazz, Love, and War

by Patricia E. Bonner 5

Financing Higher Education in Georgia:

A Comparative Analysis

by Richard Guynn and Carole E. Scott 17

Transpersonal Psychology: A New^ Paradigm of Inquiry

by Kaisa Puhakka 31

Exploring Writing Across the Curriculum:
An Invitation to Faculty Across the Curriculum

by Timothy A. Peeples 39

Abstracts of Master's Theses and Specialist in

Education Projects 47

Copyright 1994, West Georgia College
Printed in the USA (ISSN 0043-3136)

"Common Meter" by Rudolph Fisher:

An Uncommon Gumbo of Prose, Blues,

Jazz, Love, and War

by Patricia E. Bonner*

Rudolph Fisher is perhaps one of the most gifted and innovative
literary magicians to w^rite in the genre of the short story. The spirit and
pulse of the Harlem Renaissance are alive in the world of his stories.
Although Fisher is a lesser known writer of the Harlem Renaissance, he
deserves a renaissance of his own. His unorthodox style, his exciting prose
that is full of pleasant surprises, and his use ot blues and jazz music breathe
life into nostalgic memories of hot, swinging Harlem, New York, in the
1920s. Fisher records the lives of the black people whose bruised souls sang
the blues and crooned sweet jazz in one of his most popular short stories,
"Common Meter." It is a love story born and bred in Harlem, and it throbs
with the magic, soul, and heartache of the black experience.

The Harlem Renaissance is the literary period in which Fisher wrote,
and Harlem is the setting for "Common Meter." A brief look at Harlem
and the Harlem Renaissance is necessary in order to understand the
historical context of this story. In the nineteenth century, eighty to ninety
percent of blacks lived in the South, and during the great migration,
between the years of 1910-1920, 450,000 blacks left the South. In the
years of 1920-1930, 750,000 more blacks emigrated from the South
heading for the North (Lewis 108-9). Forced out by the poverty of
southern agriculture and the brutality of southern racial bigotry, these
Negroes went in search of a freer life and better job opportunities. Though
their settlement labeled them northerners, they brought with them their
southern values, their southern tastes, their god, their music, and their
capacity for hope. Soon Harlem began to swell with large numbers of black
people, whose culture would leave an indelible tattoo upon its history.
Hundreds of thousands of African- Americans invaded the North, providing
the ingredients for a renaissance.

'Assistant Professor of English, West Georgia College

5

The Harlem Renaissance (1920-30) was an artistic movement in|
African-American history' that touched upon every medium of creativity.
African-Americans contributed major w^orks in literature, art, music, and I
drama. It w^as as if they collectively attained an attitude of racial pride and
assertiveness. Nathan Huggins in his book Harlem Renaissance vividly
describes the personality of the movement:

It is a rare and intriguing moment v^^hen a people decide that

they are the instruments of history-making and race-building.

It is common enough to think of oneself as part of some larger

meaning in the sweep of history, a part of some grand design.

But to presume to be an actor and creator in the special

occurrence of a people's birth (or rebirth) requires a singular

self-consciousness. In the opening decades of the twentieth

century, down into the first years of the Great Depression,

black intellectuals in Harlem had just such a self-concept.

These Harlemites were so convinced that they were evoking

their people's "Dusk of Dawn" that they believed that they

marked a renaissance. (3)

African-Americans were finally able to give more voice and visibility to

their culture and art. Emancipation, Reconstruction, and the dawn of the

twentieth century had done little for the social and political advancement

of African-Americans. Their post-Civil War years had been spent in a

desperate struggle to survive, with little time or encouragement for artistic

expression. The Harlem Renaissance, however, inspired and maintained

an interest in the black condition in America. This was achieved by black

assertiveness in every possible medium. People around the country and the

world took notice.

The achievements of African- American intellectuals were reflected in
the brilliance of their contributions. They created the "New Negro," a
term coined by Alain Locke. By the end of the war in 1919,
African-Americans were becoming more assertive than their prewar
brothers and sisters. Their willingness to fight showed that the Negro was
anxious to make America safe for himself as he had been to make the world
safe for democracy. This "New Negro" would insist on absolute and
unequivocal social equality. He would be self-assertive and not content
with second class citizenship.

Despite the disillusionment that followed wartime idealism, the
1920s continued the spirit of emancipation, innovation, and newness. The
spirit of the times was also referred to as "The Jazz Age." This spirit
manifested itself in Harlem and in its nightclub circuit with blues and jazz
music and performers that serenaded Harlem's inhabitants. Cabarets
opened everywhere, including the famed Cotton Club, Connie's Inn, and
Small's. These nightclubs were established specifically for white patronage
and observed Jim Crow laws. Some of the big band greats such as the
Fletcher Henderson Orchestra and the Duke Ellington Orchestra
frequently performed at these estabUshments. In addition, music gushed
out of such blues queens as Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Ida Cox, and Alberta
Hunter, all of whom received recording contracts in this new age (Huggins
3-10). Many aU-black"jook joints" or nightclubs, "jam sessions," and rent
parties were also firmly embedded in the black community. Blues and jazz
music spread through Harlem like a friendly disease.

The Uterature of the Harlem Renaissance captured the spirit of the
Jazz Age and reflected much of what was actually going on in Harlem.
Rudolph Fisher realistically portrays the people and the music from this
period in his short story "Common Meter" set in Harlem during the
1920s. All of the action takes place in Harlem on Lenox Avenue in a
nightclub named "The Arcadia," known as "The World's Largest and
Finest Ballroom." On Saturday night, the owner of the club is sponsoring
a battle between two bands, a competition between Fess Baxter's Firemen
and Bus Williams' Blue Devils. Both are soulflil jazz bands that play the
blues and swell the euphoria found in the club. People come to the Arcadia
to be healed by the music, to seek the joy of a jazzy night, and to look for
love. Fisher describes the club and its inhabitants as follows:

So much outside. Inside, a blazing lobby, flanked by marble
stairways. Upstairs, an enormous dance hall the length of a city
block. Low ceilings blushing pink with rows of inverted
dome-lights. A broad dancing area, bounded on three sides by
a wide soft-carpeted promenade, on the fourth by an ample
platform accommodating the two orchestras.
People. Flesh. A fly-thickjam of dancers on the floor, grimly
jostling each other; a milling herd of thirsty-eyed boys, moving
slowly, searchingly over the carpeted promenade; a congregation
of languid girls, lounging in rows of easy chairs here and there,

bodies and faces unconcerned, dark eyes furtively alert. A
restless multitude of empty, romance-hungry lives. (74)

The competition between the two bands is paralleled by the competition
between the two men, Fess and Bus, for the love of Miss Jean Ambrose.
One of the minor characters observes, "They can't use knives and they
can't use Knucks. And so they get to fight it out with Jazz" (Fisher 80). The
winner will claim the jazz championship of the world, win a trophy called
"The Lovin' Cup," and, of course, win the heart and hand of Miss Jean
Ambrose.

Miss Ambrose is described as a child of Harlem who speaks its
language. Orphaned at a young age, she is described as strikingly beautiful
with pretty black wavy hair, merry black eyes, and clear amber skin with
roses imprisoned in it. And she is known to have the sassiest "hip-switch"
of all the women. Bus has gotten her a job in the Arcadia as a dancing
companion to men for pay and as a hostess. The two band leaders, Fess and
Bus, are simply overwhelmed by her beauty. On her first night at work.
Bus asks her to marry him while Baxter promises her money and a good
time.

Although Fess and Bus are master jazz men who have the power to
take music and turn it into pure emotion and feeUng, their personalities
differ. Fess is flamboyant, aggressive, and outgoing, fully aware of his
power over women. As the narrator says, ". . . catching sight of girls was
one of his special accomplishments." Fess is handsome too and is described
as cheese-colored with straightened brown hair. His appearance, style,
and charisma captivate women. Bus, on the other hand, has a more sincere
and unaggressive demeanor and follows the truth of his heart rather than
his sexual appetite. He is described as having a jolly round brown face with
an easy smile. Bus does feel threatened by Fess, or rather threatened by the
charm that Fess can pour all over Jean, and they even have a brief physical
confrontation over her honor. They are warned by the owner of the club
to fight it out with jazz sticks, their weapons, not with fists (Fisher 79).

The battle between the two bands is set for the following Monday
night; then, everyone will find out who is the best man to win the jazz
contest, the "Lovin' Cup," as vvell as Miss Jean Ambrose. Rumors spread
all over Harlem about this competition, and a week later, the Arcadia is full
of pleasure seekers. The rules are established: Each band will play three
numbers: a one-step, a fox-trot, and a blues number. The owner has a stop

watch, and he will time the applause after each number, and the leader
receiving the longest total applause is the winner. So their success depends
on how deeply their music is able to move the crowd.

Monday night arrives, and the Arcadia is full. The competition
begins. Bus Williams' Blue Devils win the coin toss and play the first
number. The narrator describes Bus' musical philosophy and the Blue
Devils' performance as follows:

Bus' philosophy of jazz held tone to be merely the vehicle of

rhythm. He spent much time devising new rhythmic patterns

with which to vary his presentation. Accordingly he depended

largely on . . . his master percussionist, who knew every

rhythmic monkey-shine with which to delight a gaping throng.

Bus had conceived the present piece as a chase, in which an

agile clarinet eluded impetuous and turbulent traps. The other

instruments were to be observers, chorusing their excitement

while they urged the principals on. (Fisher 82)

But from the moment the piece starts, something is obviously wrong.

People stop dancing in the middle of the number, puzzled. The traps of

the drums are voiceless, only emitting shadows of sound. The applause is

only 15 seconds. Each drum-sheet is dead, cut with a knife by Fess. Next

is Fess's turn, and he faces the crowd with confident happiness. His band

is phenomenal. The author describes his performance:

Fess Baxter was directing a whirlwind number, sweeping the

crowd about the floor at an exciting, exhausting pace, distorting,

expanding, etherealizing their emotions with swift-changing

dissonances. Contrary to Bus William's philosophy, Fess Baxter

considered rhythm a mere rack upon which to hang his tonal

tricks. (Fisher 83)

Of course, there is nothing wrong with Fess' drums. The applause is 3

minutes and 20 seconds. Although Bus wants to confront Fess about his

treachery, he is stopped and encouraged by his drummers not to quit.

Instead of playing the drum, his drummer will play the wood, cymbals, and

sandpaper. Then, Bus begins his second number, a fox-trot; however as

the narrator says, "The spine had been ripped out of their music, and they

could not compensate for the gaping absence of bass" (Fisher 84). The

applause is only 45 seconds. Next again is Fess. The Firemen's fox-trot is

Fess' rearrangement of Burleigh's "Jean, My Jean." The crowd loves it, but

it fails to delight Jean Ambrose, whom by its title it was intended to flatter.
The narrator describes the music: "The thing was delirious with strange
harmonies, iridescent with odd color-changes, and its very flamboyance,
its musical fine-writing and conceits delighted the dancers" (Fisher 83).
When Bus tells Jean that Fess has destroyed his band's drums, her
attraction to Fess is immediately severed. Many times in the black
community, all is not fair in love and war, so Jean urges and encourages Bus
to try to win the competition. The present score is for the Blue Devils,
one minute even; for the Firemen, six minutes and 30 seconds. Now it is
time for the Blue Devils' last number, the Blues. The narrator provides
excellent description of this performance:

He had chosen the parent of blues songs, the old St. Louis
Blues, and he adduced every device that had ever adorned that
classic. Clarinets wailed, saxophones moaned, trumpets wept
wretchedly, trombones laughed bitterly, even the great bass
horn sobbed dismally from the depths. (Fisher 84)
What's more, the crowd falls under the spell of Bus' blues. The narrator
continues:

And so perfectly did the misery in the music express the actual

despair of the situation that the crowd was caught from the

start. Soon dancers closed their eyes, forgot their jostling

neighbors, lost themselves bodily in the easy sway of that slow,

fateflil measure, vaguely aware that some quality hitherto lost

had at last been found. They were too wholly absorbed to know

just how that quality had been found: that every player softly

dropped his heel where each bass-drum beat would have come,

giving each major impulse a body and breadth that no drum

could have achieved. Zoom-zoom-zoom-zoom. It was not a

mere sound; it was a vibrant throb that took hold of the crowd

and rocked it. (Fisher 84-85)

The emotional power of the blues washes over everyone with sweetly

melancholy magic. Fisher heavily emphasizes the fact that the crowd is

transported by the music, not just back to the suffering of slavery, but even

further back to Africa and its drumbeats of black life. Through the music,

the crowd walks through the heavy sorrow of their history. As the narrator

says, "Not a sound but an emotion that laid hold on their bodies and svsomg

10

them into the past. Blues--low-down blues indeed blues that reached
their soul's depths" (Fisher 84).

However, the blues is more than just a sad song. It is a paradoxical
mixture of joy and pain and suffering and soothing. The emotional weight
of the blues played by the Blue Devils begins to lighten; the color, texture,
and tone of the music change. "The blueness . . . the sorrow, the despair
began to give way to hope. Rapturously, rhapsodically, the number rose to
madness and at the height of its madness, burst into sudden silence.
Illusion broke. Dancers awoke, dropped to reality with a jolt" (Fisher 85).
The crowd applauds, its palms sore. Bus and his Blue Devils have moved
the crowd and taken them to places of nostalgia, melancholy, ecstasy,
sorrow, and hope in a way only music can.

It is Fess's Firemen's last chance, but their style of wild improvisation
and dependence on rhythm is useless in a low-down blues song. Also, just
after the crowd has walked through the depths of the Blue Devil's blues
and wallowed in the emotion ot the music, Fess's Firemen cannot connect
with them. The cathartic effect of the Blue Devils' blues leaves them spent
and satisfied. The crowd's applause for Fess's Firemen dies in a few
seconds, except for a few people Fess has paid to clap. The fmal score is
Bus Williams' Blue Devils 7 minutes and 40 seconds, and Fess Baxter's
Firemen 8 minutes flat. Fess is declared the winner, and the owner of the
club presents him with the Lovin' cup amid shouts of hisses and boos as
well as derogatory name-calling directed at him. The crowd is silent as
Fess bends down to give Miss Jean Ambrose a gallant hand up to the
platform. With a bow, he hands her the cup. Shouts from the crowd assault
both of them, and they urge her not to accept the cup. Then, the Blue
Devils' drummer exposes the ripped drum, and some of the angrier
members of the crowd begin to descend upon Fess. Jean Ambrose's
momentary hesitation abruptly vanishes. She takes the trophy and runs to
give it to Bus. The romance-hungry crowd screams in delight as Bus
gathers Jean and the cup into his arms. "The crowd went utterly
wild--laughed, shouted, yelled, and whistled till the walls of the Arcadia
bulged. Jazz emerged as the mad noise subsided" (Fisher 85-86). The story
ends with Bus Wilhams' Blue Devils playing "She's Still My Baby."

Although on the surface "Common Meter" is a rather simplistic love
story, Fisher has surrounded it with the musical history of
African-Americans. Like mimetic shadows, black music accompanied

11

and sometimes preceded every mood and move of the African- American
in his quest for freedom and equality. Black music, then, tells about the
feelings and thinking of black people and the kinds of mental and
emotional adjustments they had to make in order to survive and succeed
in America. In the vein of Langston Hughes, Fisher uses musical metaphors
to characterize and define the experiences of masses of poor black people
all over America. His characters in "Common Meter" are blues people
who live the blues experience. The lives of all poor black people in the
1920s were not characterized by the blues, yet the blues was a real and
constant aspect of many of their lives. Their experiences were dominated
by a struggle to survive: meeting the landlord's rent, trying to find one of
the menial jobs within prescribed social limitations, trying to scrape up
enough money for food, clothes, and in some instances, liquor, and dealing
with the humiliations that the color of their skin evoked. Their experiences
were also characterized by personal struggles such as unrequited love,
domestic violence, sexual despair, and broken relationships. The terms
blues experience also includes the good times gleaned from the struggle:
"throwing" rent parties, going dancing, singing, partying in "jook joints,"
eating barbecue and potato salad; in short, wallowing in the occasional but
softer seams of poverty. The people who consistently fill the Arcadia live
in the blues experience; they are blues people. In "Common Meter" two
of the ladies in the club acknowledge how beautiful Jean Ambrose is and
say, "I could look a lot better'n that it I didn't have to work all day." "No
lie. Scrubbin' floors never made no bathin' beauties." Even Miss Jean
Ambrose is a child of the blues experience. She is in many ways a
"motherless child," having been raised in an orphanage. She is familiar
with the blues and is reduced to earning money by catering to the needs
of many men, for the people who attend the Arcadia know that a large part
of struggling to survive in America takes a destructive toll on their bodies
and sometimes their spirits. The blues is their life-line.

It is no accident that Bus Williams' band is named the Blue Devils.
The blues derives its name from "a fit of the blue devils" which is a mood
of despondency (Tracy 59). The Blue Devils' blues in "Common Meter"
seems to have the power to heal world-weary lives. Fisher defines the blues
through the voice of his narrator:

The blues were very low-down, the nakedest of jazz, a series of
periodic wails against a background of steady, slow rhythm.

12

each pounding pulse descending inevitably, like leaden strokes
of fate. Bus found himself singing the words of this grief-stricken
lamentation:

Trouble trouble has followed me all my days,
Trouble-trouble has followed me all my days-
Seems like trouble's gonna follow me always.
Baby-baby-my baby's gone away.
Baby-baby-my baby's gone away-
Seems like baby-my baby's gone to stay. (Fisher 78)
These two stanzas are exact replications of the traditional blues form, and
the narrator describes the instruments which make the melody so blue.
The waihng clarinet, the weeping C sax, the moaning B-flat sax, and the
trombone (Fisher 78) mix melancholy medicine for Bus and the night
clubbers. Also, the repetitious use of the blue u>o?7/ "trouble" in the first
stanza evokes the weariness and sadness found in the blues. In the second
stanza, the common blues theme of lost love is present. Because a common
history binds the blues singer and his audience, he draws his audience into
the reaUty of the black experience. Bus sings about real-life tragedies and
disappointments, personalizes an experience which is then grabbed up by
the folk and becomes the possession of the folk. When the blues are in
Arcadia, true feelings are exposed and healed by their melodic and
emotional power.

The other music in "Common Meter," jazz, provides another kind of

insight on the lives of blues people. If blues can be seen as a melodic

metaphor for the misery in the lives of common black people, jazz, then,

is the sound of their laughter, a laughter that dances, cries, and sings tunes

that heal the riff made by the blues. Weeknight and weekend doses of jazz

help to wash out the bitterness caused by weariness and keep the taste for

living in their mouths. Langston Hughes in "The Negro Artist and the

Racial Mountain" describes jazz as an artistic interpretation of black life:

. . .jazz to me is one of the inherent expressions of Negro life in

America: the eternal tom-tom beating in the Negro soul-the

tom-tom of revolt against weariness in a white world, a world

of subway trains, and work, work, work; the tom-tom of joy

and laughter, and pain swallowed in a smile. (2-3)

Rudolph Fisher also recognizes jazz's resemblance to many of the emotions

and movements of black people. His characters in "Common Meter" need

13

jazz in their lives. Jazz creates rainbows of good feeling that move in
rhythmic weaves through their whole bodies and uplift their burdensome
spirits. Jazz, however, is more than an opiate; it is regenerative.

Jazz music fills the Arcadia. Fess Baxter's Firemen are experts of
improvisation. One of his pieces is described as being "...dizzy with sudden
disharmonies, unexpected twists of phrase, [and] successive false
resolutions" (Fisher 83). The free-flowing unraveling rhythm captivates
the crowd, and unbridled dance takes over. Jazz, then, paradoxically
symbolizes a freedom experienced and, simultaneously, sought after by
the masses of African-Americans. Joy, laughter, and the blare of Negro
bands are the methods of protest against the impoverished condition of
their lives. The smoky, crowded cabarets are then like shrines that give
testimony to an unconquerable spirit and a will to survive.

Also, in "Common Meter" Fisher's characters speak a "jazzed" language.
1 here are words like sweet papa, mama, Jivin , back-dive, cats,
and "birds" that are associated with jazz musicians and their world. Witty
conversations between characters also simulate the playful interplay
between jazz instruments and players. A brief conversation between Fess
Baxter and one of his band members is an example:

'P.P., do you see what I see, or is it only the gin?'

'Both of us had the gin,' said P.P., 'so both of us sees the same
thing.'

'Judas Priest! Look at that figure, boy!'

'Never was no good at figures,' said P.P.

'I've got to get me an armful of that baby.'

'Lay off. Papa,' advised P.P. (Fisher 75)
Still another example of a "jazzed rapport" is a conversation between Jean
and Bus:

"You ought to get a bonus for beauty.'

'Nice time to think of that--after I'm hired.'

'You look like a full course dinner--and I'm starved.'

'Hold the personalities, papa.'

'No stuff. Wish I could raise a loan on you.
Baby--what a roll I'd tote.' (Fisher 76)
By the choice and combination of words, sounds, rhythm, and tone, Fisher
achieves the motley quality associated with jazz.

14

Both blues and jazz music represent aspects ofblacklife, and the music
is simply life-sustaining. Fisher acknowledges the close relationship
between blues and jazz in the story. He calls the blues very low-down, the
nakedest of jazz, and Langston Hughes asks in his famous poem entitled
"Cabaret," "Does a Jazz Band Ever Sob?" Fisher records African- Americans'
battles with the blues in Harlem's jazz clubs.

Finally, the theme of love, the desire for it, the need for it, and the
healing power of it permeate "Common Meter." The people go to the
Arcadia looking for love, almost as if they are starved for it, and they choose
a place with a reputation for drawing pleasure-seekers. The Arcadia
entices Harlemites with its magical nights, excitement, flin, and music.
Liquor, music, dance, and easy conversation loosen inhibitions.
Conversations between people are Rill of sexual innuendos, and sexual
eroticism is paraded and encouraged by many. This atmospheric sexuality
seems to be a major ingredient of a jazz night's magic. The hope for love,
sex, romance, or any form of comfort is ever-present.

The blues people in "Common Meter" go to the Arcadia for temporary
life renewal. There is blues in their love as well as joy. Rudolph Fisher goes
beneath all of the merry-making to expose the tragedy in their lives. The
reader is constantly reminded of the poverty of the Arcadia's inhabitants.
An example is a brief conversation between two minor characters who go
the men's room to share a half-pint of gin and to talk about Miss Ambrose:
'Too damn easy on the eyes. Women like that ain't no good
'cep'n to start rouble.'

'She sho' could start it for me. I'd 'a' been dancin' with her
yet, but my two-bitses give out. Spent two hardearned bucks
dancin' with her, too.'

'Shuh! Might as well th'ow yo' money in the street. What
you git dancin' with them hostesses?'

"You right there, brother. All I got out o' that one was two
dollars worth o' disappointment.' (Fisher 80)
Still, the highest premium is placed on love. Upon observing the
competition at the Arcadia for the hand of Miss Jean Ambrose, the crowd
seems to revel in the successful joining of Bus and Jean. They applaud it
and perhaps live vicariously through it. The major life force of any culture,
but particularly the black culture, is love. The characters in the story crave
it, and it fmally heals them so that they endure. They fmd love among each

15

other and comfort within the music. They party as if their lives depend on
it. "Feel-good" music is always around even if the rent money or a woman's
man is not. The blues and jazz selections that the Blue Devils and the
Firemen play embrace and warm the people like a lover or the soothing
hands of a mother. This love story moves and unravels to the tempo and
emotional power of blues and jazz.

In conclusion, Rudolph Fisher accurately records the lives ofHarlemites
during the 1920s; however, he goes beyond capturing the gaiety of the
masses to record the scars ot living and the sounds of pain that could not
be muted. "Common Meter" becomes much more than a static literary
occurrence; rather, it becomes living voices, real experiences, movement as
well as blues and jazz emotion in performance. Like a highly seasoned
New Orleans gumbo, his prose is a well-blended mixture of stylistic
trickery that recreates the style and mood of black music. Through artistic
improvisation, Rudolph Fisher captures the struggles and joys of
African-American lives through the kaleidoscope of jazz and blues in
"Common Meter."

Works Cited

Fisher, Rudolph. "Common Meter." Black Voices. Ed. Abraham Chapman. New York: New
American Library, 1968: 74-86.

Huggins, Nathan Irvin. Harlem Renahiame. New York: Oxford UP, 1971.

Hughes, Langston. "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain," (Reprinted from "Nation," June
3, 1926, pp. 692-694) in The Langston Hughes Review. Providence; Afro-American Studies
Program, Vol. IV, Number I, Spring 1985.

Lewis, David Levering. When Harlem Was in Vogue. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1981.

Tracy, Stephen. Langston Hughes and the Blues. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1988.

16

Financing Higher Education in Georgia:
A Comparative Analysis

by Richard D. Guynn ^ Carole E. Scott*

In recent years the total cost per student of higher education has risen
more rapidly than the increase in the general price level. Because the rate
of increase varies among states, the citizens of some states have reason to
be particularly concerned about this phenomena. As a result, many people
want to know what is happening in their state relative to surrounding
states and to the United States' average.

A research firm located in Washington, D.C., has for the past 15 years
compiled a substantial amount of data pertaining to the costs of higher
education. For each year from 1978 to 1993 much of this information can
be found in a publication entitled "State Profiles: Financing Higher
Education." Each year since 1978 the publisher has updated data about
financing higher education for each state. A second publication by the
U.S. Department of Education, "State Higher Education Profiles" also
contains voluminous information about both the cost and the ability of a
state to finance higher education.

The purpose of this paper is to explain to what extent spending on
higher education in Georgia differs from the national average and what
factors account for these differences. In this paper Georgia is compared
with the nation as a whole and with other states in the South. The
methodology employed is to use selected data from the two sources cited
above and other data to make certain comparisons among several southern
states and the nation as a whole. The states studied are Arkansas,
Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina,
South Carolina, and Tennessee. Six of these comprise the Sixth Federal
Reserve District and are frequently grouped for purposes of comparison.
Three other states are included (Arkansas, North Carolina, and South
Carolina) because of their proximity to states in the Sixth District.
Henceforth, these states will be referred to as "regional" or "southern"
states.

'Professors of Economics, West Georgia College

17

The data collected reveal that there are variations among the southern
states in how the costs of education are allocated between taxpayers and
students. Also revealed are the tax capacities and tax effort of these states
and which of these states devote the greatest shares of their tax revenue and
tax effort to fund higher education. This paper presents the information
necessary to provide a basis for comparing Georgia with the United States
averages and corresponding data from eight other southern states. The
data pertain only to public institutions of higher education. Specifically
excluded are private, non-public institutions. The data selected for
comparison purposes are believed to be key factors which measure a state's
ability and willingness to support public education. These factors are
believed to inherently govern funding levels for higher education. Obviously,
other factors that cannot be measured may be important, but they are not
subject to comparative analysis. This study assumes that in the absence of
a widely acceptable model, the evaluations of a state's achievements can
best be judged by a relative comparison with other states. The authors
assume that national average values infer "typical" conditions on an
"acceptable" norm. In short, inter-state comparisons and rankings provide
a means of evaluating relative status and achievement.

Tables 1, 2, and 3 present three measures of potential and actual
enrollments in state-fmanced institutions of higher education. Table 1
depicts high school graduates per 1,000 population for each state for the
1992-1993 academic year. Table 2 gives the full-time equivalent (FTE)
students for the regional states' institutions of higher learning. Table 3
shows the annual FTE students per 1,000 population for 1992-1993.
These three tables show the ranking of Georgia and the Southern states
along with the U.S. average. One hundred means the state's figure equals
the national average. Each of the first three tables shows an index number
which is a measure of each state relative to the U.S. average for all states.
This arrangement of data for comparison is used in all the tables.

Table 1 demonstrates that during the 1992-1993 academic year
Georgia ranked 36th among the fifty states with 9.6 high school graduates
per 1,000 population. Georgia's rate was only slightly below the national
average. Four other states in the region also fell below the national average
(9.7) while Arkansas led the region with 11.1 high school graduates per
1,000 population. Florida had considerably fewer graduates per thousand,
77% of the national average. (A state with a higher percent of population

18

under 18 will, of course, have a lower ratio of high school graduates per
1,000 even if it is educating an equal number of each generation through
high school.) This category gives a production unit measure of financial
load for handing that supports student-related functions of instruction,
academic and institutional support, student services, and operation and
maintenance of the physical operation and maintenance of the physical
plant. Annual average FTE enrollment is based on total yearly credit-hours.
Some states like Florida have a substantial in-migration of high school
graduates educated in other states. The FTE per thousand population is
an important indicator of fiature enrollments because states with the least
number of graduates per 1,000 normally have a lower responsibility to
provide education at lower levels while those states with a relatively young
population could expect to pour more additional fiinds into higher
education programs.

Table 2 shows the FTE (full-time equivalent) students in state
colleges and universities per high school graduate. Only one state in the
region ranked below Georgia (Arkansas). Alabama led the southern states
with a ratio of 4.09 which was 21 percent above the nation's average.
Among all states, Georgia ranked 33, placing it well into the bottom
one-half of the nation. Five of the regional states (Alabama, Florida,
Louisiana, Mississippi and North CaroUna) ranked in the top 50 percent
of all states.

A similar pattern emerges in Table 3, which presents FTE students
in public institutions of higher education per 1,000 population. The
Georgia ratio was 29.4, placing it third in the region and 36th in the
nation. Alabama's national rank placed the state first in the region and
number 5 among all states. This means that Alabama was the most
successfiil in attracting residents and non-residents to public institutions
of higher education A state's pubUc FTE enrollment is determined by
multiplying the number of high school graduates by the college participation
ratio.

Experts believe that enrollments can be improved by the establishment
of a statewide system of low cost community colleges. It is possible for a
state to have high rates of high school graduates per 1,000 population and
a low national rank of FTE pubHc students per high school graduates, as
is the case with Arkansas.

19

Funding Higher Education: Tax Capacity,
Tax Effort, and Appropriations to Higher Education

It is difficult to make meaningful comparisons of tax data from
one state to another because tax rates and bases and the combination of
taxes levied are different. In recent years the Advisory Commission on
Intergovernmental Relations (ACIR) has developed alternative methods
of estimating the revenue raising ability of state and local governments.
Called the Representative Tax System (RTS) and Representative Revenue
System (RRS) they are methods developed by the ACIR for measuring
the fiscal capacity of each state (ACIR 11-12, 1989).

The RTS defines tax capacity as the dollar amount of revenue that
state and local governments would raise if they applied a nationally
uniform set of tax rates to a commonly used set of tax bases. The RRS
defines revenue capacity in a similar manner, but includes a number of
non-tax revenue bases in addition to all the tax bases included in the
representative tax system. Thus, the representative tax system and
representative revenue system express fiscal capacity as the relative per
capita amount of revenue a state would raise if it used "representative" tax
and revenue systems.

These fiscal capacity indicators are good measures of state governments'
potential ability to raise revenue. The index can be interpreted as a measure
of how much a state elected to utilize its potential revenue base relative to
other states. For example, if a state index is less than 100, the national
average, then that state's fiscal effort is less than the national average. A
state's fiscal capacity index is a good measure of a state's effort to fund
important functions such as higher education.

Tables 4, 5, and 6 contain data which show the regional states'
estimated tax capacity and estimated tax effort to fund public services.
Table 4 gives the tax capacity (per capita) of the regional states. Georgia
ranked 47th with a per capita tax capacity of $1,962, compared with a
national average of $2,160. The states Georgia ranked above were
Mississippi and Tennessee, which had per capita collections of $ 1,814 and
$1,863, respectively. Florida's tax capacity was the highest in the region,
but it was only slightly above the national average.

The last column of Table 4 gives the tax capacity for the regional states
without adjustments for regional price differences. Georgia's tax capacity
was 9 percent below the national average. All states in the region except

20

Florida had a tax capacity below the national average. Five of the southern
states were more than 15 percent below the national average in terms of
tax capacity. However, when adjustments were made for regional price
differences only one state, Mississippi, was more than 15 percent below
the national tax capacity average.

The tax effort index is a measure of the actual taxes collected in each
state relative to their tax capacity, where tax capacity is measured by the
Representative Tax System. An index number greater than 100 indicates
that a state is raising more in taxes relative to its economic base than the
national average. The tax effort index shows that all the regional states had
a tax effort less than the national average. Georgia had a tax effort of 95.9,
which placed the state 23rd among all states. Georgia's index was 96
percent of the national average. With the exception of the state of Georgia,
all the regional states ranked in the bottom one-half of the nation (Table

5).

Table 6 shows estimated per capita revenues for 1992, which is an
indicator of a state's fiscal capacity. The fiscal capacity of a state is an
estimate of a government's ability to raise revenue from its own source. Per
capita personal income figures are often used as an alternative for RTS
estimates of the fiscal capacities of state and local governments using this
measure. Georgia ranked 46th in the nation with a COG index of 87 (87
percent of the national average). All of the southern states ranked well
below the national average. Georgia's national rank was below all but three
of the regional states. Tennessee's tax revenue per capita ($1,519) placed
it last in the nation.

Table 7 presents information which measures the effort made by each
regional state in its attempt to fund higher education from the state's
revenue system. Shown is total tax revenue per FTE student. This figure
shows the maximum potential for funding public sector higher education.
Shown, too, in this table are tax revenues calculated on a per capita basis,
which indicate the relative amount of wealth available for public use. The
financial health of a state is, of course, measured by the amount of tax
money available to fund the various specific functions of the state. States
can be categorized as "rich" or "poor" according to the amount of tax
dollars collected per capita. The states which are better off financially
usually have more wealth per student than the states with low tax
collections.

21

States show a remarkable range in potential tax revenues per FTE
student. Tax revenue per student is comparatively low in most of the
southern states. Florida was the only regional state with tax revenue per
student ($73,520) above the national average of $65,685. Georgia was
second in the region with a national rank of 28. Four of the southern states
fell in the bottom 10 states in terms of revenue per student. Naturally the
poorest states which attempt to educate a significantly larger proportion
of their population are faced with a substantial financial commitment.
Some of the more wealthy states could have a low value for this category
simply because they operate large school systems at the collegiate level.
The column designated on the COG index gives tax revenue figures which
are adjusted for regional differences in purchasing power.

When appropriations to higher education are considered relative to
available revenues, Georgia ranked 30th in the nation while three of the
regional states (North Carolina, Alabama, and Arkansas) ranked among
the top 10 states. Georgia appropriated 6.7 percent of its revenues to
higher education, compared with the national average of 6.3 percent. Only
two states, Florida and Louisiana, fell below the regional average with 6.2
percent and 5.6 percent, respectively. It should be noted that while only
one regional state, Florida, ranked in the top half in terms of gross revenue
measures--only three states were in the bottom half of the nation in terms
of the percent of revenues actually allocated to higher education. This ratio
measures the relative importance of higher education in these states'
budgets (Table 8).

While Georgia and seven of the regional states ranked in the bottom
half of the states according to gross revenue measured, most states in the
region ranked above or near the top half using the index adjusted for
purchasing power (Table 9). In terms of actual dollars appropriated per
student, Georgia ranked low nationally (36), but its spending was 97
percent of the national average. The only state in the region that ranked
substantially below the national average per student was Louisiana.

Table 10 presents data for tuition payments made by students as a
percent of the total cost of higher education. The national average for the
1992-93 school year was 30.8 percent. Georgia was below the national
average with 26.4 percent of the total cost being paid by students. This
percentage placed Georgia 36th in the nation. Only two other states in the
region, Florida and North Carolina, had students who paid a smaller

22

percentage of the total cost of their education. The state of North Carolina
led the region in terms of paying the highest proportion of the total cost
of education, with the state bearing 80.2 percent of the total cost.
Louisiana and Mississippi expected students in their states to pay
approximately 40 percent of the cost of their education (Table 10). This
table shows that the burden of financing state higher education is borne
in varying proportions by students and taxpayers with the latter bearing
the larger share in the southern states. Tax revenues earmarked for
education are the major source of funding for public institutions of higher
education. Some states rely more heavily on student tuition in order to
lower how much money is appropriated out of tax revenues for higher
education.

Summary

Table 11 gives a summary of Georgia's rank and index for the 10
classifications compared. Of the 10 categories considered in this paper,
Georgia ranked 30th or below in nine areas when compared with all states.
Compared with all states Georgia ranked in the top half of the nation in
the category of tax revenues as a percent of tax capacity (23rd). The State
of Georgia ranked high in its region in only two areas. It ranked first in the
region in terms of tax revenues as a percent of tax capacity, which
demonstrates that Georgia was using its tax capacity to a greater extent
than any of the other states in its region. The second area in which Georgia
ranked high in its region was tax revenue per student. High revenues per
student indicate that the state of Georgia has a greater potential for
fiinding education than the other regional states. In five of the categories
Georgia ranked in the bottom half of the region and was low compared
with all states. Georgia has a low tax capacity per capita (ranked 47th
nationally), but has a high index (106) in the category of Education
Appropriation as a percent of Tax Revenue which demonstrates that
Georgia devotes a greater share of its available tax revenue to public higher
education than most states do (Table 11).

The data presented in this paper reveal how the regional states
currently fund higher education. They show that there is a significant
variation among these states in regard to the proportions of their tax
revenues which they allocate to higher education and the manner in which
educational costs are shared between taxpayers and students.

23

Table 1

High School Graduates, National Rank and Index

for Southern States, 1992

Higli

School Gra

duates

National

State

per

1,000 Population
1992-1993

Rank
Index

Alabama

10.4

19

Arkansas

11 .1

11

Florida

7.4

50

Georgia

Louisiana

9.6
9.4

36
39

Mississippi
North Carolina

10.0
9.4

32
40

South Carolina

10.1

27

Tennessee

9.6

37

U.S.

9.7

Index'

108

114
77
99
97

103
96

104
98

100

Source: Research Associates of Washington, State Profile: Financing Public Higher Education,
1978-1993, Washington, D.C., 1993.
': Percent of National Average

State

Table 2

Participation Ratio, Rank, and Index for FTE

Public Students per High School Graduate, 1992 - 1993

FTE Public Students
Per High School Graduate 1992-93

Rati

Index

National
Rank

Alabama

4.09

Arkansas

2.60

Florida

3.53

Georgia

3.06

Louisiana

3.37

Mississippi

3.80

North Carolina

3.79

South Carolina

3.26

Tennessee

3.28

U.S.

3.39

121
77

104
90
99

112

112
96
97

100

6
44
19
33
24

9
10
28
26

Source: Research Associates of Washington, State Profile: Financing Public Higher Education,
1978-1993, Washington, D.C., 1993.

24

Table 3

Annual FTE in Public Institurions of

Higher Education per 1000 Population, Index and Rank 1992-93

Annual FTE Public Students
Per 1,000 Population 1992-93^

State

Ratio"

Index

National
Rank

Alabama

42.7

Arkansas

28.8

Florida

26.2

Georgia
Louisiana

29.4
31.9

Mississippi
North Carolina

37.9
35.4

South Carolina

33.0

Tennessee

31.4

U.S.

32.9

130

87

80

89

97

115

108

100

95

100

5

37
44
36
32
13
21
28
33

SourceiResearch Associates of Washington, State Profile: Financing Public Higher Education,

1978-1993, Washington, D.C., 1993.

": In public institutions of higher education.

25

Table 4

Tax Capacity, Indexes and National Rank,

Southern States, 1992

Tax Capacity^

per Capita

National

State

1991 (COG)^

Index

Rank

Index"

Alabama

$2,131

99

41

81

Arkansas

2,026

94

45

78

Florida

2,206

102

32

103

Georgia

1,962

91

47

91

Louisiana

2,157

100

37

89

Mississippi

1,814

84

51

68

North Carolina

2,181

101

35

93

South Carolina

2,107

98

42

83

Tennessee

1,863

86

50

82

U.S.

2,160

100

--

100

Source: Research Associates of Washington, State Profile: Financing Public Higher Education,

1978-1993, Washington, D.C., 1993.

': Estimated

'': Cost of Government Index--COG index estabhshes comparable state purchasing power by

correcting for geographical price differences

': Index without adjustment for geographical price differences

26

Table 5

Tax Effort, and National Rank, Index for

Southern States, 1992

Tax Revenue

as a Percent

National

State

of Tax Capacity

Rank

Alabama

82.6

46

Arkansas

82.3

47

Florida

84.8

42

Georgia

95.9

23

Louisiana

91 .1

32

Mississippi

91.1

33

North Caro

lina 88 .5

39

South CaroHna 89 .9

36

Tennessee

81 .5

48

U.S.

100.0

Index

83
82
85
96
91
91
88
90
82
100

Source: Research Associates of Washington, State Profile: Financing Public Higher Education,
1978-1993, Washington, D.C., 1993.

Table 6

Tax Revenue per Capita, Index, National Rank,

1992

Tax Revenue

per Capita"

Index

National

State

(COG)''

COG^

Rank

Index

Alabama

$1,759

81

48

67

Arkansas

1,667

77

49

64

Florida

1,872

87

47

88

Georgia

1,881

87

46

87

Louisiana

1,966

91

39

87

Mississippi

1,653

77

50

62

North CaroUna

1,930

89

41

82

South Carohna

1,894

88

45

75

Tennessee

1,519

70

51

67

U.S.

2,160

100

--

100

Source: Research Associates of Washington, State Profile: Financing Public Higher Education,

i975'-;99J, Washington, D.C., 1993.

': Estimated

'': Adjusted for differences in buying power

27

Table 7

Tax Revenue per Student, Rank

Index for Southern States, 1992-93

Tax Revenue

National

Index

per Student'

Rank

COG

Index''

Alabama

$42,435

50

65

51

Arkansas

59,748

30

91

73

Florida

73,520

16

112

110

Georgia

60,319

28

92

97

Louisiana

58,218

34

89

84

Mississippi

45,917

48

70

54

North Carolina

54,495

40

83

76

South Carolina

58,612

32

89

74

Tennessee

47,454

46

72

70

U.S.

65,685

100

100

Source: Research Associates of Washington, State Profile: Financing Public Higher Education,

1978-1993, Washington, D.C., 1993.

": Per FTE student

'': Without adjustment for regional buying power

Table 8
Education Appropriations Rank and
Index for Southern States, 1992-93

Education Appropriation

as a Perc

ent

State

of Tax Reven

ues

Alabama

9.6

Arkansas

9.2

Florida

6.2

Georgia

6.7

Louisiana

5.6

Mississippi

8.6

North Carolina

10.1

South Carolina
Tennessee

7.9
8.4

U.S.

6.3

National

Rank

Index

7

151

10

145

34

98

30

106

40

88

12

136

6

159

17

124

14

132

100

Source: Research Associates of Washington, State Profile: Financing Public Higher Education,
1978-1993, Washington, D.C., 1993.

28

Table 9

Education Appropriation per Student,

National Rank, Index, Southern States, 1992-93

Education Approp

National

Index*"

State

per Studenf

Rank

Index'

COG

Alabama

$4,061

34

98

78

Arkansas

5,505

9

132

106

Florida

4,590

24

110

108

Georgia

4,040

36

97

103

Louisiana

3,249

46

78

74

Mississippi

3,959

39

95

73

North Carolina

5,491

10

132

121

South Carolina

4,617

23

111

92

Tennessee

3,967

37

95

92

U.S.

4,164

-

100

100

Source: Research Associates of Washington, State Profile: Financing Public Higher Education,

1978-1993, Washington, D.C., 1993.

": Adjusted for purchasing power differences

'': Not adjusted for purchasing power differences

Table 10

Tuition as a Percent of Appropriation and Tuition,

Rank and Index for Southern States, 1992-93

Tuition as a Percent

State

of Appropriation
and Tuition

Alabama

37.7

Arkansas

29.6

Rorida

23.4

Georgia
Louisiana

26.4
39.2

Mississippi
North Carolina

39.5
19.8

South Carolina

37.4

Tennessee

29.6

U.S.

30.8

Rank

Inde

18
31
39
36
16
13
43
19
32

122
96

76

86
127
128

64
121

96
100

Source: Research Associates of Washington, State Profile: Financing Public Higher Education,
1978-1993, Washington, D.C., 1993.

29

Table 11

Georgia National and Regional Rank, Index for

10 Categories for 1992-93

Category

National
Rank

Index

Regional
Rank

High School Graduates
Per 1,000 Population

FTE Public Students Per its
Graduates

Annual FTE Public Students
Per 1,000 Population

Tax Capacity Per Capita

Tax Revenues as Percent
of T. Capacity

Tax Revenue Per Capita

Tax Revenue Per Student

Education Approp. as Percent
of Tax Revenue

Education Approp. Per Student

Tuition as a Percent
of Approp. + Tuition

36

99

33

90

36

89

47

91

23

96

46

87

28

97

30

106

36

36

86

86

Source: Compiled from Tables 1 - 10.

Works Cited

Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations. Measuring State Fiscal Capacity, 1987.
Washington, D.C.

Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations. State Fiscal Capacity and Effort, 1988.
Washington, D.C.

Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations. Representative Expenditures Addressing the
Neglected Dimension of Fiscal Capacity. Washington, D.C, 1990.

Office of Educational Research and Improvement. State Higher Education Profiles. Washington,
D.C: U.S. Department of Commerce, 1992.

Research Associates of Washington. State Profiles: Financing Public Higher Education 1978-1993.
Washington, D.C, 1993.

30

Transpersonal Psychology: A New
Paradigm of Inquiry

by Kaisa Puhakka*

In contemporary society, science and religion have their own mutually
exclusive provinces that together are supposed to cover the range of human
needs and aspirations. But neither has been hospitable to human experience,
especially the kind that claims to know truth and contact reality directly.
Religion views such experiences with suspicion while science objectifies
and trivializes not just these but any and all experience. Consequently, we
tend to lose touch with our capacity to know and to experience and,
instead, attribute the knowing capacity to sources outside ourselves, to the
"experts" and their methods and procedures. We forget that the most
spectacular triumphs in science have occurred at times when human
experience in the form of a thought or a vision changed the course of the
scientific endeavor. And we feel uneasy with the transformative visionary
experiences that from time to time have revitalized our stagnant religious
institutions. Representing the rarified outer horizon of consciousness,
such experiences are difficult to objectify or control. Not surprisingly, they
are marginalized by the sciences and shunned by religious establishments.

Transpersonal psychology is a new field of inquiry with a mission to
rehabiUtate our human capacity to know and to experience. "[It] ... is
concerned with the study of humanity's highest potential, and with the
recognition, understanding, and realization of unitive, spiritual and
transcendent states of consciousness" (Lajoie & Shapiro 91). The
prominent theorists and researchers of this field represent a variety of
established disciplines, such as psychiatry, psychology, anthropology, and
philosophy. What brings them together is their belief that life-transforming
spiritual experiences and the universal human capacity to have such
experiences are worthy of systematic investigation. Rather than explain
them away by reducing them to psychopathology as Freud did, or to
neurophysiological anomalies, as other scientists are prone to do,
transpersonal psychologists seek to understand the spiritual dimension of

Assistant Professor of Psychology, West Georgia College

31

human beings on its own terms and to explore its implications for adult
human maturation and growth.

The meaning of "transpersonal" suggests capabilities and experiences
that take us beyond our personal histories and concerns and beyond the
biological, social and cultural conditioning that shapes them. Transpersonal
psychology calls into question assumptions made by science as well as
common sense about consciousness and human nature. In their place, new
paradigmatic assumptions are introduced. The most fiindamental and at
the same time most controversial of these assumptions concerns the nature
of reality itself. The conventional wisdom of our technological age,
echoing the sciences, tells us that reality is ultimately physical, consisting
of energy and matter. From these. Darwinian evolutionary theory tells us,
biological life and finally consciousness evolved. Consequently life and
especially consciousness are only epiphenomena of, and hence not quite as
"real" as, physical energy and matter. Transpersonal psychology reverses
this notion. According to its view, reality is ultimately of the nature of
consciousness, and the evolution of physical matter and biological life is
informed and pervaded by consciousness.

In defense of such a bold move, transpersonal psychologists point to
the spiritual and religious traditions throughout the world that have
affirmed the spiritual essence ofhuman beings and their intrinsic connection
with nature and God. In the larger map of humanity provided by history
and cultural anthropology, the holistic vision of interconnectedness
infused with spirit is the rule, while the fragmented worldview of the
contemporary West that cuts human beings off from nature and God is the
exception. A contemporary expression of the holistic vision is found in
what Aldous Huxley called "perennial philosophy." Huxley borrowed this
term from Leibniz and defined it as follows:

[It is] the metaphysic that recognizes a divine Reality substantial

to the world of things and lives and minds; the psychology that

finds in the soul something similar to, or even identical with,

divine Reality; the ethic that places man's final end in the

knowledge of the immanent and transcendent Ground of all

being .... (vii)

The "divine Reality" that transcends the dualism of mind and matter

is ultimately our own nature, transpersonal psychology claims. A Sanskrit

word from Hindu philosophy, satchitananda, is sometimes used to refer to

32

this nature (Puligandla 205, 223). This word consists of three parts, sat =
being, cbif = consciousness or knowing, and ananda - bUss or joy. Thus,
our true nature manifests in the coming together of being and knowing in
a blissfiil union, knowing contacting being directly and joyously. Our
physical bodies, our psychological make-up and personalities are real and
significant, but transpersonal psychology maintains that our deepest sense
of self is not identified with these. Rather, our selfhood includes but
ultimately transcends the physical, personal, social, historical and cultural
dimensions of experience. It is in this sense that our true nature is
transpersonal. But this transpersonal nature is not abstract and removed
from our personal experience; quite the contrary, it is directly accessible
within our innermost being as satchitananda. Contacts with satchitananda
have been reported throughout history all over the world, typically by
mystics and other religious or spiritual adepts.

The claim that our human nature is satchitananda is Hkely to strike a
contemporary westerner as strange, to the say the least. Yet, our ordinary
experience and knowing contain windows that ever so often open just for
an instant to permit glimpses of satchitananda. A moment of insight is
such a glimpse. An insight can occur in the context of trying to solve a
problem, when after going around in circles for days, weeks, or months,
the person suddenly sees the situation in a new way, as if scales that had
covered the eyes suddenly fell away. According to Gestalt psychologists,
a radical reorganization of perception and thinking takes place that allows
the person to come up with a solution to a hitherto intractable problem.

The moment of insight is characterized by a sudden feehng of
awakening, often accompanied by a spontaneous expression: "aha!." Most
remarkable, however, is that at that moment, the person's face spontaneously
breaks into a smile. A closer observation of a person who is having an
insight reveals that just before the smile, the person draws in a breath.
During this inhalation, just for a split second, all human expression
vanishes, and the eyes, wide open, look unseeingly through things into
infinite space. What happens at that moment? Nothing. Literally
nothing. The person lets go of the old pattern of thinking, and the new
pattern has not yet emerged. For just a fraction of an instant, there is a gap,
a void, a nothing. By the time the person exhales with "Ahh, I see!" and
smiles, the gap is closed again.

33

Fresh seeing or insight arises out of this gap. An insight is a truly
creative act: something is created out of nothing, not derived from other
things. In this empty space that from the point of view^ of thinking and
description is nothing, the act of seeing and the fullness of being coincide
in a moment of bliss. This moment is typically so brief that it may be
already gone by the time we turn attention to it. It is too brief for us to grasp
hold of and possess. We do eagerly grasp hold of its products, though.
They are the new ideas, the reformulations of old thinking. We cherish
them as trophies of our creative potential. We even take the trophies to be
the insights.

The act of seeing or insight, however, is not the same as its products.
The products can be turned into useful purposes, sometimes also into glory
and fame. But only the moment of insight gives instant and unconditional
enjoyment. Is it not these moments that inspire college professors to teach
and students to learn (as opposed to "getting through" a course)? For these,
moments are the source of vitality for the life of the mind and of the heart
as well. When we lose contact with this source, when months and years
pass without a moment of insight, our thinking and work loses its vitality
and originality. And we are no longer having fun!

The moment of insight is an opening, a parting of the murky clouds
of stagnant thinking. Such a moment is a window to our true nature as
seeing, being and bliss, say the transpersonal psychologists. Conceivably,
this kind of clearing of the clouds could occur more frequently than it
usually does, and the openings could be wider, deeper and longer lasting
than they typically are. Are there perhaps ways to cultivate the skill of
insight? The answer is, yes. A variety of methods and procedures have
been developed in the ancient as well as contemporary psychological and
spiritual disciplines for cultivating the ability to clear the clouds of
thinking.' The study and systematic development of such methods is a
central concern of transpersonal psychology.

Insights are concrete phenomena accessible to observation and
reflection. Reflecting upon them may help open us up to considering the
fundamental paradigmatic notion of transpersonal psychology. It is that
consciousness is ultimately more, not less, real than the biological and
social processes from which conventional science says consciousness
evolved.^ A corollary of this notion is that consciousness is more than what
we ordinarily take it to be. The insights we experience may be "right" or

34

they may be "wrong." But they nurture our souls, minds and hearts, and
they (the ones that come to be judged as "right") give birth to the
theoretical and technical innovations we value. There is a sense, then, in
which we might say that at least some insights are bigger or "more" than
the minds that have them.

Having laid the groundwork for the transpersonal paradigm, let us
now turn to the more specific assumptions that define this field as an
alternative paradigm of inquiry.^ These are given in six statements
(italicized) and elaborated in the following.

1. Ordinary waking consciousness (OWC) is suboptimal. The kind of
waking consciousness we consider normal and healthy is characterized by
largely automatic, habitual cognitive and emotional processes that are out
of our control. That is, on a moment by moment basis, we usually have
little to say as to what kinds of thoughts, images, or emotional reactions
occur in us. Such a state of consciousness, while adequate and perhaps even
optimal for performing certain tasks, allows tor a very limited range of
experience of self and world.

2. Multiple states of consciousness are available to people. There appears
to be a universal tendency among people to seek ways to alter their
consciousness. Small children like to whirl around until they feel dizzy.
Throughout history people have regularly consumed drugs or intoxicants
sanctioned by their society. Some ot the altered states of consciousness
thus produced are suboptimal; some may even be pathological. However,
others are superior to OWC in terms of clarity, insight and a sense of well
being. In the transpersonal Hterature, these are called optimal states of
consciousness (OSC).

3. Optimal states of consciousness are natural to people. While various
sorts of altered states of consciousness can be induced by artificial means,
such as drugs or other special procedures, OSC are "natural" in the sense
that they spontaneously emerge when the habitual, automatic processes of
OWC cease or are brought under voluntary control.

4. Optimal states of consciousness usually require training with specific
methods and discipline. Altered states of consciousness, especially those
that are optimal, rarely occur spontaneously but often require years of
arduous discipUne and training. By contrast, OWC not only occurs
spontaneously but is the only state of consciousness, besides sleep, known
to most people. Because it is deeply habitual, OWC appears to be "natural"

35

and require no training. However, we are in fact being trained in it from
birth by our social and cultural environment. The training of optimal
states involves gaining awareness and unlearning of the habitual processes
of owe. Methods for such training are available in a variety of spiritual
and rehgious traditions; for example, the disciplines of yoga and meditation
that have been developed in Hinduism and Buddhism. Many of these
methods do not require acceptance of the metaphysical or religious beliefs
of their respective traditions.

6. Verbal communication about OSC is necessarily limited, and their study
consequently requires radically new approaches. The standard epistemologies
and research methodologies available from philosophy and the sciences
function within the confines of OWC. That is, certain structures that are
fundamental to OWC are assumed by these methodologies. But they
distort and occlude the OSC under study. Specifically, they lead to all
kinds of reductionistic fallacies, such as reducing all altered states, including
OSC, to pathology, as in traditional Freudian psychoanalysis, or to their
neurophysiological correlates, as in the medical and neurological sciences.

For most people, such reductionism has little appeal when applied to
common human experience and its rich offerings. Aside from B.F.
Skinner, few feel incHned to reduce the arts, Uterature, or even scientific
theory-construction to observable behavior and schedules of reinforcement.
Generally we are content to enjoy, study, or use them on their own terms.
Yet when it comes to the experiences and ways of knowing studied by
transpersonal psychology, the urge to reduce them to something measurable
or easily explainable is strong."* Perhaps this is because they are rare and
point to uncharted dimensions of human consciousness. We may also feel
uneasy with the power of these experiences to take the person beyond the
edge of the familiar and the acceptable, as in the case of the mystic and the
spiritually illumined.

Transpersonal psychology calls for the development of methodology
that allows the experiences at the outer reaches of human consciousness to
be studied on their own terms. What kind of methodology would be
adequate for the job? At the present time, the answers to this question are
far from established. We can certainly appreciate the difficulties involved.
For the experiences of the mystics and the spiritually illumined do not
yield to the hermeneutical/phenomenological methods of the human
sciences. Up to a point these experiences have familiar enough emotional

36

flavors and cognitive structures that make them amenable to a meaningful
interpretation. But beyond the everyday peak experiences, as one approaches
the Godhead ofMeister Eckhart, the One ofPlotinus, the Atman-Brahman
of the Hindus, or the Emptiness of the Buddhists, language simply fails
to capture the experience and sense of the knowing reported by those who
have had these experiences. In other words, we don't know what takes the
mystic to direct contact with God, or the original thinker to the source of
his or her insight. The objectivity or "truth" of their knowledge-claims is
not the issue here. Rather, it is the fact that they experience it so. EEG
patterns and other neurophysiological correlates, though interesting in
their own right, are of little help with understanding this kind of
experience, just as they are with understanding artistic or other creative
experiences.

The adepts in Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, or native Shamanic
cultures frequently engage some systematic disciplines and methods in
their practice. These disciplines and methods are provided by their
traditions, not our scientific ones. Perhaps our science can learn something
from these traditions. Indeed, some contemporary cognitive scientists
have already begun to mine the practical discipUnes associated with
Buddhism for methods of direct experiential access to subtle states of
consciousness that were previously believed to be subliminal and inaccessible
to awareness. (Varela, Thompson 6c Rosch 21-33)

As a paradigm of inquiry, then, transpersonal psychology is of
necessity interdisciplinary and intercultural. Other cultures are not just
objects of study but may be genuine partners in investigation. In this way
transpersonal psychology honors the capacity of human beings everywhere,
at all times, to know and to contribute to the fund of human wisdom. But
perhaps the most important legacy of transpersonal psychology is to fmd
ways to restore the fragmented, diminished spirit of the contemporary
western person to wholeness within itself and connectedness with nature
and the sacred.

Notes

'Several manuals of meditative practices written in an accessible style for a Western audience are
available. Typically, these describe Buddhist meditative methods which are "neutral" with respect to
religious belief and relatively easily adaptable to the context of life in the contemporary West. See, for
example, Goldstein, Hart, and Kornfield.

^Huston Smith in Beyond the Postmodern Mind elaborates upon the contrasts ber-.veen the
conventional scientific paradigm which holds that consciousness evolves from physical via biological,

37

or from "less" toward "more," and the paradigm of perennial philosophy and transpersonal psychology
which holds that consciousness is ontologically prior to biological and physical phenomena, or that
"less" comes out of "more."

'Informative discussions of transpersonal psychology as an alternative paradigm of inquiry are
found in Walsh and Vaughan 15-70, Wilber 39-81.

"Donald Rothberg provides a thorough discussion of the problems of reductionism in transpersonal
psychology and makes a case for using unique methodology appropriate for the phenomena of
transpersonal experiences.

Works Cited

Goldstein, Joseph. The Experience of Insight: A Natural Unfolding. Santa Cruz, CA.: Unity Press,
1976.

Hart, William. Vipassana Meditation as Taught by Goenka. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987.

Huxley, Aldous. Perennial Philosophy , vii. New York: Harper & Row 1940/1990.

Kornfield, Jack. A Path with Heart: A Guide through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life. New
York: Bantam Books, 1993.

Lajoie, Denise, and S.I. Shapiro. "Definitions of Transpersonal Psychology: The First 23 Years."
Journal bf Transpersonal Psychology, 1^.\ (1992): 1-34.

Puligandla, Ramakrishna. Fundamentals of Indian Philosophy. New York: Abingdon Press, 1975.

Rothberg, Donald. "Philosophical Foundations of Transpersonal Psychology: Introduction to
Some Basic Issues." Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 18.1 (1986): 79-98.

Smith, Huston. Beyond the Postmodern Mind. Wheaton, IL.: Quest Books, 1989.

Varela, Francisco J., Evan Thompson, and Eleanor Rosch. The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science
and Human Experience. Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press, 1991.

Walsh, Roger N., and Frances Vaughan, eds. Beyond Ego: Transpersonal Dimensions in Psychology.
Los Angeles: Jeremy Tarcher, 1980.

Wilber, Ken. Eye to Eye: The Quest for the New Paradigm. Boston, MA.: Shambhala, 1990.

38

Exploring Writing Across the Curriculum:

An Invitation to Faculty

Across the Curriculum

by Timothy A. Peeples*

Throughout our nation, colleges and universities are choosing to
initiate and maintain what are commonly called writing across the
curriculum (WAC) programs. Why? There are many answers to this
question, but the most appealing is the effect of WAC on teachers and
students both in and out of the English departments. As reported by one
math instructor:

Math and science courses at Prince George's are successfully
completed (D or better) by only 50 percent of those enrolled;
some entry-level courses have much lower success rates. The
faculty and administration have initiated a number of programs
to improve retention .... As part of this effort several science
professors and over half of our full-time mathematics faculty
have attended at least one WAC workshop, and writing is

regularly being used to help improve success rates The first

time I made these [writing] assignments an integral part of the

course, 70 percent of the students passed compared with under

50 percent for the same course without writing. In my spring

1987 semester, among all students who completed all writing

assignments, not one failed the course. (Fulwiler and Young 74

&75)

Not only are teachers noting the use of writing results in improved student

learning, but as one professor of business and a WAC participant states,

"My scholarly writing has improved greatly" (Fulwiler and Young 55).

One of the greatest concerns of faculty with the initiation of a WAC
program is that they will be made responsible for what the English

'Instructor of English, West Georgia College

39

department should be doing. One physics professor addresses this issue in
a way most illuminating:

A few of my colleagues' [sic] question the arrangement, feeling

that writing instruction belongs in the English department.

Having been influenced by the same prejudices, an occasional

student in Writing in Physics will ask, "This is an 'English'

course, isn't it? How come there's so much physics in it?"

Perhaps the student's question answers my colleagues' questions.

(Fulwiler and Young 214)

WAC has matured enough that its scope cannot be covered in any

single book, much less in a single article. However, a single article can

outline basic issues in and the basic parts of WAC so that faculty across

the academy can be invited into WAC's ongoing dialogue. The following

discussion will briefly comment on the history that gave rise to WAC,

distinguish WAC as more than a general education alternative and 'other

than' remedial, present its goals and the curricular consequences of

adopting those goals, express what WAC does not try to do to a

curriculum, and report on some of the methods used in preparing faculty

for using writing in their classrooms and models used in designing WAC

programs.

In its beginnings, writing across the curriculum was created "to
initiate previously excluded students by means of language instruction"
into the academic world (Russell 271). Because of the GI Bill and the Baby
Boom, colleges and universities found themselves admitting more and
more students ill-prepared for academic life. With the increase in student
enrollment, the choice colleges and universities faced was to fail large
percentages of their students or to create ways to initiate more effectively
those students who were ill-prepared. Even at the most prestigious
schools, like Harvard, the first school to initiate general freshmen
composition, and Michigan, one of the earliest universities to establish a
WAC program, the choice has been to create better ways to initiate these
students who most likely would have failed under the traditional curriculum.
And WAC, at its earliest inception, was created in response to this need.
But it is wrong to perceive WAC as "remedial" or as merely another
general education alternative. WAC is not remedial; it is developmental.
The most recent studies in writing, rhetoric, and language acquisition
argue that we do not learn how to use language once and for all. Instead,

40

we develop a sense of language propriety over time and w^ithin specific
contexts. This argument, and not the initiation of previously excluded
students, stands as the centerpiece of contemporary WAC programs.

What the developmental model of language acquisition argues for in
the way of curricular changes goes as follows. Because students do not
learn language use once and for all, a curriculum cannot plan to prepare
students in a few freshman English/speech courses for academic writing.
Rather, the curriculum must offer courses, at least partially designed, to
instruct in and develop language use, at both the lower and the upper
divisions. And because language use is learned within specific contexts,
each discipline must take some responsibility for initiating students to its
discourse and later developing the language skills of students in that
discipline-specific discourse.

A study at Harvard by Derek Bok serves as one of many studies
supporting WAC's claim that students must continue to practice their
writing skills in order to develop, and even to maintain, their language
felicity. In his study, Bok found that senior science majors, who had not
been writing in their upper-division courses, had worse prose than
freshman science majors just completing freshman composition. On the
other hand, seniors in the humanities, students who had continued to
write in their upper-division classes, wrote better prose than freshmen in
the humanities. Bok's conclusion is clear: "students must continually
practice writing if they are to maintain their proficiency and improve their
writing skills" (Haring-Smith 25).

In addition to arguing that writing must be taught at all levels of
education in order for students to maintain proficiency and to improve
writing skills, WAC theories argue that such language instruction is best
accomplished within specific disciplines. In the old academy, before
increased specialization and sharp disciplinary distinction, it was possible
to instruct students in one "universal" academic discourse. But with the
rise of specialization, disciplines--as an effect of specialization and in an
attempt to create a strong sense of "community" within a disciplinecreated
discourses increasingly more discipline-specific, discourses different from
those of other disciplines. As stated by Slevin, Fort and O'Conner in their
report on Georgetown University's WAC program, "A discipline is
characterized not simply by its object of inquiry but by the principles
governing how propositions about that object can properly elicit interest

41

and assent, can legitimately induce in other members of this community
the conviction that a particular idea is not only true but also important to
know" (Fulwiler and Young 12). Therefore, "How one effects
comprehension, concern, and asset that is, the study of writing and
rhetoric--is ... a central question in all disciplines" (Fulwiler and Young
12).

Some general education movements have tried to re-establish "the
good of days" by pushing for the use of a single discourse across the
disciplines, an "academic discourse." Predictably, these attempts have
failed in the face of strong discipline specialization (Russell 25). Though
some WAC programs still attempt to achieve the goal of universal
discourse, the majority and the most stable--realize the following: the
reality of our academy includes specialization; and because language is
used differently across the disciplines, it must be learned within the
contexts of those disciplines.

Stable, successful WAC programs base their goals on such a
developmental model of language, a model embracing the concepts of
continual writing practice and discipline-specific writing instruction,
rather than a remedial model. Therefore, previous WAC programs teach
us to follow two basic principles in the development of a successful
program: first, language use must be taught and practiced within
discipHne-specific contexts through all levels of education; and second,
the building of a program must begin from or out of the developmental
view of language acquisition.

In order to proceed from a developmental model, to actually get a
program working, faculty must at least begin to see their own language use
as rhetorical--specifically suited to persuasion within their own
disciplines rather than "natural." Because writing (language use) has
been seen traditionally as remedial, a "one shot deal," "faculty have tended
to mistake the inevitable struggles of students to acquire the rhetorical
conventions of a discipline for poor writing or sheer ignorance" (Russell
18). Though poor writing and ignorance are certainly sometimes to blame,
often the cause of "poor writing" is students' ignorance of or inability to use
the discourse conventions of the discipline within which they write. For
students to become informed of and skillful in a discipline's conventions,
faculty must first realize that their own language use has rhetorical
conventions, the "kinds of evidence accepted, the style deemed appropriate.

42

the familiar turns of phrase .... specialized lines of argument, vocabulary,
and organizational conventions, the tacit understandings about what must
be stated and what assumed" (Russell 1 8). v^lso, faculty "must perceive that
all teachers have a responsibility to instruct their students in the language
and logic of their discipline" (Haring-Smith 20).

Once faculty can, or at least begin to, view their language use as
rhetorical and perceive their responsibilities to writing instruction, they
can (begin to) identify discipline-specific conventions for their students
and create ways for their students to practice the rhetorical skills of the
discipline. And once such identification and practice have begun, a WAC
program has begun to succeed.

The goal, however, of WAC has two parts, the improved, especially
discipline-specific, writing skills of students accounting for only one. The
second goal ofWAC is the promotion and use of writing as a learning tool.
Within the traditional curriculum, writing has been used primarily as an
assessment tool: students are asked to write so their instructors can see
how well the students "get it," "it" being the content of the course. WAC
programs claim, basing their argument on extensive empirical and anecdotal
evidence, that the value of writing extends beyond its assessment/
communicative value to a relatively ignored value of writing, its ability to
motivate more critical analysis and to create better understanding of
content. As Brown University's Tori Haring-Smith reports, "When
students write down ideas that have been presented to them and translate
those ideas into their own words, they learn concepts more
thoroughly whether they are studying physics, poetry, or anthropology"
(20).
Ij Much of the thrill professors outside of EngHsh departments find in

teaching courses with a writing emphasis comes from students' increased
motivation "to explore" content and issues within the discipline and their
consequential better grasp of course content. At a national conference held
in February of 1993, a conference with over 50 per cent of its speakers
representing discipUnes other than English, were numerous enlivened
accounts of courses becoming more interesting for the professors and
producing more analytical and better informed students after the courses
added writing as a learning tool. So in addition to a WAC program's goal
to improve writing proficiency by extending instruction into all levels of
education and across disciplines, WAC promotes a use of writing that at

43

once enlivens teaching for some professors and increases students' analytical
abilities and course content understanding.

Though "the ability to write clearly and use language in a persuasive
and responsible manner is one of the most important skills a student can
learn in college," WAC does "not overlook other creative and analytical
processes like sketching, constructing mathematical models, and design
experiments" (Haring-Smith 26). A WAC program tries to extend
w^riting practice across the disciphnes and through all levels of education,
but it tries neither to force writing instruction into courses or onto faculty,
nor to flood the curriculum with language instruction at the expense of
other critical parts of education. The goal of a WAC program is inherently
positive, to add to the effectiveness of the curriculum in producing more
skillful students and to strengthen the learning of students in the courses
already present in the curriculum.

To establish a WAC program that responds to the positive goals of
WAC without "invading" the faculty and the curriculum, the process of
implementation must be patient. And the process must reflect the cross-
disciplinary nature of the program by inviting faculty from all disciplines
to explore, plan, and evaluate the program. To invite faculty interested in
using writing in their courses, to invite them "to explore" writing across the
curriculum, most programs offer several educational forums:
teleconferences, guest speakers, workshops led by national WAC scholars,
workshops led by a WAC director or freshman writing director, workshops
led by faculty across the curriculum who have attended previous workshops
and implemented writing in their courses, mini-tutorials offered through
the writing center, and local monthly WAC publications. But of these the
workshop is the most common and, initially, the most effective.

"The workshop at its best is an instance of communal scholarship
applied to pedagogic problems, engaging faculty members from across the
disciphnes in an intellectual exchange that draws on the expertise of all
participants" (Fulwiler and Young 142). Furthermore, the workshop is
typically "different from other faculty activities ... in that the workshop
is (1) scholarly and pragmatic and (2) politically and intellectually
nonhierarchical" (Fulwiler and Young 142). Therefore, the workshop
creates an egalitarian context for discussion of faculty concerns about
implementing writing in the classroom.

44

During the initial stages of WAC implementation faculty are usually,
and reasonably, concerned about such issues as "doing the job of the
English teacher," not knowing how "to teach" writing, dealing with what
they fear will be a greatly increased grading load, avoiding a loss of course
coverage, identifying discipline-specific conventions, and "fitting" writing
into their classes. The workshop is particularly suited to discussion and
resolution of these issues. And during the workshops, faculty can discuss
the different goals of freshman composition classes and writing in the
disciplines, learning that writing across the curriculum is not equivalent to
"grammar across the curriculum" and thus not equivalent to making other
faculty "do the job" of the English faculty. Faculty can discuss the universal
principles of writing that enable them "to teach" writing, ways to use
writing without greatly increasing workloads, using writing to increase
students' depth of knowledge without reducing course coverage, the
rhetorical elements that distinguish one discipline from another, and
general methods of developing writing tasks.

Though workshops are designed to prepare faculty to independently
establish writing in their classrooms, having faculty across the disciplines
work alone in courses designed with a writing emphasis is not the only
option available in terms of curricular models. The central features of
WAC programs are "faculty development workshops, a facultywide
supervisory coordinator, student tutors, departmental responsibility for
students' writing proficiency, a system of student writing portfolios, and
external funding (federal and corporate) to defray start-up costs" (Russell
205). But programs come in various models. "The most common model
at large research universities was and is a campuswide writing requirement
administered by a committee of faculty from several disciplines, which
students satisfy by taking a certain number of 'writing intensive' (WI)
courses offered in several--sometimes all--departments" (Russell 288).
However, the writing intensive model does not work for all schools, and
each school must carefully consider which model best suits its tradition,
needs, resources, and goals. Other models include the following: a
"linking model" links small writing classes with larger lecture classes, the
writing classes being taught, typically, by English faculty, some schools
keep writing instruction entirely within the English department, hiring
"specialists" across the disciplines to teach disciplinary writing under
English course headings; some programs have simply tried to assign

45

students to writing center tutorials as part of course credits; and other
schools have recruited and trained "peer tutors" who are "assigned to a
particular course ... or to a writing lab" (Russell 289). Each model has its
advantages and disadvantages, and deciding which model to adopt or what
combination of models to adopt should be a decision shared by faculty
across the disciplines.

Writing across the curriculum has proven to be a valuable curricular
addition for many schools, its strength and worth illustrated in WAC's
two decade history. Many, administrators and faculty across disciplines,
are showing interest in developing WAC programs. The one truth all
WAC programs across the country share is that the strongest, most stable,
most effective, most enjoyable WAC programs grow out of a
cross-curricular cooperation. Working from a cross-curricular cooperative
beginning, any institution should be able to greatly improve the educational
experience of its students through the development and implementation
of a WAC program.

Works Cited

Fulwiler, Toby, and Art Young, eds. Programs That Work: Models and Methods for Writing Across
the Curriculum. Portsmouth: Boyton/Cook, 1990.

Haring-Smith, Tori, et al. A Guide to Writing Programs: Writing Centers, Peer Tutoring Programs,
and Writing-Across-the-Curriculum. Glenview: Scott, Foresman, 1985.

Russell, David R. Writing in the Academic Disciplines, 1870 - 1990: A Curricular History.
Carbondale: Southern Illinois, 1991.

46

ABSTRACTS OF MASTER'S THESES AND SPECIALIST
IN EDUCATION PROJECTS

A Comparison of Mathematics Achievement and
Attendance Between Middle Grade Non At- Risk
Students and At- Risk Students with Interventions

Donna M. Baker

EdS, Middle Grades Education

December 1993

This study was designed to determine the effect, if any, interventions
would have on academically at-risk students. A group of eighth-grade
students who had been retained one or more years prior to entering middle
school were compared to a group of eighth-grade students who were
considered average students and had never been retained in their school
career.

Subjects used in this study were eighth-grade students who attended
Lee's Crossing Middle School for three years. Lee's Crossing Middle
School is located in Troup County, Georgia.

The pretest for both eighth-grade groups was their fifth-grade score
on the mathematics section of the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. The posttest
for both groups was their eighth-grade score on the mathematics section
of the Iowa Test of Basic Skills given in the Spring of 1993.

The data were analyzed using Analysis of Covariance and indicated
that academically at-risk students, even with interventions implemented
for three years, scored significantly lower than "average" eighth-grade
students.

According to Rafoth and Carey (1991) recent reviewers of the
literature on retention effects have concluded that there are no clear
benefits for students in terms of academic gains, personal or social growth,
or improvement in attitude toward school. Retention as a policy,
according to Smith and Shepard (cited in Rafoth and Carey, 1991), has
become increasingly criticized for its negative impact on children and has
been found to be associated with increased risk of dropping out of school.
This researcher recommends that further studies be conducted, using

47

other means of evaluation throughout the year, to see if a significant
difference in growth continues to occur.

Being Language: The Spoken Rituals
of Subjectivity

Derek Harrison Bambach
AM, Psychology
December 1993

This project is an investigation of Jacques Lacan's investigation of
consciousness development and linguistic functioning. Lacan theorizes
human subjectivity through the complex processes of language, and claims
that meaning is generated according to a grammatical logic which
structures conscious experience. Identity is formed through this process
as a particular organization of knowledge, inseparable from a subject who
is animated by it. Through writing, I attempt an understanding of this
knowledge in the only way that is theoretically possible: by reconstituting
myself according to the terms of the Lacanian system.

Following Lacan's work, there are two essential issues I concern
myself with: the differential terms of symbolic communication and the
rules by which they are combined and exchanged. The first chapter of the
text outlines the syntactical functioning of language. Grammar is viewed
as a structural logic or architecture that informs subjectivity and generates
meaning in a given situation. Next I take up semantic matters, specifically
the terms or signifiers that are grammatically combined through linguistic
praxis. More than a simple vocabulary, these are the historically situated
and psychologically rich images that anchor a flexible but continuous sense
of self. Finally there is the question of meaning, insofar as that is what is
generated in the combination of these signifiers, according to their specific
laws. While I may appear to discuss the two issues separately, they are
quite literally dependent on one another, and this involvement is itself, a
third term which must be reckoned with. The result of the communicative
process is none other than the individual subject, marked at points of
difference from itself and from others.

Finally I include a caveat: if there is an ambiguity present in this text,
it is likely because the project was undertaken to be written more than to

48

be read, and is therefore more performative than explanatory. Attempts
to clearly express a point or conclusion are purely for the readers' benefit;
the writer is almost exclusively concerned with process and its impact. As
this is the most difficult knowledge to capture with words, the results are
unavoidably vague. Further the question of what exactly I am doing is
accessible solely as a question of my Desire. And that can only be known
retroactively, by reading backward through the transference relations that
hold this subject-matter together.

The Effects of Mentoring Programs on the

Self-Esteem and Mathematics and Science

Performance of Middle- School Students

Cheryl R. Caldwell

EdS, Middle Grades Education

August 1993

This study was designed to investigate the effect mentoring programs
have on the self-esteem and mathematics and science performance of
middle-school students.

The program evaluated took place from October 1992 until April
1993 in a medium-sized community 45 miles west of Atlanta, Georgia.
Mentors were carefully selected and trained students in attendance at a
nearby college. The program primarily focused on mathematics and
science processing skills through a combined one-on-one mentoring
session/large group activity format. Meetings, held twice a week, lasted
for one and a half hours.

Subjects were 40 sixth-grade students who attended Carrollton Junior
High School. Chosen by their teachers based on observed
achievement-oriented behaviors and membership in a minority race or
low socioeconomic strata, 20 members of the sample participated in the
mentoring program and formed the experimental group. The remaining
20 subjects formed the control group.

The Piers-Harris Children's Self-Concept Scale was administered as
a pretest in October 1992 for determination of presence of significant
differences. Scores from the mathematics and science portion of students'
fifth-grade Iowa Test of Basic Skills were gathered for pretest analysis

49

using the t test. With the .05 probability level, no significant differences
between the two groups were found.

The Piers-Harris Children's Self-Concept Scale and the mathematics
and science sections of the ITBS were administered again in April 1993.
The t test analysis showed no significant difference between the
experimental and control groups indicating the mentoring program had
no significant effect on the self-esteem and mathematics and science
performance of the middle-school students participating in this study.

Further study of mentoring programs, especially those which address
gender, racial, and socioeconomic issues, are recommended.

An Investigation of The Relationship

Between Pre-Primary Education, Socioeconomic

Status, Positive Parental Involvement

and Mathematics Proficiency in

Eighth-Grade Students

Tonia S. Contorno

EdS, Secondary Education

December 1993

This research was conducted to determine what effect pre-primary
education and positive parental involvement have on the proficiency of
eighth grade math students. Socioeconomic levels and their relationship
to mathematics proficiency were also examined.

Scores from the Orleans-Hanna Algebra Prognosis Test were collected
from 79 students and these were used to determine the students'
mathematics proficiency. A survey was sent to parents of the students to
document their child's attendance in a pre-primary education program.
Students were given surveys about their parents' involvement with their
education.

An attempt was made to fit a linear regression model with positive
parental involvement and pre-primary school attendance used as the
independent variables. Test scores were used as the dependent variable in
order to predict students' test scores in the future.

50

Correlation analysis of the students' scores, the amount of pre-primary
education the students had received, and the parental involvement scores
w^ere examined. The results indicated little relationship among these
factors.

Socioeconomic levels were examined and Chi-Square Analysis was
performed on the data. Analysis indicated that there was a dependency on
the socioeconomic level of a student and his/her mathematics proficiency.

Using a linear regression model, a student's score on the test could be
predicted with some accuracy using information about whether or not the
child attended four year old kindergarten.

This study suggested that socio-economic factors weigh more heavily
in predicting students' mathematical proficiency than any other factor
analyzed.

The Relationships Between Contract Grades,

Mathematics Anxiety, and Performance

of High School Students

Sara Crews

EdS, Secondary Education

June 1993

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between
mathematics anxiety and performance among high school students, and
whether the use of a contract had any influence on these factors.

The study involved 325 students in grades 9 through 12 who were
enrolled in General Math I, Applied Math, Elementary Algebra, Algebra
I, Algebra II, Geometry, and Trigonometry. The study took place over
a nine weeks grading period. At the beginning of the grading period, the
Mathematics Anxiety Rating Scale for Adolescents (MARS-A) was
administered to all students. Half of the classes of each subject constituted
the control group and were graded as usual.

The remaining classes were the treatment groups in which students
were asked to sign a contract. To fulfill the contract a student was to have
no more than four absences during the nine weeks, bring materials to class,
take all tests and quizzes, correct any errors on tests, and turn in all daily
assignments.

51

Any student who fulfilled the terms of the contract received a grade
of at least 70 (passing). If the student earned a higher grade, two points
were added to the grade actually earned. At the end of the nine weeks, the
MARS-A was administered again.

Correlations were examined between pre-study and post-study grades
and pre-study and post-study MARS-A scores for both treatment and
control groups to determine whether the contract had any influence on
grades or on mathematics anxiety. Comparisons were made between
scores for male and female students as well as between students enrolled
in general versus college preparatory classes.

This study found that mathematics anxiety as measured by the
MARS-A was significantly higher for females than for males. There was
also a significant difference in performance of male and female students
as measured by grades. However, contrary to the findings of most previous
research, this study found the grades of females to be higher than those of
males.

A comparison of mathematics anxiety between general and college
preparatory students showed slightly higher levels of anxiety among the
students in the general curriculum track, but the difference was not found
to be statistically significant. A weak negative correlation was found
between student grades and mathematics anxiety ratings, supporting
previous research.

There was a mean decrease in MARS-A scores for all students who
were rated at the beginning and end of the grading period. While the
students who fulfilled the terms of the grading contract showed a greater
decrease in MARS-A scores than did the students in the control group,
this difference was not found to be statistically significant. Test grade
averages for those who fulfilled the contract increased slightly while those
in the control group showed a slight decline. Although teachers found this
somewhat encouraging, the differences in grades were not found to be
statistically significant.

52

Aspects of the Gullah Dialect in
Southeastern Regional Literature

Henry Manning Dreyer, Jr.

MA, English

June 1993

The ancestors of the Negro inhabitants of the area along the coasts of
South Carolina, Georgia, and a small bit of adjacent Florida for about one
hundred miles inland, and the Sea Islands of South Carolina and Georgia
were brought to the southern part of North America to tend the rice and
cotton which were the principal crops of those areas before the Civil War.
These people, and some of the white inhabitants who had frequent contact
with them, spoke an exotic English-based creole dialect called "Gullah" in
South Carolina, and "Geechee" in Georgia and Florida.

Most of the Gullah people were isolated on the farms, and especially
so on the Sea Islands, and they were socially isolated from the more
educated white people as well. The white people with whom they had
most frequent contact were the overseers who were principally English
peasants and who spoke regional English dialects. The Gullah dialect
retains much of these regional linguistic eccentricities in addition to some
African words, but the Gullah syntax reflects the African languages that
these people spoke before coming to America.

Not much of the African languages was retained or passed to the
descendants of the transported slaves because it seemed flitile to retain
languages which were of no use in the New World. The GuUah creole
which developed became the birth language of the new generations, and
it was the tongue used exclusively at home. With the advent of freedom,
however, and the greatly increased contact with educated white persons,
the Gullah language has been largely displaced in favor of some form of
Standard English. With the disappearance of cotton and rice as "money"
crops, the need for large amounts of manual labor also disappeared. It was
necessary to teach the rising generations of the Gullah people to speak
English as the common tongue in order to train them for occupations
other than manual labor. This teaching, and the dying off of the older
generations who were native Gullah speakers, has made this unique creole
language a rapidly dying tongue.

53

Because it was spoken so commonly and so widely by white people as
well as Blacks, the language has had a fascination for Americans from all
over the nation. It has been the subject of much literature in the Southern
states, and there has been a great deal written about the language as well
as a considerably amount in this oral language as it sounded to each
individual writer.

This thesis examines the derivation of Gullah both geographically and
linguistically, and its looks at the use of Gullah in Southern regional
literature as well as in literary works by writers from other parts of the
United States. Gullah is an integral part of the history of America, and
especially that of the Southern States. There is a rising ground swell of
interest today in preserving this fascinating dialect.

Skin Color Bias
Among Black Americans

Angela S. Haugabrook
MA, Sociology
December 1993

Negative portrayals of and attitudes toward varying degrees of skin
color within ethnic groups have led to animosity, discrimination, and
misunderstanding between the members. Failure to understand the role
of skin color has posed persistent difficulties especially for Black Americans
who view the acknowledgement of skin color distinctions by other Black
members as a source of divisiveness for the group. This lack of understanding
has resulted in a barrier to the communication between members in efforts
to sustain group harmony.

This report discusses the historical impact of skin color bias on Black
Americans and assesses the degree to which this bias operates among
contemporary ethnic groups using Black American college students as the
study sample. The findings of the study indicate that the respondents
utilize color bias in various relations with other Blacks. Yet attitudes
reflect a tendency to downplay the significance that this differentiation has
on the development of positive interaction among group members.

In order to facilitate understanding of skin color functions as a part of
group dynamics, discussion is presented on possible theoretical frameworks

54

by which skin color bias may be interpreted. By re-introducing this topic
to the academic forum, the role and consequences ot bias may be further
examined and strategies developed to ameliorate negative results such bias
can cause.

The Effects of the Electronic Bookshelf

on Reading Attitudes of

Chapter I Students

Diane W. Hill

EdS, Reading Instruction

June 1993

The purpose of this study M^as to determine if there was a significant
improvement in reading attitudes of third-grade Chapter I students after
using the Electronic Bookshelf computer program. The Electronic
Bookshelf is a reading motivation/management system whose objective is
to instill a love of reading in students. Morris Street School implemented
the program with Chapter I students during the 1993 school year.

The study was conducted during the months of February, March, and
April of 1993 and involved 20 Chapter I third-grade students at Morris
Street School in Dalton, Georgia. The experimental and control groups
each consisted of ten students chosen randomly from all third-grade
Chapter I reading students. At the beginning of the study, the reading
attitudes of both the control group and the experimental group were
measured by the Elementary Reading Attitude Survey. A numerical score
was assigned to each student based on the responses to the attitudinal
survey. Numbers were used instead of names and students remained
anonymous.

At the end of allotted time for the study, the students who participated
in the research study were given the same reading interest inventory to
determine if any significant attitude improvement toward reading occurred
while using the Electronic Bookshelf.

The t-test for dependent means was used to determine if there was a
significant level of improvement in reading attitudes of the students in the
experimental group. The results of the t-test failed to show a significant
improvement in reading attitudes of those students who were exposed to

55

the Electronic Bookshelf. The results were t = 1.32, using .05 to determine
the significance, the level of significance needed to be 2.10.

The t-test for independent means was used to determine if there was
a significant difference in the attitude gain scores between the experimental
and control groups. The .05 level of significance was used to reject the
hypothesis. There was no significant gain in the scores between the two
groups so the hypothesis was rejected. The t-test yielded .61 as compared
to the 2.2 needed to establish significance.

The Effects of Reward on Running Performance As

Reward Relates to Motivational Tendency and

Fitness Level in Sixth Grade Students

Sherri Lee Hintz

EdS, Physical Education

August 1993

This study was conducted to examine the effects of reward on running
performance as reward relates to motivation tendency and fitness level in
sixth grade students. Two hundred and forty-six sixth graders participated
in the study. Subjects were given the School Motivation Analysis Test
(Krug, Cattell, &c Sweney, 1976) and classification of intrinsic and
extrinsic motivational tendency was determined for each subject from the
raw score. The American Alliance for Health, Physical Education,
Recreation and Dance (AAHPERD, 1980) Health Related Fitness Test
mile run was administered to all subjects. Percentiles were used to classify
fitness levels (unfit, moderately fit, and fit) for all subjects. Rewards (no
reward, low reward, and frequent reward) were given to subjects based on
the physical education class they were scheduled to attend for the six
weeks. The nature of the reward utilized was free-play basketball time.
The reward treatment condition consisted of 18 timed runs that were
scheduled during a six week time period. In the frequent reward treatment
condition subjects were allowed to have free-play basketball after every
timed run (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday). In the low reward
treatment condition subjects were allowed to have free-play basketball
after the Friday run. In the no reward treatment condition subjects were
not allowed to have free-play basketball. To qualify for the reward each

56

subject had to meet or exceed the minimum required laps for the timed
run. There were 10 minute runs requiring three quarter mile laps on
Mondays and Wednesdays. There was a 25 minute run requiring seven
quarter mile laps on Fridays. The lap requirements were consistent with
the guideline established by the local county curriculum for Physical
Education.

Results of the analysis revealed a significant difference in running
performance between the frequent reward condition (p < .001) and both
the no and low reward conditions. No significant difference was found to
exist between motivational tendencies (p > .05). There was also a
significant difference (p < .001) in the running performance between fit,
moderately fit, and unfit subjects in all reward treatment conditions.

A Study Comparing the Effects of Two
Teaching Methods on Achievement
in Solving Stoichiometry Problems

Gerard Raymond Hodnette

EdS, Secondary Education

August 1993

The purpose of this study was to determine if chemistry students
would be more successful in solving stoichiometry problems if they put the
problem into pictures rather than using the traditional dimensional
analysis method. Intact high school chemistry classes were used in this
study, two on the high academic level and two on the lower academic track.
The classes were divided so there were two classes (one from each
academic track) in both the treatment group and the control group. The
treatment group was instructed in drawing a picture of the stoichiometry
problem and using this visualization to solve for the answer. The control
group was taught the dimensional analysis problem-solving method.

The classes were given a pretest prior to beginning the treatment and
a posttest after the treatment period. The raw scores were analyzed using
a regression analysis computer program.

Results of the study indicated that there was no significant difference
between the treatment and control groups. Also no significant difference
was found between gender groups within the treatment group. Differences

57

between higher academic achievers and average academic achievers in the
treatment group were found to be significant. However further analysis
showed a similar difference between the same groups within the control
group; therefore the difference was not attributed to the experimental
treatment. It appears that visualization of stoichiometry problems does
not improve student problem-solving achievement. Nonquantifiable data
does indicate some students relate well to this method. Its use along with
traditional dimensional analysis would serve students with different
learning styles.

Recommendations for future research from this study are that larger
scale studies be carried out and that they should include an interview
process to assess student understanding.

StiULife:
Transformation and Symbol

Sandy Howell

MEd, Art Education

August 1993

This paper explains a series of thirteen drawings and paintings that
deal with the still Ufe. The subject matter ranges from fruit, vegetables,
and sports equipment to dead fish and deer skulls. Even though the
subject matter varies greatly, the underlying theme concerns the symbolic
message inherent in man's manipulation of objects on a two-dimensional
plane. Transformation of materialistic concerns to spiritual ones is of
major interest to the artist in this series. A variety of media, such as pastel,
pencil, colored pencil, and acrylic are employed to achieve a visual
representation of these ideas.

58

A Comparison of Traditional Versus Keyword

Mnemonic Instruction on the Learning of

Secondary Science Vocabulary

Robin G.Jenkins

EdS, Secondary Education

March 1994

A comparison was made between a traditional method of instruction
and a keyword method of instruction using intact high school classroom
groups of secondary science students. In all groups, the same medical
word part definitions were used to enhance anatomy and physiology
students' science vocabulary. In the traditional method groups, students
read word parts aloud with their definitions and then rehearsed orally each
word part with their instructor. In the keyword method groups, medical
word parts were paired with sound- alike audionyms ("keywords") and
visual images that related the word part to its keyword and its definition.
The purpose of this study was to see if the keyword method of instruction
would result in significantly different test scores for high school students'
initial acquisition of word parts when compared to traditionally instructed
learners. In addition, six- and twelve-week retention scores were also
compared for significant differences between the two groups.

The results were inconclusive: a significant difference was only found
for the first lesson's acquisition score and for the 100 word part acquisition
score. On these two measures, the keyword group outperformed the
traditional group. Daily acquisition lesson test scores for days two, three
and four; as well as the six- and twelve-week retention test scores revealed
no significant difference between the groups on these measures.

59

"The Remedy of Holy Prayer":

The Mortuary Roll of Abbess Mathilda

of Holy Trinity, Caen (D. 1113)

Teresa Elaine Leslie

MA, History

December 1993

This thesis, '"The Remedy of Holy Prayer': The Mortuary Roll of
Abbess Mathilda of Holy Trinity, Caen (d. H13)," displays a variety of
approaches to this medieval Latin document, produced in twelfth-century
Normandy, as a historical source. In the Middle Ages, mortuary rolls
commemorated the deaths of prominent religious leaders, particularly
abbots and abbesses. An obituary of the deceased was produced in a
monastic scriptorium and then circulated to other religious communities
by a lay messenger called a breviator, who would solicit prayers for the
deceased as well as commemorations to add to the roll. The mortuary roll
of Abbess Mathilda was very widely circulated throughout Normandy,
France, and England; the roll contains 253 commemorative entries, which
are called tituli.

Chapter One of this thesis is a study of the encyclical of Abbess
Mathilda's roll, discussing this obituary section of the roll as a unique
biography and comparing the abbess's obituary with two contemporary
mortuary roU obituaries for abbots, those of Abbot Vital of Savigny (d.
1122) and of Abbot Andre of Chezal-Benoit (d. 1112).

Chapter Two is an analysis of the tituli section of Abbess Mathilda's
roU and the tituli contained therein. The travel pattern of the breviator is
examined, and the religious communities that he visited (and those he
apparently did not) are discussed. This chapter also examines the content
of many of the tituli, which provides fascinating insights into
twelfth-century attitudes toward prayer, monasticism, death, and women.
These verses were written by monks, nuns, canons, and students; some
contributors wrote in a very irreverent style, and their words are examined
in detail, as are more conventional entries.

Chapter Three places Abbess Mathilda's roll in its social, political,
religious, and historiographic context as a document related to medieval
Christian attitudes toward death and the afterlife. Essentially, mortuary

60

rolls were intended to create extended prayer networks for the deceased.
The many types of links Mathilda's roll represents emerge: links between
monastic and patron, individual and community, male and female, monk
and canon, the living and the dead.

The conclusion to this thesis ties the three chapters together by
reviewing the ways this document reinforces, and occasionally challenges,
the assumptions of modern historians concerning twelfth-century Latin
Christianity. Four appendices follow: a translation of Abbess Mathilda's
encyclical, with the original Latin text; a list of the communities contributing
to the roU; a map of the breviator's route; and a discussion of the common
misidentification of Mathilda as the daughter of William the Conqueror.
A document as rich as Abbess Mathilda's mortuary roU presents a myriad
of challenges to historians, and this thesis reveals the vast potential of this
previously untapped source.

An Investigation of the Correlation

Between Attitudes and Gender

in Algebra II Performance

Elizabeth Jayne Lewis

EdS, Secondary Education

December 1993

The relationship between a person's gender and his/her mathematical
performance has been a highly publicized topic recently. Males consistently
score higher than females on tests of mathematical proficiency. This
discrepancy between gender and mathematical performance could be due
to the attitudes of the students. This correlational study focuses on such
variables as gender, attitudes. Algebra I performance and Geometry
performance as they relate to Algebra II achievement.

The subjects were 67 eleventh and twelfth grade Algebra II students
who were placed in an ability grouped Algebra II course based on their
performance in Algebra I and Geometry. There were 29 male subjects and
38 female subjects. The Aiken Mathematics Scale was administered to
students in order to determine attitudinal differences. Each student's
permanent records were used to determine Algebra I, Geometry, and
Algebra II grades.

61

The results indicated that there was a significant correlation between
a student's attitude and mathematical achievement. There was a significant
correlation between the attitudes of a male student and his mathematical
achievement. There was no significant correlation between a female
student and her mathematical achievement.

The results also indicated a significant correlation between students'
Algebra I grades and their Algebra II grades. The correlation between a
female student's Algebra I grade and Algebra II grade was also significant.
This was not true for a male student. There were no significant correlations
between students' Geometry grades and their Algebra II performance.

Trans-Filter Migration of Agranulocytes

Pablo Del C. Lugo, Jr.
MS, Biology
June 1993

A modified Boyden Chamber was used to determine the galvanotaxis
of human agranulocytes (monocytes) in a constant dc electric field (8V/
cm). In these experiments the agranulocytes were placed onto the top
surface of two cellulose nitrate filters (5 microns) and the electrode of
interest was placed under the lower surface. The number of agranulocytes
on the lower surface of filter 1 and all the cells in filter 2, the lower filter,
were counted at 5 minute intervals for 20 minutes and compared with
controls. More (84.39%) agranulocytes migrated to the anode than to the
cathode (6.78%). Because thermal heating is identical whether the
electrode is reversed or normally placed, heating was not thought to be a
significant factor in increasing the random migration of agranulocytes.
When the temperature was lowered from 36C to 21C, there was a
decrease in the number of agranulocytes on the anode surface. Because the
number of agranulocytes migrating to the anode at 2 1 C was not the same,
this indicates that the migration of agranulocytes to the anode is not due
to a passive electrophoretic phenomena but due to a metabolically dependent
activity of agranulocytes.

62

Shaking the Tree:
A Ritual of Midlife Change

Jane S. Manner

MEd, Art Education

August 1993

Shaking the Tree is a series of eight paintings exploring a spectrum of
experiences encountered at the portal of middle age. The series begins
with the rescue of the child who was frustrated into near oblivion by
socialization and biology. It then moves systematically through a life
examined: the ambivalence of relationships, the tension of being both
intuitive and rational, the unabashed claiming oflight and dark motivations,
the futility of looking outside for meaning, the isolation necessary for
achieving authenticity, and the empowerment of creativity. Finally in
"Quantum Process," perhaps perceived as diminished, the artist is in a coil
of change much like the worm hole of quantum physics, which occurs after
a star has become a black hole but before it becomes a new star. In this state
aU that has existed and will be is pure undefined and infinite potential.
Somehow, awareness of the power-filled coil is possessing the secret ofjoy.

The Effect of Prior Knowledge of

Electron Configuration on the Achievement

of High School Chemistry Students as

Related to Writing Formulas

Barbara B. Martin

EdS, Secondary Education

June 1993

This study was performed to determine if there was a hierarchical
relationship between students' knowledge of electron configuration and
their ability to write chemical formulas and name compounds from
formulas. Two academic levels of chemistry students at a west central
Georgia high school were divided into experimental and control groups
using intact classrooms. The experimental group, composed of two
A-level and one B-level classes, received instruction on electron

63

configuration while the control group, composed of one A-level and one
B-level class, received instruction on an unrelated topic. Both the
experimental group and the control group then received instruction on
writing chemical formulas and naming compounds. Results of the study
indicated that there was no significant difference between the experimental
group and the control group in their ability to write chemical formulas and
name compounds. Further analysis of the data indicated that there was no
significant difference between the A-level experimental group and the
A-level control group in their ability to write chemical formulas and name
compounds. In addition, no significant difference was found in the
B-level experimental group and the B-level control group in their ability
to write chemical formulas and name compounds. Consequently, there
appears to be no relationship between students' abilities to write chemical
formulas and name compounds and their knowledge of electron
configuration.

Mathematics as Communication

Melanie Adams Maxwell

EdS, Middle Grades Education

June 1993

Recent studies and literature provide a compelling argument for the
use of more student-centered communication techniques to be
implemented in the mathematics classroom. These techniques include
the use of cooperative learning groups, learning logs orjournals, justification
of mathematical reasoning, and group discussions. According to the
National Council of Teachers ofMathematics, the mathematics classroom
needs to move toward a setting that is more student-centered and less
teacher dominated.

This seven-month study was conducted in an effort to gain evidence
of a possible connection between the use of student-centered
communication techniques and the improvement in mathematical concept
development. Two sixth-grade general mathematics classes were compared
using the mathematics concepts subtest of the Iowa Test of Basic Skills as
a pretest and a posttest.

64

Both groups studied the concepts on an identical time Une with the
same homework assignments. Also, both groups were assigned to one
teacher and met the same number of minutes each day but at different
times. At the time of the pretest, there was no significant difference
between the groups in ability.

The control group and the experimental group were treated differently.
The experimental group used daily learning logs and cooperative learning
groups. Also, the students in the experimental group were encouraged to
defend their mathematical reasoning and discuss problem-solving processes
in small and large group settings. More open-ended and non-routine
problems were assigned to this group than to the control group. The
control group had a more traditional classroom discourse where the
teacher was the center of most communication and drill assignments were
assigned without student-to-student discussion. No log writing
assignments were given to the control group.

It appears from the results of the study that the use of student-centered
communication techniques in the mathematics class does play as a positive
factor in a positive difference in concept development, but is not an
isolated factor. Also, it appears that there is no significant difference
between genders as to the different treatments in this study.

The Treatment of Values

Adopted by the Georgia Board of Education

in Selected Young Adult Novels

Barbara Ann Newton

EdS, Secondary Education

June 1993

The purpose of this study was to determine the presence of the core
values concepts developed by the Values Education Task Force of the state
of Georgia and adopted for implementation by the Georgia Board of
Education as revealed in 10 selected contemporary YA (young adult)
novels. The study focused on four research questions:

l.To what extent do selected young adult novels present the values
concept of citizenship?

65

2.To what extent do selected young adult novels present the values
concept of respect tor others?

3. To what extent do selected young adult novels present the values
concept of respect for self?

4. Do young adult novels offer a means for students to become
acquainted with the Georgia Board of Education core values concepts of
citizenship, respect for others, and respect for self?

The analyses of the 10 novels, published between 1987 and 1990,
indicated that all core values are portrayed in the novels, some more
frequently than others. The values subconcepts of knowledge, loyalty,
courage, tolerance, and commitment (in order of ranking) received the
highest presence in the novels with the values of justice and liberty
receiving the lowest ratings. The results indicate that the novels represent
well the core values concepts adopted for implementation by the State of
Georgia Board of Education and are worthy of inclusion in the school
curriculum.

The implications suggest that the teachers may use these novels for
class, group, or individual reading as a means for students to explore values
and to clarify their beliefs.

Recommendations for further research include (a) analysis of other
young adult novels and other genres of literature and (b) the effect of
reading such selected novels on students' attitudes and behaviors toward
values concepts.

The Mask as the Recorder of Myth

Mary Denease Norman

MEd, Art Education

August 1993

This creative research report focuses on the mask as the recorder of
legend and myth. The works, seven clay masks and four watercolor
paintings, are derived from a Native American myth whose objective is to
explain the origin of supernatural phenomena or acts of nature. The
Indian philosophy of the sacredness of nature is examined in the context
of the ancient myth and in its application to the actions of Man today.

66

Social Influence Theory:

A Comparison of Social Influence

Between Professionals and Non-Professionals

John 0' Sullivan

EdS, Guidance and Counseling

August 1993

The purpose of this study is to assess the social influence of both
professional and non-professional counselors as reported by their respective
clients. The Counselor Rating Form-Short (CRF-S) was administered to
64 clients of both professional staff and non-professional staff at West
Georgia College's Counseling Center. Means and ratio scores are
computed and correlated using the t-test formula. A significant difference
occurred at the .05 level in one of the three measures.

Circular Forms

Based Upon Selected Natural,

Cultural, Philosophical, and Artistic Sources

Marsha A. Parm

MEd, Art Education

August 1993

The subject of this series of fourteen works is the circle and its related
forms: the sphere, the spiral, and the implied circle in radial composition.
The content, style, and media vary from piece to piece, but the visual
orientation to the circle unifies the works. Influences from several sources
are represented in the series. These include circular phenomena in nature,
cultures that utilize the circle and related forms, Western thought and
philosophy, and the works of other artists.

67

A Descriptive and Historical View
of the Effects of a Breech Birth

Faye Reneau
MA, Psychology
December 1993

The purpose of this project was to gain an in-depth look at the physical
trauma of an infant born breech and the effect on one later in life.

The project was designed to review available data and to give a
longitudinal account of one person's history as it related to a breech birth.

The project was also designed to give a sense of meaning to the writer's
experience and reactions to those experiences. She did this by reviewing
her own history descriptively and qualitatively by putting the adult self in
the place of the younger subjective self, thus engaging in the re-creation
of the earlier experiences.

The writer selected resources from the literature, diary, memory, a
dream, detailed regressions utilizing self-hypnosis, heuristic experiences,
verbal accounts from mother, and pictures.

The writer attempted to be accurate in this account, and in so doing,
acknowledged her intimate, subjective involvement as the experiencer, the
historian, the observer/observed, and analyst/analysand.

The Effect on Instruction Emphasizing Identified

Learning Styles on Reading Achievements of

Chapter I Third-Grade Students

Judy Camp Sloman

EdS, Reading Instruction

December 1993

This study was conducted to determine the effect of instruction
emphasizing identified learning styles on reading achievement of Chapter
I third-grade students. The participants met the criteria for admission to
the Chapter I reading program in the eight Floyd County, Georgia,
elementary schools qualifying for Chapter I services.

68

The treatment or experimental group of 60 boys and 62 girls was
administered the Reading Style Inventory (RSI) by Marie Carbo (1988b)
to identify their reading styles and to match materials and instruction to
these identified styles. The reading styles of the control or comparison
group of 57 boys and 51 girls were not identified. The loiva Tests of Basic
Skills (ITBS) given each spring in Floyd County provided the data of
pretest and posttest Normal Curve Equivalent (NCE) reading
comprehension scores for both the control and the experimental groups.
The instructional time for both groups was approximately 7 months.

A non-equivalent pretest/posttest design with intact group was the
research design. An independent t-test was used to analyze the data with
.05 being the level of significance at which the null hypotheses would be
rejected. The results of this study indicated that teaching to the identified
learning styles of Chapter I third-grade students had no significant effect
on NCE reading comprehension scores. The three null hypotheses were
not rejected. It was recommended that fiirther research be conducted with
older students to determine if these same findings hold true.

The Cat as Symbol and Subject

Linda Akers Smith

MEd, Art Education

August 1993

The Cat as Symbol and Subject is the focus for this series of art works
consisting of fifteen pieces including drawings, paintings, handmade
paper, collages and sculpture. Influenced by historical and religious
references, the artist used symboHsm and realism to depict cats exhibiting
their mysterious and sometimes bizarre behavior. These works give a
contemporary glimpse at the evolution of the feline, while rhaintaining
that mystical quality which so endears them to their owners.

69

An Art Curriculum for Heard County's Third

Grades Based Upon the Integration of the

Georgia Quality Core Curriculum and

the Whole Language Approach

Annice Marilyn Sorrells

MEd, Art Education

August 1993

Heard County Elementary Schools are in the process of adopting the
whole language approach to learning in their classrooms. The curriculum
director and systemwide art teachers discussed the use of this approach in
the art classes.

This Master's project was undertaken to develop an art curriculum for
third grade students integrating the Georgia Quality Core Curriculum
objectives with themes similar to those in the Macmillan Reading Series.
Art lessons with the whole language approach will enable the students to
organize their thoughts in oral and visual responses. Children's original
thinking and art production is fostered with the development of art skills
and aesthetic problem -solving responses through an increased awareness
while feeling, creating, learning and viewing art. Art and academic classes
become more meaningful because of the integration of the content in an
original, emotionally satisfying manner.

A Survey of Knowledge, Training, and

Attitude about Learning Style of
Teachers in the Marietta City Schools

Linda H. Walker

EdS, Secondary Education

August 1993

The purpose of this study was to examine the knowledge, training,
and attitudes about learning styles of teachers at aU three levels of
instruction early childhood, middle schools, and secondary--in the
Marietta City School System. It was concluded that teachers at the early
childhood level of instruction had more exposure to learning instruction

70

in their teacher in-service programs as well as graduate and undergraduate
programs of study. Early childhood teachers were also more aware of their
own personal learning style. In addition, the study sought to demonstrate
the diversity of the system's student population with a random sample
testing of the student population assigned to four regular social science
classes. The students were tested with the Learning Channel Preference
instrument. The preference instrument used in student testing also
indicated diversity in student learning styles in the areas of visual, auditory,
and haptic. This was done to reveal the need for teachers to have
knowledge of learning styles instruction.

The Effect of Using Cooperative Learning Pairs
on Mathematics Achievement of
I Sixth- Grade Chapter 1 Students

Pamela Davis Winchester

EdS, Middle Grades Education

August 1993

The purpose of this experimental research was to determine the effect
of using cooperative learning pairs versus independent work to practice
problem solving in mathematics. The subjects to be used in this research
were members of two intact sixth-grade Chapter 1 math classes at West
Haralson Middle School. The following procedures were used:

1 .Both classes were given a seven-item pretest to assess problem -solving
skills.

2. Class I worked independently through 19 self-teaching worksheets
that specifically address the tested skills, without teacher intervention.

3. Meanwhile, Class II worked through these same worksheets in
cooperative learning pairs chosen by the teacher, again without teacher
intervention during the practice sessions.

4. Both classes were then given a posttest that measured the same skiUs
as the pretest and worksheets.

S.The improvement in scores from the pretest to the posttest was
calculated to determine if a significant difference existed between the
improvements of the two classes.

71

The data obtained from these tests were used to test the hypothesis
that sixth-grade students using cooperative learning pairs to practice skills
will have significantly higher mathematics achievement scores than students
who practice skills individually.

The null hypothesis was tested using the independent t-test analysis
at the .05 level of significance. The comparison showed a significant
difference, t - -3.3249. The group who practiced skills in cooperative pairs
had higher mean gains than those who practiced individually.

72

Hi""

\U

U

_^ (C^'^ti

WEST GEORGIA COLLEGE

Review

+ZP 1636 995 25

^ScSnfiB

I i

Pud

West Ge(

A Unit of the University System of Georgia

CarroUton, Georgia

Volume XXV

May 1995

Published by

West Georgia College

Beheruz N. Sethna, President
Don N. Smith, Vice President and Dean of Faculties

Learning Resources Committee
Ben deMayo, Chairperson

Charles Beard
David Boldt
Tim Chowns
Victoria Geisler
Kathryn Grams

Joseph Tyler

Wayne Kirk

Kareen Malone

George McNinch

Michael Phelan

Cheryl Thrash

Martha A. Saunders, Editor

Jeanette C. Bernhardt, Associate Editor

Joanne R. Artz, Assistant Editor

The purpose of this publication is to provide encouragement for
faculty research and to make available results of such activity. The Review,
published annually, accepts orriginal scholarly work. West Georgia College
assumes no responsibility for contributors' views. The style guide is MLA
Handbook, Second Edition. Although the Review is primarily a medium for
the faculty of West Georgia College, other sources are invited.

This issue contains abstracts of faculty research projects funded by the
Learning Resource Committee for 1994-1995. Also abstracts of all
masters' and educaitonal specialists' theses written at West Georgia
College are included as they are awarded.

WEST GEORGIA COLLEGE

Volume XXV May 1995

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Reading the Medieval Woman's Voice:
Reflections on the Letters of Margherita Datini,
an Italian Housewife on the Eve of the Renaissance

by Joseph P. Byrne 5

The State Income Tax: A comparative Analysis
of Southern States

by Richard D. Guynn 6c Carole E. Scott 14

Fighting Fire w^ith Fire:

Evil, Violence, and Empathy in the American Vigilante Film

by Glenn D. Novak 29

The Hammer and The Dove:

Nietzche, Foucault, and The American Nevv^ Historicism

by Christopher Wise 43

Abstracts of Faculty Projects Sponsored by

the Learning Resources Committee of

West Georgia College 58

Abstracts of Masters' Theses and Specialist in

Education Projects 67

Copyright 1995, West Georgia College
Printed in the USA (ISSN 0043-3136)

Reading the Medieval Woman's Voice:

Reflections on the letters of Margherita

Datini, an Italian housewife on the eve

of the Renaissance

By Joseph P. Byrne*

"Women's history, by definition, is an effort to restore to the historical
record material which traditional histories have ignored, effaced, or
misrepresented. With such material, we hope to unearth the ideological
and social worlds that have constructed separate genders, to explore the
distinct interests and agencies at work in these constructions, and finally
to transform our understanding of the past" (Howell 140).

While some may argue that Martha Howell's description and
prescription leave out the vital impetus to contemporary social change that
has fueled feminist historical and critical efforts from the start, I personally
find this passage rather comforting. It serves as a reminder that there are
many mansions in my mother's house of women's history, and that, as a
male visiting an ideological and gender-charged field, my work might
augment and feed, as it in turn is nourished by, the work of feminist
scholars committed to broaden modern and historical social and intellectual
dialogues.

A decade ago, in "Making a Difference," Greene and Kahn defined
their version of the feminist scholarly agenda: that

[f]eminist scholarship. . .restore a female perspective by
extending knowledge about women's experience. . . .Feminist
scholars study diverse social constructions of femaleness and
maleness in order to understand the universal phenomenon of
male dominance. (1-2)
In 1988 the literary critic Janet Todd in her Feminist Literary History
wrote.

The main subject [of women's history is] the subject of women
in history, women who wrote in history and who, ideologically

'Assistant Professor of History, West Georgia College

5

marked and muzzled, no doubt, nevertheless wrote with a
voice that has never been sufficiently attended to. (6-7)
She takes issue, however, with those who "put theory before literature and
the idea of woman before the experience of women" (14). Further on
Todd addresses the issue of men who labor in these fields, wishing that
they might start reading women and recognizing feminist
criticism. We would only be asking them to return the
compliment of many centuries. . . .1 believe that we should
simply do more work of the archival and archaeological type on
specific periods, while keeping in mind all of the questions and
possibilities of feminist criticism in its entirety. (137)
No doubt, at least part of Todd's outlook was shaped by Germaine Greer's
introduction to the 1982 Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature, in which
Greer wrote.

We have not reached the moment (in 1982) when we may
generalize about women's work, because no generalization
which is not based upon correct interpretation of individual
cases can be valued. It is only by correct interpretation of
individual cases that we can grasp what we have in
common. . . .(quoted in Todd 138)
It is in light of these manifestoes to bring light to the heretofore
covered, to develop the archival base of original sources, and to allow for
the examination of the individual case (whichever "correct interpretations"
one may apply to it) that this short report on the letters of Margherita
Datini is presented^

Margherita (1360-1423), daughter of the executed Florentine patrician
Domenico Bandini, grew up in the papal city of Avignon, where she met
and, in 1376 at the age of 16, wedded the 40-year old Francesco Datini,
famed 'merchant of Prato.' Francesco was an extraordinarily successful
and wealthy international businessman in later fourteenth-century Tuscany.
He has become an iconic figure in late medieval and early Renaissance
studies over the past century. This is due in large part to the serendipitous
discovery of his enormous documentary cache, preserved by accident in
the house he and Margherita built in the 1390s, and which today serves
as the repository for his and the city of Prato's archives. Economic
historians have long mined the 120,000 business letters and nearly 500
account books for data on, and insights into, the late fourteenth-century

mercantile world, but relatively little use has yet been made of the 10,000
private letters and 50 household account books.

Margherita herself, discoverable only through these particular records,
merited a limited and superficial biography by Enrico Bensa some 60 years
ago, and Valeria Rosati w^rote her 1969 Thesis for the University of
Florence on Margherita as yet a scholarly dead end. Frances and Joseph
Gies devote a chapter to Margherita in their work on medieval women.
Although they utilize a few of Margherita's published letters, like most
they rely for the bulk of their information on the treatment given her by
the English expatriate Iris Origo in her 1960 book on Francesco Datini,
The Merchant ofPrato?

In his chapter on northern Italian urban sources for Joel Rosenthal's
1990 Medieval Women and the Sources for Medieval History, David Herlihy
wrote usefully but deceptively:

[t]he Datini archives located at Prato, the largest of all the

collections of private mercantile records, include from 1381

exchanges between Francesco di Marco Datini, then in Pisa,

and his wife Margherita. These letters are an exceptional

source in recapturing the spirit of a medieval Italian marriage.

(143-144)

That's all they recapture? a naive statement I dare say for one who has

written at length on women's history. The fact of the matter is that the

earliest of Margherita's letters dates from 1384, and her half of the extant

correspondence, some 243 letters, spanned the last quarter century of her

35-year marriage to Francesco. In the mid-1970s Valeria Rosati first

published transcriptions of all of Margherita's letters in the journal

Archivio Storico Prates^, and in 1990 the archive published in book form

Elena Cecchi's edition of Francesco's 182 letters to his wife'*. Despite

Rosati's publication, Herlihy could still get away with simply citing

Origo's then 30-year old work as the published source for Margherita's

letters. Not the passage of time alone, but the fact that Origo herself did

not do the basic research among the letters, make hers a problematic as

well as dated treatment. Perhaps Herlihy's chapter was simply tossed off,

a quick fix for "Women's History" from one of the profession's guiding

lights. On the other hand, though it was at least a decade old when Herlihy

wrote, Rosati's collection may simply have been unknown to him: after aU,

according to the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC), only four
libraries in this country had it in their collections as of late 1994.

Recent theoretical work and case studies of the epistolary (letter-
writing) genre have strongly suggested that letters constitute the most
authentic voice that we have from women of the middle ages, and perhaps
well beyond. Despite his rather naive statement that "[i]n the middle ages
it is doubtflil that there were any private letters in the modern sense of the
term" (the Datini correspondence belies this notion in spades), I do like
medievalist Giles Constable's formulation that "(t)he letter was thus
regarded as half of a conversation or dialog between the sender and the
addressee, and it involved a quasi-presence and a quasi- speech between
the two" (11,13). Elizabeth Goldsmith's introduction to Writing the
Female Voice sparks the insight that Margherita's letters were an "extension
of the private moment" she shared with her spouse, and not necessarily an
opportunity for special expression. The unselfconsciousness that Diane
Watt found in the Paston Letters^, the "extension of orality" to which she
makes reference, permeates Margherita's reports and reflections, creating
indeed a "rhetoric of household correspondence" (133). This is less the
case in the beginning of the Datini correspondence, when, at least subtly,
Margherita, or her scribe, applied rules derived from the ars dictaminis ^.
such as the formal heading al nome di Dio (in the name of God), the
formal salutation and self-recommendation to her husband, and the
formal sign-off of Idio vi guardi (may God watch over you). As she
apparently grew more accustomed to writing (or dictating), the formality
of these elements, especially the salutation and self-recommendation,
quickly fell away. The formal business nature of these writings, however,
is strictly retained in the dating of the letters, the references to the letters
to which she is responding and the dates and times those letters from her
husband arrived.

A good part of each letter is taken up with the loose ends of domestic
economy. It is not, however, as simple as historian Lauro Matines, 20
years ago, makes it sound. In his brief reference to Margherita's
correspondence he states that

Many of the same sorts of jobs [e.g. household maintenance,
finance] governed the life of Margherita. . . .His letters to her
rain in tasks and commissions, and her replies patiently list her
carrying out of them. (17)

Margherita as Griselda''-, even Origo, Martines' only source, a quarter-
century earlier was more sensitive and more accurate!

Margherita's letters reflect a petulant and caring vv^oman who is, in
fact, constantly negotiating with her workaholic husband. The extant
correspondence began in the tenth year of their marriage, she in her 25th
year of life, and he old at 50. By this time the young woman had no doubt
learned the rhetorical tricks of negotiation, and the interplay of informing,
pleading, scolding and reminding was well honed by the time she began
dictating her thoughts.

Although her scribe usually stood between her and her reader, this
seems to have little influenced the contents of the letters, which in general
remained at about the same level of intimacy whenever she wrote them
herself. Datini, apparently concerned with whom his wife was using as
an amanuensis, suggested early on that she dictate to Piero di Filippo, a
man not too close to Francesco; she did not like the idea and replied,
but unless Simone's around, I go to Niccolo dell'Ammanato
(her brother-in-law), since he seems to me more suitable than
Piero, or to Lorenzo, to these two I tell my secrets, and not to
anyone else. . . .
(since she probably confessed to a priest regularly, this sharing of secrets
with men may have been a bit more natural for her than for us today). She
went on,

Francesco, I know that I have written you very extensively and
have shown too much "signoria" (an interesting word that
carries the weight of "arrogance" or "lordship") against you in
telling you the truth. . .yet I am still for telling you the truth,
insofar as I know it.
She admitted, however, that "had I been with you I would have spoken
with a smaller mouth" (letter of 23 January 1386/7'). This last is an
interesting comment that strongly suggests that these letters can be more
than merely an "extension of orality," but rather a release valve for pent-
up emotions that she dared not share "bocca a bocca" (Ht. "mouth to
mouth"; we would say "face to face") . Elsewhere she, like many of Datini's
correspondents, stated that she would expand upon some subject once
they were together again: "about all of the other things [about which he
wrote to her] I will not respond to you, because I hope to be with you very
soon and I will say in person what is on my mind" (letter of 27 February

1384/5). Often, however, he opinion is made clear, and the phrase me
pare , which translates as "it seems to me" or "it appears to me," runs Hke
a refrain through her letters, with reference to all aspects of her husband's
(and thus, or course, her ) life. In the first extant letter alone the phrase
appears eight times.

In interpreting her written words as a mirror, one often sees the
reflection of her husband's face beside her own, as her place in both the
relationship and in the world is determined largely by his presence. In her
earliest letters Margherita stuck closely to the formal niceties of the ars
dictaminis . consistently using the formal voi, the second person plural
subjective pronoun, in addressing her husband. As she began to create her
own version of domestic rhetoric, the voi was usually replaced by the
familiar tu, second person singular, except when she chose to preach to her
husband. The formal pronoun and verbiage give weight, measure and thus
authority to her words and ideas, often with moral overtones or scriptural
intonations. Yet she never allowed herself the liberty of challenging
Francesco's authority the wisdom behind some of his choices, yes, but
not his ultimate power over both of their lives.

You tell me that I ought not always be a Uttle girl, and that that
which we do well, we will succeed in doing; you speak the truth.
And it has been a long while since I left my childhood behind;
but I do wish that you would not always be Francesco as you
have been ever since I have known you, who has never done
anything without first tormenting your soul and then your
body. You say, always preaching, that you will gain a beautiful
life. . .you have been saying this for ten years now. . . .This is
your fault. If you wait too long, you will never seize this
beautiful Ufe.
Yet she adds after it all: " I am always content to do whatever you want"
(letter of 16 January 1386/7).

The woman that we confront in Margherita's letters was also at the
center of a community of women', both local and scattered. Unlike men's
letters, hers send greetings to women they both know, and send the best
wishes to those who know Francesco. She urged that he hug so-and-so's
daughter for her, reassure another in her pain, and take care of a recently
widowed woman. With regard to two women, the wife and the mother
of Francesco's best friend, Niccolo di Piero Giunta, Margherita wrote,

10

It is true that Mona Lapa (the wife) says every day that she

wants to go [to Pisa, where Francesco and Niccolo are]; the

reason, I believe, is that she has love for her husband, as she has

said that she has, and for other members of the family. You

know that Mona Ghaia (the mother) is ailing, and Niccolo is

working too hard: it is good for men to have things done (for

them), and to fmd at home, when they return, their wi(ves).

On my part, I give her as much honor as I know how, and I have

requested of all of the famiglia that they obey her more than

they do me" (letter of 28 January 1386/7).

With time, Margherita's confidence and forcefulness in preaching to

her obstinate mate emerged, as the letters so eloquently demonstrate. She

grew into her many roles: as a woman who never bore Francesco a child,

though she did raise and love one of his bastards, her efforts flowed into

many channels. Her competence was often duly noted, and noted in the

end when Francesco made her one of the four executors of his will, and one

of four rectors of his posthumous charitable institution, both very unusual

positions for a woman to hold. Society indeed heaped its inequities upon

this talented woman of the early Renaissance, and the neglect of her

husband, so often lamented in her letters, made her life harder to bear than

it should have been^^; yet she could still stand tall, in the high relief

provided by this unique correspondence: "I am not a httle girl anymore.

. .," she once reminded her high-handed husband, and promptly put him

in his place, "I have a httle of the Gherardini blood, but I don't know what

your blood is!" (letter of 23 January 1386/7)

Unlike the voices of millions of medieval European women,
Margherita's comes down to us through the medium of her letters. It
speaks to us of the day-to-day troubles and joys, hopes and fears, tasks and
amusements of a woman and her friends of long ago. It speaks to us of her
social world and her part in it, of her most intimate relationships and the
meanings that these gave to her life. Because she was no queen or abbess,
saint or great lady, hers is a more common voice that thus tells us more of
life in her time and place than do the greatest works of philosophers and
poets. It is a voice worth attending to.

11

Notes

' A fuller exposition of the author's work on these letters will appear in his forthcoming article
"Women and Children in the Casa Datini, 1376-1410," to be published in Feminea Medievalia.

^ Enrico Bensa,"MargheritaDatini,"y^rf^W!o5/on(:oPr/c 6 (May 1926): 1-14; Valeria Rosati,
"Vita di una donna a fianco di un operatore economico," (These, Universita di Firenze, 1969); Frances
Gies and Joseph Gies, Women in the Middle Ages (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1978); Iris Origo,
The Merchant of Prato (London: Peregrin Books, 1963).

^ Valeria Rosati, "Le lettere di Margherita Datini a Francesco di Marco [Datini]," Archivio Storico
Pratese 50 (1974): 3-92; 52 (1976) fasc. 1: 25-152; fasc. 2: 83-202. In 1979 these were collected and
published as a book under the auspices of the Pratese archive (see Works Cited).

* Elena Cecchi, ed. Le lettere di Francesco Datini alia moglie Margherita (Prato: Societa Pratese
di Storia Patria, 1990).

'' The Paston Letters constitute a collection of several hundred documents written during and
shortly after the fifteenth century by members of the Paston Family of Norfolk, England. See The
Paston Letters, ed. Norman Davis (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983).

' The arsdictaminis was the medieval art of formal letter writing, a subject taught in some schools
and some textbooks. See Martin Camargo, Ars Dictaminis, Ars Dictandi (Turhout: Brepols, 1991).

' "Griselda" was a medieval literary character known for the patience and attention to duty.

" Most of her letters are signed off "for Margherita", which implies that she dictated them even
after learning to write in the early 1390s.

* In Margherita's time the New Year began March 25. Today, therefore, dates between 1 January
and 24 March are often written with both the year they considered it (e.g. still 1386) and the year we
would consider it (e.g. 1387). This eliminates the potential confusion that can result from the use of
a single year designation.

'" See, for example, Showalter for a discussion of women as a distinct community within a society:
"It can, however, be argued that women themselves have constituted a subculture within the
framework of a larger society, and have been unified by values, conventions, experiences and behaviors
impinging on each individual." (12)

" This may not be saying much, since earlier she had complained that the servants "are mocking
both of us to my face [treating] me as ifl were a new woman [in the household]." (letter of 23 January
1384/5)

'^ On 16 January 1386/7 she wrote, "Ifl have said anything that has displeased you, I pray that
you might pardon me: a great love makes me speak this way. You send to me to tell me that I should
enjoy myself and have a good time; and that you stay up 'til morning had have lunch at midnight and
have dinner at Vespers: I will never enjoy myself and will never rest easy if you don't take life
differently. For love of Mona Lapa I force myself to stay happy and to give her the best time that I
can; I wish that you would do likewise."

12

Works Cited

Constable, Giles. Letters and Letter Collections. Typologie des sources du Moyen Age occidental,
fasc. 17. Turnhout: Brepols, 1976.

Goldsmith, Elizabeth. "Introduction." Writing the Female Voice: Essays on Epistolary Literature.
Boston: Northeastern U P, 1989.

Greene, Gayle, and Coppelia Kahn. Making a Difference. Feminist Literary Criticism. London:
Methuen, 1985.

Herlihy, David. "Women and the Sources of Medieval History: The Towns of Northern Italy."
Medieval Women and the Sources of Medieval Htstory. Ed. Joel T. Rosenthal. Athens, Georgia: The
U of Georgia P, 1990; 133-154.

Howell, Martha C. "A Feminist Historian Looks at the New Historicism: What's So Historical
About It?" Women's Studies 19 (1991): 139-147.

Martines, Lauro. "A Way of Looking at Women in the Italian Renaissance." The Journal of
Medieval and Renaissance Studies 4 (1974): 15-28.

Showalter, Elaine. A Literature of Their Own. Princeton: Princeton U P, 1977.

Todd, Janet. Feminist Literary History. New York: Routledge, 1988.

Rosati, Valeria. Le lettere di Margherita Datini al suo moglie Francesco (1384-1410). Prato:
Archivio Storico Pratese, 1979.

Watt, Diane. "No Writing for Writing's Sake: The Language of Service and Household Rhetoric
in the Letters of the Paston Women." Dear Sister: Medieval Women and the Epistolary Genre. Ed.
Karen Cherewatuk and Ulrike Wiethaus. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1993: 122-138.

13

The State Income Tax: A Comparative
Analysis of Southern States

by Richard D. Guynn and Carole E. Scott*

The state personal income tax is a large revenue producer for many
states. Georgia'a income tax accounted for 41.8 percent of its total tax
revenue in 1993. In recent years Georgia's taxpayers have questioned the
efficiency and equity of the income tax as vv^ell as other taxes. This concern
has prompted the governor of the State to appoint a commission to study
the entire tax structure and make proposed recommendations for changing
the tax system.

The focus of this paper is on the personal income tax because it is a
direct tax with a large base and has real potential for revision and for raising
substantial sums of revenue. This tax has the advantage of being a
comparatively easy tax to administer and, if properly structured, is considered
to be the fairest tax in that its impact on the individual varies with his or
her ability to pay. In this paper, the structure and yield of the personal
income tax in Georgia will be compared with those of other states in
Georgia's geographical region (7\labama, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana,
Mississsippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee). These states
will be referred to as the southern states or regional states. Since the tax
structures of the various states utilizing the personal income tax have
different characteristics a detailed comparison is beyond the scope of this
paper. Some general observations of their basic characteristics are essential
in order to demonstrate the basic differences in tax structures and to
establish the proper perspective of the position of each of the regional
states with respect to each other. Because the states in the southern region
do not rely heavily on the personal income tax relative to other states, it will
be useful for this study to incorporate tax data from all states utilizing the
personal income tax.

The data in this paper reveal that Georgia and North Carolina rely
moderately heavily on the personal income tax as a source of revenue
relative to the other regional states. Georgia relies less on this tax than did
eighteen of the forty-three states that levied an income tax in 1991, while

'Professors of Economics, West Georgia College

14

North Carolina ranks tenth in the nation in this category. The other states
in the region have lower ranks, when compared with all states. The
comparisons made in this paper suggest that southern states needing
additional tax revenue should consider the personal income tax as a source
due to its potential for yielding significant increases in revenue and due to
their current moderate use of the tax.

Development of State Personal Income Tax

During and after the Civil War, several states enacted provisions for
personal income taxes. These were proportional taxes, administered by
local property tax officials, and were quite ineffective as revenue producers.
Many states levied income taxes for only a few years, but several continued
to rely on this form of taxation into the 20th century.

Wisconsin was the first state to adopt a well planned, centrally
administered state personal income tax. This tax, initiated in 1911,
provided for progressive tax rates and personal exemptions (Herber 235).

The success of the income tax in Wisconsin led several other states to
adopt similar income tax laws. By 1920, nine states and the territory of
Hawaii had adopted income tax laws. Six additional states added these
levies during the 1920s. The Great Depression created a need for
increasing state revenues; therefore, sixteen states adopted personal income
taxes between 1931 and 1937 (Herber 236).

By 1966, thirty-six states employed the personal income tax as a
source of revenue; however, New Hampshire and Tennessee applied the
tax only to dividend and interest income. New Jersey taxes only New York
residents who earned income in New Jersey. Indiana used the flat-rate net
income tax (Herber 236).

Georgia instituted the personal income tax in 1929 as a permanent
part of its revenue system. Prior to 1929 the tax was largely a corporate
income tax and applied to profits on investments. The personal income tax
was revised in 1951 so that it accounted for approximately 24.0 percent of
the state's tax receipts. The 1951 revision dictated graduated rates, ranging
from 1.0 percent on net incomes of $1,000 to 7.0 percent on net income
over $20,000(Brooks 66).

Appendix I shows that Oregon obtained the highest personal income
tax yield as a percentage of total collections in 1993 with 66.9 percent of
its total tax revenue coming from this source. Of the states levying an

15

income tax, only two received less than 10 per cent from this source.
Georgia collected 41.8 percent of its total tax collections from the personal
income tax. This ranked it tenth among the 39 states utilizing personal
income taxes.

Massachusetts collected the most per capita revenue from this tax,
amounting to $891.16 per person, while Tennessee received the least,
securing only $19.59 per person. Georgia received $445.07 per person.
This figure ranked Georgia in sixteenth position among all states with
respect to per capita tax collections(See Table I).

State personal income tax collections as a percentage of personal
income for the forty- four states levying a state income tax are shown in
Appendix II. The figures range from a high of 5.10 per cent in New York
to a low of 0.34 percent in South Dakota. In 1991, Georgia ranked second
among the regional states and nineteenth among all states with a ratio of
2.88 percent(See Table II). North Carolina, the highest ranking regional
state, had a ratio of 3.56 percent. Five of the southern states had a ratio of
more than 2.0 from this source. These data show that although Georgia
ranks high among the regional states in its emphasis on the state personal
income tax, its national rating in this category is moderate compared with
all states(See Appendix II).

Characteristics of State Personal Income Taxes

The United States Bureau of the Census defines personal income
taxes as " taxes on individuals by net income and taxes distinctively
imposed on special types of income (e.g., interest, dividends, income from
intangibles, etc.)" {State Government Finances 54). Most state personal
income taxes resemble the federal income tax, but differ in structural
details, particularly those involving tax brackets, rate levels, and personal
exemptions. Furthermore, variations exist in the definition of taxable
income. The basis of taxation is usually income derived from the ownership
of factors of production in the form of wages, interest, rents profits,
salaries, and certain dividends.

There appears to be a growing trend among states to use the federal
income tax as a basis for the state income tax. In 1960, fourteen states had
a federally-based income tax. This number rose to nineteen states within
a decade. States electing to follow federal guidelines for computing taxable
income may either express their tax as a percentage of the federal tax, with

16

certain modifications, or some other federal tax concept like adjusted gross
income, net income, or taxable income, used as the base figure for the state
personal income tax. Twenty six states used the federal adjusted gross
income as their tax base in 1991(See Appendix III).

The chief advantage of a federally based state income tax is the
simplicity of administration. Copies of the federal income tax forms can
be sent to the appropriate state tax collection division to facilitate
compliance, and federal-state administrative cooperation can be utilized
for enforcement purposes. An alternative approach v/ould be to let the
individual file a state tax return with the state and should there be a
question about one's tax return, the state could request that the individual
forward sl copy of the federal tax return after a question has arisen.

Deductions

States demonstrate some variation in the deduction of federal income
taxes for the reporting of state personal income taxes. In 1991, three
regional states permitted state taxpayers to deduct the total amount of
federal income tax paid to compute net income. Nine states total allowed
deductions of the federal income tax(See Appendix IV) Additional
differences can be found from state to state in the treatment of such items
as losses, depreciation and obsolescence, depletion allowances contributions,
and other types of deductions.

A few states allowed a deduction from the income tax in lieu of an
exemption, while four states (Colorado, North Dakota, Rhode Island, and
Vermont) have their income tax based on a percent of the federal tax
payable. Comparisons among states showed that personal exemptions
ranged from a high of $12,000 for a single taxpayer and married people
filing separately in Connecticut to a low of zero in New York. Georgia
allowed an exemption of $3,000 for persons filing a joint return while the
standard deduction for a single taxpayer was $2,300. Dependents were
permitted a $1,500 exemption. The exemption permitted for a single
person fell within the range of $ 1 ,000 to $2,500 for most states (ACIR 55).

Personal Exemptions

Most states levying personal income taxes employ personal exemptions
except for a few states which have a narrow based income tax, such as the
State of Tennessee. Tennessee imposes an income tax only on interest and

17

dividends. Personal exemptions are usually employed in order to guarantee
what is said to be a minimum subsistance standard of living for families
and individuals. Exemptions can also serve to simplify administration of
the tax by making it unnecessary for persons with low incomes to file a tax
return.

Tax Rates and Brackets

The great diversity in tax rates and brackets among states makes it
difficult to offer generalizations. Table III gives the rates for the highest
and lowest brackets for states as well as the number ofbrackets used in each
state in the year 1994. Several states outside of the region employed a flat
rate or proportional tax. The minimum rate for the lowest bracket was 1.0
percent, while the maximum rate for the highest bracket was 7.75 percent.
Three of the southern states applied a rate of 7.0 per cent or higher in their
highest bracket.

There is also much variation in the number and width of tax brackets
used by states having a personal income tax. The number ofbrackets varies
from three to six in the region. The width of the brackets has an important
effect on the tax severity. The narrowest bracket for the lowest income is
$500(Alabama), while the widest bracket is $12,750(North Carolina).
The lowest income for the highest income bracket is income over
$3,000(Alabama) and highest income is all income over $60,000(North
Carolina(See Table III).

Regional State Income Tax Comparisons
Total and Per Capita Tax Revenue

As shown in Table I, Georgia obtained 2.9 billion from the personal
income tax in 1991, thus ranking it second in the group of nine regional
states. Georgia is second to North Carolina in the collection of revenue
from this source. Florida is the only state in the region which does not levy
a personal income tax.

Per capita amounts received by the regional states in 1991 ranged from
a high of $524.64 to a low of $19.50 in Tennessee. Georgia obtained
$445.07 per capita, placing the state in second position among the regional
states(See Table I).

Table I shows an absence of data for Tennessee because this state does
not levy a tax on personal income from wages and salaries. Tennessee's

18

personal income tax is limited to a tax on interest and dividends flowing
to individuals and corporations. The State of Tennessee applies a rate of
6.0 percent to taxable interest and dividends.

Arkansas imposes rates of 1.0 to 7.0 percent on taxable income
between $3,000 and $25,000. A rate of one percent is applicable to taxable
income over $3,000 and a rate of 7.0 percent applies to taxable income over
$25,000.

The state of Georgia applies rates of 1.0 to 6.0 percent. The lowest
taxable income bracket starts with an income of $750 which is taxed at a
rate of 1.0 percent. The highest bracket starts at $7,000 and is taxed at a
rate of 6.0 percent(See Table III).

North Carolina imposes the highest minimum tax rate. The rate of 6.0
percent begins with the lowest tax bracket, which is applied to income
under $12,750. Among the southern states. North Carolina also imposes
the highest rate for the top bracket. The rate for the highest bracket is 7.75
percent, which is the rate levied on incomes greater than $60,000. Only
one other southern state (Louisiana) has a bracket for those with taxable
incomes greater then $50,000. Of the seven regional states levying an
income tax on personal income, five impose a tax rate of 6.0 to 7.5 percent
on the highest bracket (See Table III). Three of the regional states use six
brackets and four states use only three brackets. There is no uniformity
among the southern states as to the rates applying to various brackets.
None of the states in the region use the same rates, brackets, and
exemptions for taxpayers with comparable incomes.

The evidence presented in this paper indicates that two states in the
southern region, Georgia and North Carolina, make strong use of the
personal income tax compared to other regional states. However, when
comparisons involve all states, the evidence shows that the southern states
have a weaker personal income tax relative to that of many states.

Those states needing additional tax revenues need to address two
important questions: How can the personal income tax be made more
productive, and by how much would various changes increase tax revenue?
The amount of revenue a state receives from its personal income tax
depends primarily upon two factors: (1) the size of the tax base (the
amount of income subject to taxation) and (2) the level of tax rates. The
yield of the income tax could be increased by broadening the size of the tax
base. This could be done in several ways. First, the tax base could be altered

19

by redefining taxable income through a change in the statute or by
eliminating the exclusion of certain types of income from taxation.
Another method involves a change in the size of the personal exemptions
or tax credits. Of course, both methods could be utilized simultaneously;
that is, taxable income can be redefined at the same time exemptions or
credits are modified.

The size of the personal exemption is an important factor influencing
the amount of a state's taxable income. Generally, exemptions are regarded
as a kind of initial tax bracket in which the tax rate is zero. Exemptions
serve three basic purposes in that they (1) remove from taxation certain
minimum amounts of income, (2) provide a means of differentiating
among taxpayers in different family positions, and (3) serve as an
administrative convenience by removing the application of the income tax
to low income taxpayers. Thus, if the size of the personal exemption is
reduced, the size of the taxable income will be increased. Consequently,
more people will pay taxes, and people already paying taxes will pay more.

The chief reason for reducing the size of the personal exemption is to
derive more revenue. There may be other reasons such as renewed pressure
on the part of taxpayers to force more economy in government. Although
state governments do not, as a rule, assume the role of stabilization of
prices, they could aid the federal government by reducing exemptions in
order to absorb purchasing power to combat inflation. In addition, states
may desire to reduce exemptions in order to raise more revenue and, at the
same time, avoid levying other types of taxes with less desirable features.
The main revenue effect of raising or lowering exemptions is the reduction
or increase in the amount paid by the taxpayer above the exemption level.
The size of an increase depends upon the extent of the reduction.

A second method by which the tax yield could be increased is by
raising the rates. A state could raise its rates by increasing the statutory rate
while maintaining the same tax brackets and by narrowing the width of
these brackets. Reducing the width of tax brackets for some levels of
income without a change in the tax rates at other income levels would
result in attaining maximum rates very quickly.

Perodic modifications in bracket structures are justified because of
changes in real income. For example, the real impact of rate structures can
be changed substantially because of inflation. Even though taxable income
brackets remain unchanged, money income may increase rapidly.

20

Consequently, the impact of inflation acts as a statutory increase in tax
rates, but because of inflation, high rates are applicable to lower "real"
incomes. On the other hand, if the purpose is to generate more tax
revenue, brackets should be retained at the same level, or even narrowed,
in order that the highest rate will be attained more rapidly.

A third alternative by which tax yields can be increased is to use a flat
tax. Four states which impose a state personal income tax use a flat tax.
There are two reasons for levying a progressive tax rather than a flat tax.
The first, that the rich have a greater ability to pay, has already been
referred to. The other justification is that the progressive income tax is a
tool of social engineering. Proponents of a flat income tax generally attack
it on this basis. Society will be better off, they contend, if market forces,
rather than government, dictate economic decisions. Through a complex
system of exemptions, deductions, and credits, a progressive tax system
can tremendously alter economic decision making. Because this system is
politically motivated, it results, economically, in less than optimum
decisions being made. This system makes it possible, too, for politicians
to make and reward friends and punish their enemies by exempting the
former from and imposing taxes on the latter.

Often what is called a flat tax is not actually a flat tax. It is actually a
very steeply progressive tax because there is a very large standard deduction
and generous personal exemptions. Even this kind of flat tax, however,
offers the advantage of not levying the kind of penalty on advances in
productivity as does a progressive tax. A progressive tax imposes such a
penalty because the harder and more efficiently a taxpayer works, the
smaller is the part of the resulting gain in income that the taxpayer retains.
That this disincentive does reduce work effort and efficiency is indicated
by the fact that reductions in the maximum rate in a progressive tax system
have resulted in an increase in tax receipts. Revenues may also increase
because, by eliminating tax loopholes, the tax base is broadened.

Besides possibly reducing tax receipts by lowering taxable income,
because of their complexity and the incentive for avoiding the ever higher
tax rates as income grows, a progressive tax imposes substantial costs of
administration, compliance, and enforcement. Existing progressive tax
systems are criticized, too, because they discourage saving and investment
by taxing that part of income saved and interest earned on these savings
and impose double taxation to corporate profits. To promote economic

21

growth, current proponents of flat taxes include in their proposal the
elimination of both these flaws in an existing progressive tax system.

Summary

Florida is the only regional state which does not levy a personal income
tax. Tennessee limits the tax to income on interest and dividends. Data
presented in this paper show that tax rates, tax exemptions, and size of
income brackets vary considerably among regional states. Several alternative
revisions could be made to make the state income tax a more productive
tax.

It is evident that Georgia could increase income tax revenue by
employing one or more of the alternatives discussed. The personal income
tax will likely become relatively more important as a major source of
revenue in the future. This is evidenced by the fact that more states are
using the personal income tax as a part of their fiscal systems. Also, the
trend shows that more tax revenue is being generated from this source, and
the income tax is growing in both absolute and relative importance.
Should Georgia or any of the regional states exempt food from the sales
tax and/or grant property tax relief to taxpayers, lost revenues could be
replaced by relying more heavily upon the personal income tax. It is
suggested that Georgia should follow the trend establised in other states
and rely more heavily upon the state personal income tax for additional
revenue. If this course of action is taken, Georgia can effectively expand
the scope and/or increase the quality of state governmental services.

TOTAL PERSONAL INCOME TAXES AND PER CAPITA TAXES
BT STATE AND STATE RANK, 1991

TOTAL STATE

TAX

TOTAL STATE

TOTAL PERSONAL

STATE

COLLECTIONS

PERSONAL INCOME

INCOME TAX

PER CAPITA

(Millions of

)

TAX COLLECTIONS

COLLECTIONS AS A

STATE

COLLECTIONS

STATE

(Millions of

S)

X OF TOTAL TAX

COLLECTIONS

(Percentages)

RANK

(Dollars)

RANK

ALABAMA

3,943.00

1,174.00

29.77X

5

287.17

ARKANSAS

2,366.00

794.00

33.56X

4

334.69

FLORIDA

13,764.00

0.00

O.OOX

9

-

GEORGIA

7,154.00

2,948.00

41.21X

2

445.07

LOUISIANA

4,309.00

804.00

18.66X

7

188.99

MISSISSIPPI

2,461.00

480.00

19.50X

6

185.03

NORTH CAROLINA

7,850.00

3,534.00

45.02X

1

524.64

SOUTH CAROLINA

3,933.00

1,387.00

35.27X

3

389.51

TENNESSEE

4,311.00

97.00

2.2SX

8

19.59

"= = =-=""

=======

=====

===================

==================

SOURCE : US. Deprtiiient of Comerce

Bureau of Census,

State Goverranent

Finances : 1991 (Washington : OPO, 1992), Table 5,6 and 32

22

TOTAL PERSONAL INCOME AND INDIVIDUAL INCOME TAX REVENUE AND RANK ,by State 1991

INDIVIDUAL

===========

PERSONAL

INCOME TAX

TAX REVENUE

STATE

INCOME

REVENUE

AS

A PERCENTAGE

RANK

(MUUons

(Thousands

Of

PERSONAL

of dollars)

of dollars)

INCOME

ALABAMA

63,880

1,396,960

2.19X

ARICANSAS

3,276

916,120

2.67X

FLORIDA

2M,880

582,149

0.22X

GEORGIA

116,891

3,364,239

2.88X

LOUISIANA

63,944

1,130,291

1.77X

MISSISSIPPI

34,243

619,425

1.8U

NORTH CAROLINA

113,445

4,034.432

3.56X

SOUTH CAROLINA

55,077

1,538,081

2.79X

TENNESSEE

81,659

442,576

0.54X

8

SOURCE : Appendix I

STATE INDIVIDUAL INCOME TAXES

(As of January 1, 1994)

TAX RATE CHANGE
(in percents)

NUMBER

OF

BRACKETS

INCOME BRACKETS
LOWEST HIGHEST

ALABAMA

ARKANSAS

FLORIDA

GEORGIA

LOUISIANA

MISSISSIPPI

NORTH CAROLINA

SOUTH CAROLINA

TENNESSEE

2.000
1.000

1.000
2.000
3.000
6.000
2.500

5.000
7.000

6.000
6.000
5.000
7.750
7.000

3

500

3000

6

3000

25000

6

750

7000

3

10000

50000

3

5000

10000

3

12750

60000

6

21750

10850

SOURCE : Book of States : 1994, p. 367, The Council of State Governments, Lexington, KY, 1994.

23

TOTAL TAX COLLECTIONS, PERCENTAGE FROM PERSONAL INCOME TAX, RANK BY STATE, 1993

TAX

PERCENTAGE

COLLECTIONS

INCOME TAX

RANK

(tHiUions)

REVEMUE

$4,815.7

24.8X

30

2,301.9

0.0

U

5,501.8

29.5

33

3,000.

32.4

29

48.543.1

35.4

20

4,606.5

37.9

12

6,853.0

34.9

24

1,417.0

36.9

U

16,461.2

0.0

44

8,107.3

41.8

9

2.831.6

32.6

28

1.423.7

36.0

19

14.053.9

34.4

25

7,003.4

41.0

10

4,036.1

36.8

IS

3,314.6

31.3

31

5.309.4

33.2

26

4.420.4

20.4

39

1.746.1

35.2

22

7.257.7

42.7

7

10.396.9

51.7

2

11,721.9

29.0

K

.S44.2

41.9

S,I27.1

26.6

S

S,8U.S

10.9

11

976.3

H.l

2S

1,830.6

J7.7

8

2,055.4

8.0

U

919.8

7.8

42

13,298.0

32.7

27

2,517.6

.7

4

31.961.8

49.9

3

9,331.2

42.8

6

nr.i

1S.S

41

t3,*49.

36.6

16

4,251.8

10.6

32

S.SM.3

66.9

1

U,42e.8

29.2

34

1,382.2

36.1

IB

4,234.3

35.3

21

629.5

0.0

44

5,477.9

1.7

43

18,216.6

0.0

44

2,217.6

37.9

12

787.2

36.3

17

7,316.6

49.0

4

8,922.9

0.0

44

2,392.6

26.0

37

7,867.3

43.8

5

715.0

0.0

44

ALABAMA

ALASKA

ARIZONA

ARKANSAS

CALIFORNIA

COLORADO

CONNECTICUT

OEUUERA

FLORIDA

GEORGIA

KAUAI I
lOAMO
ILLINOIS
INDIANA

lOUA

KANSAS

KENTUCKY

LOUISIANA

HmtE

fflCYLAMO

tftSSACMUSETTS

hKM'tm

XHMBSOfA
N [SSil<S&I<P(>I
fiSSOURI

KBTAM

HE8CASKA

NEVADA

NEU HAMPSHIRE

NEU JERSEY

NEU MEXICO

NEW VOK
Nitm CMULIU

mm tM3>TA

OOAMOMA
OKEGQII

PENNYSYLVAJIIA
RHODE ISLAND
SOUTH CAROLINA

SOUTH DAKOTA

TENNESSEE

TEXAS

UTAH

VERMONT

VIRGINIA
WASHINGTON
UEST VIRGINIA
UISCONCIN
UYCHING

01 ST. OF COLUMBIA

2.590.9

23.5

SOURCE : Tax Fotjidat Ion, Inc. . SPECIAL REPORT . NEU YORK. 1994, Table 6,p.7.

24

STATE

PERSONAL INCOME

TAXES: FEDERAL STARTING POINTS

INDIVIDUAL

PERSONAL

INCOME TAX

TAX REVENUE

STATE

INCOME

REVENUE

AS A PERCENTAGE

RANK

(Millions

(Thousands

OF PERSONAL

of dollars)

of dollars)

INCOME

ALABAMA

63,880

1,396,960

2.19X

33

ALASKA

12.280

253,649

2.07X

34

ARIZONA

62,779

1,437,970

2.29X

32

ARKANSAS

34,276

916,120

2.67X

24

CALIFORNIA

634,896

21,257,723

3.35X

12

COLORADO

66,536

1,580,799

2.38X

29

CONNECTICUT

85,038

990,488

1.16X

38

DELAWERA

13,831

608,272

4.40X

3

FLORIDA

264.880

582,149

0.22X

42

GEORGIA

116.891

3,364,239

2.88X

19

HAUAII

24,539

989,114

4.03X

7

IDAHO

16;452

505,860

3.07X

15

ILLINOIS

237,658

5,481,583

2.31X

30

INDIANA

96,851

2,804,586

2.90X

18

lOUA

47.714

1,548,637

3.25X

14

KANSAS

45.476

1,093,690

2.40X

28

KENTUCKY

57.365

2,367,858

4.13X

5

LOUISIANA

63.944

1,130,291

1.77X

36

MAINE

21.421

656,801

3.07X

15

MARYLAND

109.347

4,579,305

4.19X

4

MASSACHUSETTS

136.673

6,062,956

4.UX

2

MICHIGAN

176.244

5,768,083

3.27X

13

MINNESOTA

86.368

3,432,825

3.97X

8

MISSISSIPPI

34.243

619,425

1.81X

35

MISSOURI

93.358

2,270,889

2.43X

27

MONTANA

12.753

353,744

2.77X

22

NEBRASKA

26.700

685,060

2.57X

26

NEVADA

26.755

-

O.OOX

43

NEU HAMPSHIRE

23.218

159,154

0.69X

39

NEU JERSEY

192,341

4,421,646

2.30X

31

NEU MEXICO

22.930

418,444

1.82X

34

NEU YORK

413.726

21,106,499

5.10X

1

NORTH CAROLINA

113.445

4,034,432

3.56X

10

NORTH DAKOTA

9.877

165,184

1.67X

37

OHIO

196.927

6,742,756

3.42X

11

OKLAHOMA

49.593

1,355,861

2.73X

23

OREGON

51.919

2,132,779

4.11X

6

PENNYSYLVANIA

234.648

6,248,194

2.66X

2S

RHODE ISLAND

19.523

475,213

2.43X

27

SOUTH CAROLINA

55.077

1,538,081

2.79X

21

SOUTH DAKOTA

11.520

38,606

0.34X

41

TENNESSEE

87.659

442,576

0.50X

40

TEXAS

302.612

162

O.OOX

43

UTAH

26.038

797,478

3.06X

16

VERMONT

10.112

284,904

2.82X

20

VIRGINIA

126.229

3,521,137

2.79X

21

WASHINGTON

101.140

-

O.OOX

43

UEST VIRGINIA

26.385

767,554

2.91X

17

UISCONCIN

88.888

3,444,299

3.87X

9

WYOMING

,37B

-

O.OOX

43

Source: U.S. Department of Commerce Office of Business 1

Economics, Survey of

Current Business Tahle A (Vl/ashin(jtn

n, D.C.: U.S. GPO, IS

194) vol 74.

25

APPENDIX III
STATE PERSONAL INCOME TAXES : FEDERAL STARTING POINTS

RELATION TO
INTERNAL REVENUE
CODE

ALABAMA

ALASKA

ARIZONA

ARKANSAS

CALIFORNIA

COLORADO

CONNECTICUT

DELAWARE

FLORIDA

CEORCIA

HAUAI I

IDAHO

ILLINOIS

INDIANA

IOWA

KANSAS

KENTUCKY

LOUISIANA

MAINE

MARYLAND

MASSACHUSETTS

MICHIGAN

MINNESOTA

MISSISSIPPI

MISSOURI

MONTANA

NEBRASKA

NEVADA

NEW HAMPSHIRE

NEW JERSEY

(>

1/1/93

i/i/93

CURRENT

CURRENT

CURRENT
(a>
1/1/93

12/31/92
1/1/93

CURRENT
1/1/93
1/1/93

CURRENT
12/31/91

CURRENT
12/31/92

CURRENT

1/1/88
CURRENT (b)
12/31/92

CURRENT

CURRENT

CURRENT
(a)
(c)

Federal adjusted gross Income

Federal adjusted gross incone

Federal taxable incoe

Federal adjusted gross IncoaM

Federal adjusted gross incoiBe

Federal adjusted gross Incone

Federal taxable income

Federal taxable incoaie

Federal adjusted gross income

Federal adjusted gross income

Federal adjusted gross income

Federal adjusted gross income

Federal adjusted gross income

Federal adjusted gross income

Federal adjusted gross income

Federal adjusted gross income

Federal adjusted gross income

Federal adjusted gross income

Federal taxable income

Federal adjusted gross income

Federal adjusted gross income

Federal adjusted gross income

NEU MEXICO
NEU YORK
NORTH CAROLINA
NORTH DAKOTA
OHIO

OKLAHOMA
OREGON

PENNSYLVANIA
RHODE ISLAND
SOUTH CAROLINA

SOUTH DAKOTA

TENNESSEE

TEXAS

UTAH

VERMONT

VIRGINIA
UASHINGTON
WEST VIRGINIA
WISCONSIN
WYOMING

DIST. OF COLUMBIA

CURRENT
CURRENT
1/1/93
CURRENT
CURRENT

CURRENT
CURRENT

CURRENT
12/31/92

(a)
(c)
(a)

CURRENT
CURRENT (e)

12/31/92

(a)

1/1/93

12/31/92

(a)

11/5/91

Federal adjusted gross income

Federal adjusted gross income

Federal taxable income

Federal liability (d)

Federal adjusted gross income

Federal adjusted gross income

Federal taxable income

Federal liability

Federal taxable income

Federal taxable income
Federal liability

Federal adjusted gross income

Federal adjusted gross income
Federal adjusted gross income

Federal adjusted gross income

: Book of State : 1994, The Council of State Governments,
Lexington, KY, 1994.

(b) Or 1/1/87, taxpayer's option.

(c) On interest and dividends only.

(d) Or federal taxable income based
State does not employ a federal starting point. on current- Internal Revenue Code.
Gyrrant ttata has adi^ad Internal Revenue Code as currently in(e) Not to exceed tax coeputed using
MtM (ntflut* tUtt ha* a^^ed IRC at amended to that date. Internal Revenue Code as of 1/1/92.

(a) Mo atata tncaaa taa

26

STATE PERSONAL INCOME TAX, PERSONAL EXEMPTIONS AND FEDERAL INCOME TAX DEDUCTIBLE, 199A

PERSONAL EXEMPTIONS

FEDERAL

STATE

INCOME TAX

Single

Married

Dependents

DEDUCTIBLE

ALABAMA
ALASKA

1,500

3,000

300

ARIZONA

2,300

4,600

2,300

ARKANSAS

20

40

20

CALIFORNIA
COLORADO

64

128

64

CONNECTICUT

12,000

24,000

DELAWARE

1,250

2,500

1,250

FLORIDA

GEORGIA

1,500

3,000

1,500

HAWAII

1,040

2,080

1,040

IDAHO

2,450

4,900

2,450

ILLINOIS

1,000

2,000

1,000

INDIANA

1,000

2,000

1,000

lOUA

20

40

15

KANSAS

2,000

4,000

2,000

KENTUCKY

20

40

20

LOUISIANA

4,500

9,000

1,000

MAINE

2,100

4,200

2,100

MARYLAND

1,200

2,400

1,200

MASSACHUSETTS

2,200

4,400

1,000

MICHIGAN

2,100

4,200

2,100

MINNESOTA

2,450

4,900

2,450

MISSISSIPPI

6,000

9,500

1,500

MISSOURI

1,200

2,400

400

MONTANA

2,400

2,800

1,400

NEBRASKA
NEVADA

69

138

69

NEW HAMPSHIRE

NEW JERSEY

1,000

2,000

1,500

NEW MEXICO

2,450

4,900

2,450

NEW YORK

1,000

NORTH CAROLINA

2,000

4,000

2,000

NORTH DAKOTA

2,450

4,900

2,450

OHIO

650

1,300

650

OKLAHOMA 1,000 2,000 1,000 Y

OREGON 113 226 113 Y

PENNSYLVANIA N

RHODE ISLAND N

SOUTH CAROLINA 2450 4,900 2,450 N

SOUTH DAKOTA N

TENNESSEE N

TEXAS N

UTAH 1,838 3,675 1,838 Y

VERMONT N

VIRGINIA 800 1,600 800 N

WASHINGTON N

WEST VIRGINIA 2,000 4,000 2,000 N

WISCONSIN SO N

WYOMING N

DIST. OF COLUMBIA 1,370 2,740 1,370 N

Source: The Book otStetes . 1994 vol. 30, The council of State Governments, p. 367, Lexington, KY.

27

Works Cited

Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations. Significant Features of Fiscal Federalism,
1994. Vol.1. Washington, D.C. 1994.

Brooks, R.P. The Financial History of Georgia 1732-1950. Institute For The Study of Georgia
Problems. Athens: University of Georgia, 1952.

Georgia Department of Revenue. 799-/ 5/a^w/!W/?e/>orA Atlanta, G A, 1994.

Herber, Bernard P. Modem Public Finance. Homewood, Illinois: Richard D. Erwin, 1967.

Tax Foundation: Special Report No. 33, 1994. Washington, D. C, 1994.

The Book of the States 1994. Council of State Governments. Lexington, KY, 1994.

U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Census, State Government Finances: 1991: Washington
, D.C, 1992.

28

Fighting Fire With Fire:

Evil, Violence, and Empathy in

the American Vigilante Film

by Glenn D. Novak*

The American vigilante film of the 1970s and 1980s is a genre unto
itself. It vaguely resembles the Western in its depiction of the good men
versus the bad, but it is set not in the law^less years of the 1870s West but
in the late twentieth-century urban environments of New York City or
Los Angeles. The vigilante film also shares common elements with the
popular crime dramas of the '30s and '40s, wherein the criminals, despite
their cleverness or degree of organization, inevitably came to a bad end as
they were gunned down in the streets by local police or brought to justice
by the G-men. The police, however, are not the saviors of society in the
modern vigilante film; and they rarely, if ever, figure in the apprehension
or punishment of the villain. They are more often seen as part of the
problem than as part of the solution. And, of course, the vigilante film
shares a common bond with the suspense film or mystery, although its
suspense is rarely on the level of an Alfred Hitchcock thriller or Agatha
Christie story. The audience, if not the authorities in the film, know early
on who is doing all the unbridled killing in the parks, subways, and alleys.
The suspense derives from not knowing just how far the vigilante can go
before he is caught by the police. Which potential mugger will get a shot
off before our hero does? When will an innocent witness appear and take
that vital description of the lone gunman to police headquarters? In short,
how long can the vigilantism continue?

The most defining characteristics of the vigilante film are its myriad
depictions of evil, its unrestrained use of graphic violence, and its almost
insidious creation of audience empathy for the blatantly amoral acts of its
protagonists. Few Hollywood films other than those dealing exclusively
with Satanic themes, such as The Exorcist and The Omen trilogy, portray
evil operating in society with such intensity, cynicism, and brutality.

Everywhere the vigilante protagonist goes, he seems to encounter evil.
His wife is mugged, his daughter raped, his home ransacked, his own

'Associate Professor of Mass Communication, West Georgia College

29

person attacked on the street with astonishing frequency and frenzy.
Other victims refiise to testify out of fear and hence become compUcit in
their own assailants' activities. Police are indifferent, incompetent, or
totally insensitive to the cause of victims' rights. Politicians minimize the
crime statistics and spew forth vacuous statements about the effectiveness
of their "new war on crime." From the punks in the alleys to the Mayor's
Office, the vigilante confronts in varying degrees -evil. He responds to
it, inevitably and repeatedly, with violence.

Vigilante Film Defined

The modern vigilante film should be carefully defined before examining
how evil is depicted and manipulated within it. The vigilante film
concerns the efforts of a private citizen, man or woman, to operate outside
the law in ridding the streets of evil and crime, or to seek retribution
against specific villains who did harm to him or her in the past. Such a
definition deliberately excludes such films as Dirty Harry, Magnum Force,
and Cobra, for they concern that unusual breed of men known as the
"vigilante-cop." Despite the cops' excesses with regard to criminals' rights,
these films nevertheless concern central figures police officers who
are legally licensed to carry guns and use them in their jobs of enforcing the
law. The protagonists are not private citizens, disillusioned with the
police, who choose to take the law into their own hands.

The vigilante film depicts an apparently normal citizen who, if left
alone by the criminal elements of society, would have no complaint and no
reason to strike back. It does not use a mentally unbalanced character as
its central figure. This definition therefore excludes a film like Taxi
Driver, wherein an obviously disturbed Robert DeNiro shaves his head
into a Mohawk and sets about the deliberate task of massacring the
miscreant pimps who control the life of his new girlfriend, the teen
prostitute played by Jodie Foster.

Films dealing with macho war veterans sent back to Viet Nam by
superior officers (somehow representing official government sanctions) to
spring MIAs and POWs are similarly excluded from this definition of the
vigilante film. Rambo is certainly not the story of an ordinary citizen
protecting himself against crime. It is the tale of a superhuman killing
machine out in the jungles of a foreign country looking for trouble, and
always finding it.

30

The films of the Old West brand of vigilantism are also excluded from
the definition. The vigilante form of justice that seemed to prevail v^^as
primitive and often unfair, but was frequently the only type of justice to be
found in a wide-open society where civihzed towns and duly deputized
officials were few and far between. The Ox-Bow Incident, for all its drama
and power in depicting the errors of well-intentioned vigilantism, is
therefore outside the scope of this discussion on the modern urban
vigilante.

The Modern Vigilante Film

The modern urban vigilante film in this country can be traced back to
the 1970 film,/o^. UnHke the other films to be discussed,/i9f is really about
two vigilantes, the blue-collar factory worker named Joe Curran (played
by Peter Boyle) and the well-off advertising executive Bill Compton
(played by Dennis Patrick). The film has been called "a terrifying and
convincing vision of a deeply divided society" (Keneas). Set during those
polarized days of the Viet Nam War, the film depicts two kinds of
conflicts, two arenas of cultural collision. The two men are completely
different, with different kinds of jobs, educational backgrounds, famihes,
and interests. Nothing on earth could pull them together except their
hatred of "hippies." Joe is a bigoted reactionary who fought in Korea and
who loathes the peace movement. Bill is a well-educated and seemingly
tolerant liberal who happened to kill the pill-pushing boyfriend of his
teenage daughter in one moment of blind rage. That act alone brings the
two men and their disparate cultures together. The other clash of
cultures is seen in the lifestyles of the young hippies compared to those of
their estabUshment families. It is a film about a tragically unbridgable
Generation Gap, so typical in 1970, and about the random vigilante
violence that erupts when the two cultures meet head on with no hope of
communication or reconciliation.

The Death Wish series, directed by the EngHshman Michael Winner
and starring Charles Bronson as architect Paul Kersey, represents the
epitome of the urban vigilante film. The opening words of one review of
the film are: ''Death Wish is the film to see if you've just been raped, mugged
or ripped off (Orth). The critic apparently felt that viewing the original
film. Death Wish (1974), would provide some degree of satisfaction to the
real-life victims of urban crime. In the original film. Kersey's wife and

31

daughter are attacked and raped in their New York City apartment. The
wife dies and the daughter becomes a helpless catatonic. Kersey acquires
a handgun and takes to spending his quiet nights strolling Central Park
and riding the subways alone. When the punks and muggers come after
him, he defends himself by shooting them and fleeing.

Death Wishllwzs released in 1982 and capitalized on the tremendous
popular (if not critical) success of its forerunner. The film has Kersey now
in Los Angeles still doing his vigilante business but with much more
professionalism, aggression, and personal delight. No mere amateur
anymore, Kersey rarely waits for evil to come after him; he seeks out the
men whom he would have preferred to avoid earlier in his life in New York
City. The film is much more violent than its predecessor, and a good deal
less subtle in its characterizations and plot.

Winner moves Kersey back to New York City in Death Wish III. Evil
and violence are rampant in the film. The police are cruel, inept, and
sadistic. The youth gangs that terrorize the ghetto neighborhood where
Kersey likes to hang out kill and rape solely for the fiin of it. And Kersey
himself goes to wretched excesses in his quest for the appropriate weapons
to destroy the evil around him. He does, of course, prevail at the end,
allowing for the saga's continuation in Death Wish IV:The Crackdown.

The Dirty Harry films {Dirty Harry, Magnum Force, The Enforcer), as
discussed earher, do not really fit the definition of the true vigilante film.
Clint Eastwood plays Harry Calahan, the San Francisco police detective
assigned to the "dirtiest" cases by a captain who is consistently outraged by
Harry's inhumane treatment of criminals. One of Eastwood's films
deserves special consideration here, however, not because of Harry's
presence or behavior in the picture, but because of Sondra Locke's. In
Sudden Impact {19S3), directed by Eastwood, Locke plays the protagonist,
a female vigilante killer who is tormented by her vivid recollections of a
night years ago when she and her sister were brutally gang-raped by a
group of drunken teenage misfits. The plot centers around her systematic
location of each of the now-grown men involved that night, and her cold-
blooded execution of each. Clearly operating outside the law, Locke meets
Eastwood and they fall in love. He suspects her activities, yet somehow
cannot completely condemn her behavior. Both have been victimized by
the legal system before, and are disillusioned with the courts. As David
Ansen says, "There's an intriguing, and morally complex, issue at play

32

here, and its resolution makes one wonder where Eastwood could take
Dirty Harry next if anywhere."

The commercial successes of both Sudden Impact and Death Wish were
certain to inspire imitations. One such film, the title simply an amalgamation
of its predecessors, is called Sudden Death. Released only a couple of years
after Sudden Impact, Sudden Death is the story of a female vigilante who
assiduously pursues the goal of destroying the entire male population. She
is raped by two men in a New York City taxi at the film's outset, and spends
the remaining hour or so allowing herself to get picked up in bars and on
the streets so she can vent her rage on all men with her trusty Smith &.
Wesson. Like Bronson, she stalks the night alone, looking for trouble, and
she is rarely disappointed.

The last pair of films of importance to a consideration of evil and
violence in the vigilante film are The Exterminator (1983) and The
Exterminator II {19S5) . Produced by Golan Globus and directed by Mark
Buntzman, these films star Robert Ginty (Anderson of The Paper Chase in
a considerable role reversal) as the Viet Nam vet who runs up against the
most vile assortment of criminals ever assembled in (you guessed it) New
York City. The films are derivative of the Death Wish series, but they
depict evil in more stylized and ritualized ways. Gang members dress in
bizarre garb and carry torches in the subway system prior to a sadistic
execution of a citizen who did them no harm. Ginty and his friend cruise
around the slums in a huge garbage truck, an interesting and apt metaphor
for the depravity and evil of the human garbage they must later deal with.
The Exterminator fAvas, like most of the others within this genre, make up
for in sheer violence and ruthless retaliation against crime what they lack
in character development and sophistication.

Evil and Violence: Society at Fault

Classical notions of tragedy center on some flaw within the main
character. In the vigilante film, however, tragedy, evil, and the resulting
violence are caused by the flawed society in which both the criminals and
the vigilante live. The films seem to reflect the notion that "in today's mass
societies the tragic flaw so often lies in 'the system,' those huge aggregates
of power that can neutralize and crush the individual" (Kroll).

The social order that most persons would expect inside a normal
supermarket has somehow broken down in Death Wish. Three young

33

punks wander aimlessly through the aisles, picking up items of food and
throwing them around in a flagrant display of anti- authoritarianism.
Grocery clerks and shoppers do nothing, trying to ignore the hooliganism,
not wanting to get involved. Their indifference is a portent of the total lack
of caring and compassion to be seen within society during the rest of the
film.

The dirt, noise, and congestion of New York City is graphically
displayed in Death fTw^ when the camera zooms out on a taxi cab occupied
by Kersey and his wife, revealing a traffic jam from which there appears to
be no escape. The honking horns, the grayness and filth everywhere, the
profound sense of confinement and claustrophobia stand in sharp contrast
to the beauty, serenity, and cleanliness of the Hawaiian beaches from
which the couple has just returned. Winner uses the physical depression
and bleakness of the city environment much as he does the supermarket
scene as a metaphor for a jungle that contains more perils than pleasures,
more bad than good.

One of the more striking metaphors for the evil and corruption
existing within the fabric of society is seen in The Exterminator II. Robert
Ginty chooses to fight fire with fire, and takes up residence in a huge
abandoned warehouse, dark and filthy. Inside, he puts his welding talents
to use in transforming a New York City garbage truck into an invincible
urban tank. Human garbage will be disposed of in the appropriate way, in
a garbage truck. His character becomes a self-appointed chief sanitation
officer, cleaning up the unchecked crime and sweeping human scum off
the streets as one would fill a commercial dumpster. His weapon of choice
is a throwback to his Viet Nam days a flamethrower.

\nJoe the peer group of the young is depicted as corrupt. How can any
parent hope to properly raise a youngster when his or her peers live in
communes, deal drugs, engage in sexual orgies, and generally indulge in
a lifestyle that is a strange mixture of Satanism and hedonism? Society
perpetuates its evil ways, the film seems to be saying, by the early
indoctrination of its youth. Joe Curran must go into this subculture and
teach it a few lessons.

If the young as a group are rebellious and wicked, the police and the
courts are seen as incompetent and devoid of justice or reason. In Death
Wish III, the police captain sadistically beats Kersey in an office because of
his past "crimes" as the New York vigilante. The brutality and intimidation

34

continue against this private citizen, apparently without rights, until he
agrees to the official's demand: to return to the streets and continue his
vigilante killings in a crime-ridden ghetto. The police admit their
incompetence and their inability to control crime while operating within
the parameters of the law. They are hamstrung by the courts; only a
vigilante can succeed in a society that cares more for the criminal than the
victim.

Sudden Impact is an excellent example of the manner in which the
vigilante film treats the courts. After the pohce risk their lives bringing in
the crinjinal so that he may face a trial before his peers and his accuser, the
judge (shown as a hberal and a female in this film) dismisses the case on
a legal technicality. She appears perturbed at the arresting official for
wasting the court's time, and is somewhat conciliatory toward the accused,
who sits in the courtroom with a smirk on his face, leering at both the
police and his recovering victim. Again, the system is ineffective and
condones the elements of evil within it. The vigilante films seem to be
saying, in the words of one critic: "The Constitution may be a fine
document in theory, but the chaos of modern society has enfeebled it"
(Sragow 90).

At Face Value: Appearance of the Criminal

In the modern urban vigilante film, evil looks evil. It is as if the director
wishes to telegraph the nature of the antagonists to the audience. The
villains look nothing Uke the villains in the James Bond films mature,
suave, clean-shaven and manicured. They are rather the stereotypical
street-people dirty, unshaven, sadistic in appearance. They are
uneducated and uncultured, use slang and profanity consistently, and
appear to be entirely without redeeming social value. One can learn to like
a Dr. No or a Goldfinger for his ingenuity, organization, and paradoxical
humanity as he subjects 007 to a technological torture chamber. It is
difficult to like the vigilante's prey, however. He is coarse and crude,
sexually insatiable, crazed on drugs, and eager to slash any victim who
refuses to surrender his or her wallet, purse, or body. He is physically
repugnant. He looks evil.

The best examples of evil appearances are found in the Death Wish and
Exterminator films. In each of them, the audience observes young men of
every racial background shot in close-up, leering into the camera as if z;;^

35

were Bronson, the intended victim. The villains wear grotesque Mohawk
haircuts; some shave their heads completely. Others wear large painted
crosses or "Xs" on their foreheads or scalps. Many are tattooed. All seem
to wear leather and carry chains. There is no mistaking these characters for
anything other than the "punks" and "creeps" they are called by the
vigilante-protagonists. The average citizen would certainly go well out of
his or her way to avoid any encounter, day or night, with these individuals.

Acting the Part: Behavior of the Criminal

For the audience member who perhaps dismisses the "punker look" as
an innocent stage of youthful rebellion and who prefers not to judge any
book by its cover, the vigilante film delivers on all that it promises. The
evil-looking characters do indeed perform brutal acts, and they do so with
a profound sense of abandon and enjoyment. Quite unlike the villains in
the earlier sagas oiThe Untouchables, Roaring Twenties, or Godfather t^'ics,
these young urban thugs often strike a victim for no apparent reason other
than boredom. A few require money to feed their drug habits, but many
wander about the streets of New York or Los Angeles mindlessly raping
young women, knifmgold men, destroying property, and torturing people
who happen to get in their way. They are rarely interested in taking over
the narcotics business, or in controlling the profitable and illegal enterprises
of prostitution, gambling, or extortion. The profit motive that inspired Al
Capone and Don Vito Corleone seems not to apply to this modern urban
criminal. He is the human equivalent of a mad dog, a pit bull on two legs
attacking people without warning and without provocation.

When in The Exterminator II, for example, a truck driver is taken
prisoner by a marauding gang of young punks, he is not tied up and held
for ransom. He is not forced, Patty Hearst-like, to participate in other
gang crimes. Rather he is carried, kicking and screaming, by dozens of
war-painted, torch-carrying, chanting gang members, down into a New
York subway. There, in a grisly and ritualistic execution scene, the man is
tied to the train tracks, and a switch is thrown. The sadists rejoice as the
speeding subway train simultaneously electrocutes and decapitates their
lone victim. The scene is memorable for both its emphasis on ritualized
gang violence and its vivid communication of a strongly nihilistic theme.
These persons thrive on death and destruction. Nothing and no one has
any value.

36

Stanley Kauffmann, writing in The New Republic, raises an interesting
point regarding the evil of such villains. He is uncertain that these persons
are really evil, or really even criminals, and states: "If forensic medicine still
means anything at all, a psychotic killer is not a criminal responsible for his
acts" (26). He goes on to make his point with a discussion of the youth
gang seen in Cobra, a gang quite similar to those seen in The Exterminator
Hot Death Wish III. He asserts that "though such ritual sadists certainly
exist, this gang has much more to do with pathology than with moral
corruption" (26). Kaufmann's point may be well taken, and we perhaps
should remember that mass murderer Richard Speck was said to have one
extra chromosome, and hence not capable of a criminal act. He is now
serving life in a psychiatric institution rather than a maximum-security
prison. The structure of the typical vigilante film, however, promotes a
strong empathic bond between viewer and victim, linking the two such
that the vigilante must emerge the hero. The perpetrator, regardless of
medical explanation, is ultimately responsible for his own behavior. That
behavior is vilified at the expense of any thoughtful psychological
interpretations. For whatever reason, an evil agent has perpetrated an evil
act against an innocent and defenseless victim.

Judging the Protagonist

In the vigilante film, the protagonist is the vigilante. The writer and
director work very carefully to see that the sympathies of the audience
members are with the man who is out to right the wrongs of society. We
get to know the vigilante fairly well, and we begin to realize that this man
or woman has been wronged. He or she has been victimized much like we
have been or like someone we know may have been. Sondra Locke's
character in Sudden Impact has been raped; her sister is in a mental
institution as a result of the same experience. The law has been no help to
her in bringing the assailants to justice. As we get to know her character,
and to like her, we feel empathy. We sometimes feel rage. The audience
is on her side, wanting her to get her revenge.

The same maybe said of Bronson's character in the Death Wish films.
In each film, a family member or loved one is brutally slain, and the law
can do nothing to turn up even the slightest clue. The audience slowly but
very surely gets caught up in this virtuous man's frustration, and there is
a considerable sense of vicarious participation in the man's gradual

37

transformation from law-abiding citizen to ruthless vigilante. Audience
members seeing the original Death Wish in theatres in New York loved the
film, and helped make it a huge commercial success. David Petzal
described the audience the night he saw the film in 1974: "The atmosphere
in the theatre was electric. People absolutely roared with delight when the
bad guys met the bullets. What they were seeing w2iS justice' (67).

The female vigilantes have three things in common. They have been
raped in the past, usually by more than one man. The protagonist in
Sudden Death wzs raped by two men who stole a taxi and, on a lark, cruised
up to her apartment building just as she was coming out to hail a cab. In
Sudden Impact, Locke and her sister attend a party on a beach that quickly
degenerates into a drunken orgy. A gang of five male perverts repeatedly
rape the two girls under the sadistic supervision of a cackling lesbian gang
leader.

Another trait the female vigilantes have in common is their aptitude
for sexual seduction. They are attractive women and possess an uncanny
ability to lure men into situations that will inevitably spell death for the
men. They have become clever actresses, knowing just how to appeal to the
male ego (and libido) so that the violent outcome is always the same.

The women also share a talent for handling guns. They have apparently
been practicing on the pistol range, and have become crack shots. The
handgun is their only real friend, the great equalizer, and they go nowhere
without it.

The male vigilantes also share common characteristics. They are often
veterans of some war. \nJoe, Joe Curran served proudly in Korea, and his
basement is a monument to that war, filled with the assorted artifacts of
sanctioned violence. In Death Wish, we learn that Paul Kersey's father was
career Army, which soured his son on military life. He became a
conscientious objector during Korea, a supremely ironic character trait in
view of his later transformation into the most violent of all vigilantes,
especially in Death Wish III. The character played by Robert Ginty in The
Exterminator films is, like Rambo, a Viet Nam vet. Trained only to kill in
a very unpopular war, he too has returned to a world that seems to have no
place for him. He knows only how to fight an enemy, and that enemy
defines itself within the gritty grayness of the New York City slums.

With the exception of Joe Curran, the vigilantes are not racists. They
are white men who kill evil people without regard to race, color, creed, or

38

national origin. EVen Joe, who hates Blacks, ends up raiding the hippie
commune and shooting what appears to be an assortment of mainly white
teenagers. Director Michael Winner carefully orchestrates his Death Wish
films to make sure that Bronson's victims represent all races. He shoots
about an equal number ofWhites, Blacks, Puerto Ricans, and nondescript
males of varying complexions and dialects. This way, of course, as one
critic observed, "Bronson can be an equal-opportunity killer" (Orth).

The vigilante makes a moral and physical journey in these films. He
or she starts out a good person, living in respectable, middle-class
surroundings. He then passes into a middle-ground of physical danger
and moral ambiguity. By the end of the film, the vigilante is committing
acts that are so violent and excessive, often living in the same squalor as his
victims, that he or she may indeed by regarded as contemptuous. The
continued associations with evil have, in the end, reduced the protagonist
to another antagonist, transforming virtue into vice. He or she is wanted
by the police, but refuses to surrender to the same authorities he had
originally turned to for comfort and redress.

The original Death Wish (1974) best exemplifies this gradual and
realistic transformation from goodness through amorality to evil. Architect
Paul Kersey is a self- proclaimed Hberal ("My heart bleeds a Httle for the
underprivileged now and then") who was a conscientious objector during
the Korean War. He is obviously a reasonable and compassionate man
who believes in the virtues of the judicial system. Only after his wife and
daughter are brutalized in his apartment one afternoon while he is at work
does Kersey first seem to experience anger. His first stage that of pacifist,
law-abiding citizen ends after he is repeatedly told by police that they
have tried to find the assailants but that the case is now closed.

Stage two begins as Kersey purchases several rolls of quarters at the
bank and places them in a sock which he carries around in his pocket at
night. He is not looking for trouble, or even looking for the assailants. He
merely wants to be able to protect himself if trouble comes his way. It does.
A young mugger jumps out of an alley and demands money. Kersey
hesitates, confused by his feelings, then smashes the sock full of quarters
against the mugger's face. Kersey flees the scene, returns home, and is
violently sick in the bathroom. He has begun his early stage of violating
the law by retaliating against an attacker. He knows the poHce can do no
good. The audience, too, is being seduced into a similar belief

39

Kersey may only be perceived as evil during stage three when he
receives a handgun from a friend out West, and begins to use it on the
streets ofNew^ York. He now feels an exhilaration each time he deliberately
places himself into a dangerous situation. He goes out looking for trouble.
It becomes a sport. He frequents dark alleys, Central Park at night, and
empty subway cars. He is no longer an innocent citizen walking back home
to his apartment from the office. He is a killer waiting, and hoping, for a
good excuse to kill. When he does kill, he does so cavalierly, without regret
or emotion, without any more nausea. He enjoys his new role as urban
vigilante.

The ultimate manifestation of the perverted, homicidal personality
now residing inside Paul Kersey comes in Death Wish 7/(1982). He has
cornered a young gang member in the deepest recesses of an underground
parking garage, and the rapist is without a weapon, on the floor, totally
defenseless. Kersey is armed but does not force the criminal to rise and go
with him to the police. Rather, he notices a large, bright cross hanging
from the man's neck. Struck by the irony. Kersey asks: "Do you love Jesus?"
The answer: "Yes, I do." Kersey retorts: "Good, because you're going to
meet him." He then fires his revolver point blank at the man's head. The
virtuous and patient architect has become the epitome of hatred, violence,
and evil.

Social Implications of Evil in the Vigilante Film

The people who attend the vigilante films at theatres and they are
many indeed or watch them re-run on cable TV stations with considerable
regularity, enjoy the notion that the underdog is finally getting his due,
that there really can be an effective deterrent to urban crime. A film like
Death Wish is "a catharsis for thousands of viewers" (Orth). People who
live in big cities read the papers and watch television news. They are afraid
of crime. One observer, commenting on the popularity of the vigilante
films, has stated: "We are getting to the point where life may indeed be as
dangerous as the movies depict it, and we are drawing farther and farther
from the idea that the law can do anything about it" (Petzal 68).

The increased fear of victimization as a result of watching violence on
television has been the subject of research by George Gerbner of the
Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.
He found that 46% of heavy TV viewers (those viewing an average of over

40

four hours a day) who live in cities rated their fear of crime "very serious"
as opposed to 26% for the light TV view^ers (those viewing an average of
under two hours a day) (21). If viewers watching women being raped and
men beaten and robbed on television tend to develop this paranoia that
Gerbner calls the "mean-world syndrome," then why would not city
dwellers who view the feature-length vigilante film develop it also? And
what about the suburbanites and the rural dwellers? Such films fiction,
to be sure can hardly be said to be conducive to their desires, lukewarm
at best, to visit the cities nearby.

Whether the vigilante films are good, bad, or indifferent, they do stir
in viewers strong feelings of identification, frustration, and resentment.
Not all of the viewers favor the vigilante. At the end of the movie Joe, a
group of young people at a midnight Broadway showing stood up and
yelled at the screen, "We'U get you, Joe!" (Gilliatt, "God Save the
Language" 65). It has been said that the vigilante-cop blockbuster hit
Dirty Harry (1971) greatly increased the price of Smith & Wesson Model
29 revolvers, as viewers, convinced of the omnipresence of violent crime
around them, flooded gunshops to buy the weapon, causing shortages for
years (Petzal 67).

Most of the sophisticated and liberal-thinking New York City film
critics disliked and dismissed the vigilante films as fantastic distortions of
urban violence and slaps in the face to the Big Apple. Penelope Gilliatt
seemed to see comedic elements in the plot and characters of the original
Death Wish. Her observations seem to place the film into a category of
films heavily dependent on exaggeration and fantasy, perhaps not unlike
Animal House or Tootsie. She claimed that Death Wish

is given over to characters who voice every bigotry about New
York that runs rampant in the rest of the world, which seems
to believe that New York's upper middle classes had better
move posthaste to the suburbs before their wives are raped or
their children learn Spanish, and that the bums who make up
the rest of the city are just "freeloading off welfare" with a
switchblade in every pocket. ("New York, New York" 48)

Although the film sharply contrasts good and evil, there occurs
somewhere in the middle a blurring of that important distinction between
the two. It inspires a consideration of moral relativism that is difficult to

41

dismiss. Although many critics did not take the film seriously, Maureen
Orth saw some potential ramifications in the tremendous popular success
of Death Wish. In the conclusion to her 1974 review of the film in
Newsweek, she asked a rhetorical question that was to be sadly answered
on a real New York subway ten years later: "They're cheering Death Wish
everywhere. Which American metropoUs will have the honor of producing
the first spin-off vigilante?"

In December of 1984, Bernhard Goetz, an unlikely Bronson imitator,
was riding a New York subway train. Four Black youths were on the train,
and asked him for money. They possessed a sharpened screwdriver. Goetz
possessed a loaded revolver. Feeling threatened, he fired bullets into each
of the four youths. One remains paralyzed a decade later. Goetz was
eventually convicted of the illegal possession of a firearm. He was
acquitted on charges of assault and attempted murder.

Works Cited

Ansen, David. "Gunning their Way to Glory." Newsweek 12 Dec. 1983: 109.

Gerbner, George, et al. "The 'Mainstreaming' of America: Violence Profile No. W." Journal of
Communication 30.3 (1980): 10-29.

Gilliatt, Penelope. "God Save the Language, at Least." The New Yorker 15 Aug. 1970: 65-66.

. "New York, New York." The New Yorker 26 Aug. 1974: 48-50.

Kauffmann, Stanley. "Go Ahead. Make my Hour." The New Republic 23 June 1986: 26-27.

Keneas, Alex. "Odd Couple." Newsweek 27 July 1970: 71.

Kroll, Jack. "Newman vs. 'The System'." Newsweek 6 Dec. 1982: 151.

Orth, Maureen. "Deadly Deterrent." Newsweek 26 Aug. 1974: 82.

Petzal, David E. "Rambo, Paul, and Harry." Field & Stream Oct. 1986: 67-68.

Sragow, Michael. "Heroes We Don't Deserve." The Atlantic Oct. 1985: 89-91.

42

The Hammer and The Dove:

Nietzsche, Foucault, and

The American New Historicism

by Christopher Wise*

"...I am simply Nietzschean...! try to see, on a number of
points, and to the extent that it is possible, with the aid of
Nietzsche's textsbut also with anti-Nietzschean theses (which
are nevertheless Nietzschean!) what can be done in this or
that domain. I'm not looking for anything else but I'm really
searching for that."

-Michel Foucault, in his last interview, 1984.

Introduction

The growing strength of the New Historicism, considered by many
American intellectuals as the only viable alternative to Marxian interpretive
theory, attests to the undeniable impact Michel Foucault has had upon a
new generation of literary theorists, scholars, and critics.' However,
Foucault's loyalty to Friedrich Nietzsche is often elided by many enthusiasts
of the New Historicism, no doubt through a premature eagerness to
appropriate such an astonishingly successful methodology-and, of
Foucault's achievements, there can be little question. For example, in a
recent exchange between Hayden White and John Schaeffer regarding
Foucault's work, we are no where provided with an analysis of the
religio-mythic aspects of Foucault's thought, though both critics seek to
disclose the metaphorical and rhetorical elements in Foucault's
historiography through homologizing Giambattista Vico's anticipation
of Foucault.^ In The New Historicism (1989), Schaeffer also demonstrates
the religious implications of Vico's thought, complicating White's
appropriation of Vichian rhetoric in the interests of secular pluralism.
However, neither White nor Schaeffer examines the Nietzsche-Foucault
relationship which first enables the production ofFoucault's "eschatological"
historiography, neither critic sufficiently analyzes the role that a Nietzschean

'Assistant Professor of English, West Georgia College

43

and prelinguistic paleosymbolism may be said to play in Foucault, and, by
proxy, the American New Historicism.^

My concern here will be to clarify the unarticulated and
non-reconstructed colloquial language which remains the ultimate
meta-language of Foucault's theoretical position. Foucault's writing wiU
be portrayed throughout as organized and empowered by emotionally
charged prelinguistic symbols--or, by a limited number of quasi-mythical
scenes, most notably the Death of God, the Eternal Return, or the
so-called Coming of the Superman. By employing Jurgen Habermas's
notion of paleosymbolism, however, I will also suggest that such
prelinguistic symbols may also determine and modify human behavior,
thereby complicating the pragmatic value of Foucault's discourse. For
example, the critique of the linguistic determination of the human
sciences in Les mots et les choses (1966) is necessarily problematized when
one considers the pragmatic alternatives implied by Foucault's "simply
Nietzschean" perspective. Obviously, I will hereby reject Foucault's request
that we not ask on what authority he speaks, since it will be precisely my
task to define and criticize the authority from which Foucault delivers his
oracular and apocalyptic pronouncements-namely, the authority of
Nietzsche.'' In this sense, I wiU be offering a hermeneutical response to
Foucault by arguing with Hans-Georg Gadamer-and Foucault himself in
Les mots et les choses among other places that understanding is never
entirely possible without authority, and that Foucault's life-long prejudice
against authority may also be examined within the context of the general
discrediting of authority, which Gadamer has argued occurred during the
enlightenment.

Thorny though Foucault's discourse maybe, as White has complained,
without certain categories borrowed from the workofNietzsche, categories
which serve as a system of coordinates in the body of his writing, Foucault's
work could not function at all, much less with the success that it has
enjoyed thus far within the context of the American New Historicism.' It
will be my contention that a master code or Ur narrative may be said to
undergird and stabihze the trajectory of Foucault's discourse-both the
"early Foucault" and the "late Foucault"-which also provides the
recuperative basis for his traditional and allegorical readings of both
literary and non-literary texts.

44

The White-Schaeffer Exchange

In opposition to Hayden White, John Schaeffer has emphasized the
role of the reUgious imagination as the necessary ground for the production
of all rhetoric in Vico's system. Schaeffer argues that neither White nor
Foucault is "fully cognizant of the central role Vico gives to religion in his
poetic logic. ..[how]. ..the logos originates in the reUgious and derives its
power from it" (98). Thus, Schaeffer concludes that "price for Vico's
theory of periodicity is acceptance of its basis in religion." Already in his
essay "Foucault Decoded: Notes From Underground," White had
demonstrated that the movement ofFoucault's epistemes maybe considered
as homologous with Vico's theory of periodicity, his transformational
account of the displacement of one rhetorical trope for another throughout
the life of a culture.*' If it is possible to homologize Vico and Foucault in
this regard, however, one could also argue for the creation of even more
homologies between these two thinkers, especially in Vico's and Foucault's
understandings of the religious imagination. Les mots et les choses and
L'Archeologie du savoir {1969) are often described as attempts on the part
of Foucault to eliminate "the recourse to ontology" and hermeneutic depth
which characterized his earlier writings on psychiatry, especially apparent
in Foucault's self-critical denunciation of Folie et deraison (1961) in
L'Archeologie du savior J However, if the movement of epistemes in Les
mots et les choses may no longer be considered as randomly determined, or
if the price for Vico's theory of periodicity is, indeed, acceptance of its basis
in religion, what then may we infer about the price for Foucault's
transformational system of epistemes ?

Of Folie et deraison, Foucault later writes, "It would certainly be a
mistake to try to discover what could have been said of madness at a
particular time by interrogating the being of madness itself, its secret
content, its silent, self-enclosed truth" {The Archeology of Knowledge 41).
Even earlier in Naissance de la clinique (1963), Foucault had attempted to
abandon hermeneutical recovery, or any recuperative strategy of
interpretation, by arguing against the interrogation of the Logos in the
search for "truth. "^ Roy Boyne, in Foucault and Derrida: The Other Side of'
Reason (1990), has argued that Foucault's "rejection" of hermeneutics was
in part motivated by Jacques Derrida's critique of Folie et deraison,
delivered in a lecture in 1963, and later published as "Cogito and The
History of Madness" in Writing and Difference (1978). In Michel Foucault

45

(1982), Hubert Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow have added that, Hke most
French intellectuals of the sixties, Foucaultwas swayed under the growing
influence of Structuralism to reject the semantics of hermeneutical recovery
in favor of the syntactic logic of StructuraHsm (16-17). Much later in 1 984,
Foucault will state that the early theoretical studies he had performed were
essentially based on the use of a "philosophical vocabulary, game, and
experience, to which [he] was. ..completely devoted" {Politics, Philosophy,
Culture243). However, Foucault adds the disclaimer that "it is certain that
[he is] now trying to detach [him] self from this form of philosophy."
Ironically, in this same interview (his last public appearance) Foucault will
conclude with the declaration that he is "simply Nietzschean."

Like Foucault's search for the determining episteme in Les mots et les
choses, the arche of the logos Schaeffer demonstrates that, "Vico is
[also] trying to reveal the arche of what the orator works with. How did
that rhetorical sensus communis get into the language in the first place;
and what is its role and fiinction in cultural development?" (98). However,
one important difference between Vico and Foucault is that Vico never
wavered in the acknowledgement of his own arche, his own vulgar
preunderstanding, whereas the later Foucault found it increasingly difficult
to maintain the Nietzschean posture of his early writings, especially after
Derrida's devastating critique ofFolie et de'raison. In this regard, it would
be reasonable to assume that Foucault's own " arche " may be understood
as the equivalent of Vico's imaginative universal, or "the primal metaphors
of a language which become categories of perception and value" (93-94).
Schaeffer argues that Vico's ultimate contribution to discursive theory lies
in his ability to articulate the procedure through which one discursive
period gives way to another: through the evolving sensus communis or
"vulgar wisdom as it is apprehended, or...'prehended,' in the language of
a particular community" (94-95). Vico also describes the sensus communis
as "judgment without reflection," the source of a "common mental
dictionary" for human communities.

As evident in his so-called "break" with the dialectic, Foucault's own
sensus communis is arrived at, paradoxically, through a retreat into the
psychological monad-the advent of the "mad philosopher"-whereby one
attempts to recover certain imaginative "categories" in the creation of a
"strictly original" synthesis of psychic phenomena (Foucault Mental Illness
andPsychologyld) . For Foucault, such an attempt is necessarily accompanied

46

by the dissolution of the category of the individual "subj ect" as a precondition
for psychic identification with, what will later be described as, certain
"novelties" to be found within the domain of silence {Language,
Counter-Memory, Practice 41).

Heideggerian Psychology

To fully appreciate Foucault's filial dependency on Nietzsche,
Foucault's reception of Nietzsche must first be filtered through the impact
of Martin Heidegger on his early writings. "It is possible that if I had not
read Heidegger, I would not have read Nietzsche," Foucault tells us. "I had
tried to read Nietzsche in the fifties but Nietzsche alone did not appeal to
me-whereas Nietzsche and Heidegger: that was a philosophical shock!"
{Politics, Philosophy, Culture 250). While Foucault states that Nietzsche's
influence ultimately outweighs the influence of Heidegger, he describes
Heidegger as the second major force in his philosophical development.
Among other similar interests, both Heidegger and Foucault share an
aversion for metaphysics, for humanism and the epistemological
enthronement of Cartesian reason; both philosophers attempt to reject
the Kantian subject, detached from the thing-in-itself, in favor of
Being-There, or Dasein, an ontology of lived experience in the world.
Above all, Heidegger and Foucault share a dislike for the empirical
pretensions of the human sciences, especially evident in psychology's
claim to offer a "science" of the human subject.

Foucault first encounters the thought of Heidegger through the work
of Ludwig Binswanger, a Swiss psychiatrist who had based his own
phenomenological approach to psychiatry on Heidegger's notion of
Dasein. In Maladie Mentale et Personalite', and in his lengthy introduction
to Binswanger's Le reve et ['existence (1955), Foucault argues for the
development of an ontological psychology in opposition to prevailing
Kantian models of psychoanalysis. Even more radically than Binswanger,
Foucault combines the psychology of Dasein with a quasi-Marxian
analysis of the mental institution, also depicting Freudian psychology as
the culminating moment of a long and systematic exclusion of the "true
meaning" of madness. In these early works, Foucault attempts to uncover
the "truth" of madness through, what Paul Ricoeur has called, a
hermeneutics of suspicion. Much as Heidegger had argued in Being and
Time (1927) that western metaphysics and reason have attempted to

47

conceal the truth ofDasein, Foucauh argues that the history of psychiatry
may also be understood as reason's long repression of the "truth" of
madness. Though Foucault later rejected his "naive" attempt at uncovering
the "truth" of madness, along vv^ith any variety of hermeneutics which
attempts to uncover or recuperate meaning, Foucault's aversion for
Kantian and Freudian models of psychoanalysis only increased throughout
his career, evident especially in L Vo/onte'dusavoir (197 6), dihistory of the
confessing subject as the locus of all knowledge.

In his studies of Binswanger, Foucault rejects prevailing forms of
psychoanalysis, aimed only at the functional recovery of the patient rather
than the disclosure of the patient's "strictly original" strategies of psychic
organization. Here, Foucault attempts to demonstrate the oxymoronic
nature of institutional psychiatry's creation of a noso-terminology, the
unqualified assumption of mental conditions as being "organic" or
"physiological." Terms like "mental illness," or any other descriptions of
madness as organic, physiological diseases are uniformly rejected by
Foucault as poorly conceived metaphors; we are shown instead how
psychiatry appropriated the use of physiological terminology by postulating
a model of the psyche as an "organism," thereby accepting a host of
enlightenment and romantic prejudices, most obviously the distillation of
all consciousness into the Kantian subject. By merging subject and object
in Heidegger's Dasein, Foucault instead emphasizes the way in which
human beings are related to the world, the way in which mind, world, and
history are inseparable in a network of relations; thus, rather than
embracing the standard, "regressive" model of institutional analysis,
Foucault argues that we should respect the integrity of the patient's unique
experiences, seeking a recovery of the historical dimension of the "illness."

"Ill as a patient may be," Foucault tells us, "a point of coherence cannot
but exist" {Mental Illness and Psychology 26). Thus, the psychiatrist's more
urgent task involves recovery of a "point of coherence" within the unique
psychic constitution of each "patient," rather than nosologically determining
already established patterns of behavior. For Foucault, the prevailing
psychoanalytic theories of the mental institution must be rejected as
Cartesian, epistemological pseudosciences. As Heidegger had postulated
the existence of "underlying structures of preunderstanding," Foucault
also argues for the recovery of certain organizing strategies within the
patient's personal worldview which will guarantee "the experienced unity

48

of [the patient's] consciousness and horizon" (28). Such an
onto-psychoanalytic approach would entail analysis of the historicity of
the "illness," or the individual's "being-in-the-world." For Foucault, there
would also be no question of archaic personalities "buried deep" within the
Kantian subject, unconscious categories or mental contents to be
reintegrated back into the ego's overall set of representations; any
depth-psychoanalytic therapy attempting to uncover such "buried contents"
of the unconscious must necessarily, and erroneously in Foucault's view,
postulate a mythical conception of energy or spirit (i.e. Freud's libido,
Janet's psychic force, or Jung's autonomous archetypes). According to
Foucault, such analytic constructs all err through positing Man as the
locus of all epistemological understanding; all these theories must be
rejected as dupes of the historical enlightenment, the prejudices of the
Cartesian universe. Instead, Foucault proposes a psychology which would
take into account an understanding of what it means "to be" over and
against an interrogation of the isolated subject, aimed solely at the
individual's reintegration back into "productive" society.

Moreover, Foucault expresses his concern and indignation at a culture
which has systematically applied the label of "mentally ill" to those whom
it has cruelly subjugated within its institutions of confinement. Instead,
psychiatry must recognize the historical narrowing of human possibilities
which has taken place in western culture since the beginning of the
enlightenment, how what is understood as illness often passes for acceptable
behavior in other cultures and eras; thus, what Foucault makes clear is that
only modern culture has come to understand madness as illness; only the
merciless arrogance of an irrational form of reason could have first made
possible the birth of the institutional clinic. Foucault concludes, "Our
society does not wish to recognize itself in the iU individual whom it rejects
or locks up; as it diagnoses the illness, it excludes the patient. The analyses
of our psychologists and sociologists, which turn the patient into a deviant
and which seek the origin of the morbid in the abnormal, are, therefore,
above all a projection of cultural themes" (63). For Foucault, the important
question is not whether or not the patient needs psychiatric therapy to
overcome his illness, but how and why institutional psychiatry needs the
patient to further its goals of exclusion and interrogation. "It is not because
one is ill that one is alienated," Foucault writes, "but insofar as one is
alienated that one is ill" (103).

49

Though he continued to perceive the psychiatric institution as
repressive, even expanding and enlarging his descriptions in Folie et
deraison and La naissance du clinic^ Foucault later rejected the Marxian
component of his analysis by which he had argued that mental illness itself
could be eliminated by the removal of societal contradictions within the
patient's environment (107). By shifting from Marx to Nietzsche, especially
evident in the concluding chapter of Folie et deraison and in "Preface to
Transgression," Foucault rejects all dialectics and revolutionary paradigms
which promise to bring about a reversal in prevailing social conditions;
after his discovery of Nietzsche, Foucault will no longer believe in the
transformative potential of dialectical discourse, the ability of truth-aimed
conversation to bring about social revolution. With the emergence of the
mad philosopher, Foucault repudiates any notion of the thinker who
stands behind his words in reasoned dialogue.

Foucault's "Points of Coherence"

Though Foucault rejects "Kantian" psychoanalysis, his endorsement
of the Heideggerian notion of preunderstanding obviously complicates
his critique of Freud's reliance on the ahistorical subject with underlying
categories of thought. For example, if we mediate between Vico's
imaginative universals and Heidegger's structures of preunderstanding, it
soon becomes apparent that Foucault has more in common with Vico than
merely their similar transformational systems of epistemes . By fiat of
Heideggerian Dasein, Foucault's discourse in no sense may be said to rid
itself of the archaic personalities or autonomous complexes which were
found to be so undesirable in the theories of Freud, Janet, and Jung. This
lingering idealist essentialism in Foucault, perhaps best described as a
transcendental idealism, also complicates Foucault's dismissals of dialectical
and teleological discourse.

While we may applaud Foucault's efforts to develop a psychology in
the context of Heideggerian historicity, Heidegger himself never embraced
a particular set of mythic coordinates, a particular tradition to privilege
above all others; in fact, the later Heidegger purposely distanced himself
from Gadamer's view that a saving truth could somehow be recuperated
from the western tradition.^ Though one could argue that both Foucault
and Heidegger attempted to usher in a return to the gods, as White has
observed about Foucault and as Habermas has observed about Heidegger,

50

Heidegger himself never identified any specific prelinguistic images upon
which a new ethics could be formulated. Foucault, on the other hand,
established his renown and early reputation through announcing his
"mixed vocation of apostle and exegete" in relation to the messianic
proclamations of Nietzsche in the final, enigmatic texts {Madness and
Civilization 287-288). In Folie et deraison^ for example, Foucault informs
us that Nietzsche's last cry, pro-claiming himselfboth Christ and Dionysos,
can somehow become for us today "the endless path to flilfiUment." We
are told that Nietzsche's Dionysiac and Christie self-identification, "that
which robbed Nietzsche of his reason," can now make possible for us the
creation of a new reason, a reason beyond the discursive limits of Cartesian
reason. For Foucault, Nietzsche at this point becomes no less than the
latest avatar of the dying and reborn God, "born posthumously" so that we
mere mortals might live, so that the dissolution of Nietzsche's thought
might open out a new realm of thought onto the modern world. With
apocalyptic and prophetic assurance, Foucault proclaims to us that
Nietzsche's giving of himself will now become the yardstick by which the
future world will be measured, and clearly found wanting.

Not unlike Northrop Frye, who privileges certain poetic images and
mythic structures upon which all meaning can be allege rically recuperated,
the "early" Foucault celebrates a Great Code of sorts, a select number of
quasi-mythical scenes which serve as the organizing "points of coherence"
throughout his stylistically consistent, if not structurally redundant,
proliferation of texts. Later, Foucault will assure us that he has given up
these language games, or at least that he is working towards giving them
up. In Maladie mentale et psychologic, Foucault had written that, "the
essence of mental illness lies not only in the void that it hollows out, but
also in the positive plenitude of the activities of replacement that fill that
void" (17). In The Content of The Form (1987), Hayden White argues that
the essence of plenitude which fills up the void for Foucault is really no
void at all, but a "plenum of force; not divine, but demonic" (134). White
asserts that Foucault's "true subject" is Power, which has been "hypostatized
and given the status that spirit once enjoyed in an earlier, humanistic
dispensation." White's observation is both accurate and astute: if Nietzsche
constitutes the latest avatar of the dying and reborn God, the Antichrist
made manifest in the flesh, Foucault prophetically assures us that we are
not to be left entirely comfortless in our now-faUen state. Though the

51

hammer has slipped from the philosopher's hand, his Spirit will live on for
us in the form of a Power which will operate like a "secret invasion from
within" {Mental Illness and Psychology 77). As Paul had proclaimed the
Risen Christ throughout the synagogues of the ancient world, so Foucault
now proclaims his task as both apostle and exegete, announcing the
Sovereignty and Divinity of the "Nietzschean figures of tragedy, of
Dionysos, of the death of God, of the philosopher's hammer, of the
Superman approaching with the steps of a dove, of the Return" (Language,
Counter-Memory, Practice 39).

Foucault's earlier critique of religion in Maladie mentale et psychologie
might well be applied to his own vocation as Nietzschean apostle:
"[Religion] may be the object of delusional belief," Foucault had told us
earlier, "insofar as the culture of a group no longer permits the assimilation
of religious or mystical beliefs in the present content of experience. To this
conflict and to the need to overcome it belong the Messianic delusions, the
hallucinatory experience of apparitions, and the evidences of the thunderous
'call' that restore, in the world of madness, the shattered unity experienced
in the real world" {Mental Illness and Psychology 81). Paradoxically, what
had disqualified religious experience in the early Foucault now becomes
precisely that which both corroborates and redeems his own apostolic and
exegetical calling in Folie etderaison. In Maladie mentale et psychologie, such
a calling we see prefigured in Foucault's emotionally charged and apotheostic
defense of the Berdaches Medicine Men among the Dakota Indians,
homosexual shaman whose "religious status as priests ...is bound up with
their particular sexual behavior" (62). It is in this sense White comments
that, as an oracular and apocalyptic prophet, Foucault's religious utterances
wiU later make "even the Nazis look tame in comparison with the
'bio-politics' that [he] sees taking shape on the horizon" {The Content of
The Form 133).

That Foucault defines his discursive task as apostolic and exegetical
will hardly come as a surprise to those already familiar with the trajectory
of Foucault's work; however, it should surprise us that so few of Foucault's
numerous commentators have chosen to discuss the often bizarre,
quasi-religious implications of his writings. For example, it is often
assumed that there can exist in Foucault's writings a "value free" analytic:
while the "early" Foucault is rightly embraced as poetic historiographer,
the "late" Foucault is uncritically heralded by some as

52

post-Kantian"deconstructionist of the body," a philosopher who can

somehow miraculously escape the assignation of any one specific center;

who can evasively assert that his own discourse, "far from determining the

locus in which it speaks, is avoiding the ground on which it could fmd

support" {The Archaeology of Knowledge 2^S-2^G)!'^^ But, it is perhaps the

"early Foucault" himself who best clarifies the problem of granting the

"late Foucault" exemption from an embarrassingly vulgar point d'appui :

If language exists, it is because below the level of identities and

differences there is the foundation provided by continuities,

resemblances, repetitions, and natural crisscrossings.

Resemblance excluded from knowledge... still constitutes the

outer edge of language: the ring surrounding the domain of

that which can be analyzed, reduced to order, and known.

Discourse dissipates the murmur, but without it it could not

speak {The Order of Things 120).

These continuities, resemblances, repetitions, and crisscrossings that

necessarily exist within Foucault's writings transmogrify into an unholy

trinity of sorts: a quasi-occultic celebration of the Death of God, followed

by the altruistic sacrifice of Nietzsche's reason, and the recent emergence

of Power as the new Unholy Spirit.

As stated earlier, there are also any number of practical questions
which might be raised concerning the religio-mythic element in Foucault.
For example, as Habermas has argued, discourse serves not only as a
medium for exchanging messages, but also as a means of shaping and
altering the attitudes which ultimately determine human behavior; thus,
as Wittgenstein has also made clear, language may very well be "only a
game," but it is a game which is a way of hfe. If we accept Nietzsche's
Dionysian values as superior to more widely accepted values within
Western culture, obviously the formerly embraced values, especially those
ofJudeo-Christian Humanism, must now become those values which are
hereafter excluded and repressed. Because it is impossible to establish any
culture upon values which are not in some way exclusive, or, because we
cannot, after all, transvalue all values as Nietzsche himself was aware, the
more urgent question in discussing Foucault would seem to be not how
can we now pragmatically make use of Foucault's "value free" analytic, but
rather what do we think of the unarticulated values and ethics that are
inherent in Foucault's Dionysian system? Should these values be endorsed

53

at the cost of contemporary established values? Though Foucault denies
the inevitably of his own center, as well as the transcendental character of
Power, does the "late Foucault" truly escape his own essentialism?

Furthermore, how do Foucault's claims to non-essentialism further
complicate the contemporary canonization of his texts within the academic
institution? One of the most disturbing aspects about Foucault's popularity
among American academics today is that his work has tended to legitimate
reactionary ideologies like the so-called New Historicism, especially in
re-entrenching largely oppressive institutional traditions and methods of
literary analysis. For example, one can "safely" be an American New
Historicist today, congratulating oneselfon being theoretically up-to-date,
while endorsing an approach to literary study which differs very little from
the American New Criticism in its political agenda. Another way of saying
this might be that a disturbing symmetry exists between the American
New Historicism and the Republican Revolution of the mid 1990s, just
as there was once a disturbing symmetry between the American New
Criticism and the McCarthy era of the 1950s. Empowered by the more
subtle and easily misunderstood approach of Foucault, the American New
Historicism functions as the latest in a long line of liberal ideologies that
often appear progressive but in reality pose even greater obstacles to
institutional restructuration than outright neo-fascisms like Francis
Fukiyama's or Allan Bloom's.

The larger question would then seem to be not how do we argue from
a value-free position, as the later Foucault and the American New
Historicism attempts, but rather how can we build a human community
with an ethics which can be acceptable and valid to everyone existing
within that community? Or, on what basis will such an ethics be established?
If we embrace Foucault's gospel of Dionysianism, do we now truly have
at our disposal a realistic and viable standard for human society? In his last
interviews, Foucault continues to insist that he is a philosopher, though a
philosopher who has somehow broken with the dialectic (Politics, Philosophy,
Culture 242-254). However, the classical distinction between philosopher
and sophist, or rhetoritician, has always consisted in the philospher's
desire to engage in truth-aimed dialogue, over and against the sophist's
desire to disengage truth through manipulating language without recourse
to dialectic. Can Foucault simultaneously call himself a philosopher and
still deny the necessity of the dialectic? Furthermore, does Foucault's

54

commitment to the interview form, apparent in his two volumes of
published dialogues, also problematize his unchanging claim at having
rejected dialectical discourse in favor of the "discourse of transgression"?
There are any number of similar obstacles in the "later" Foucault's
assertions that he has indeed "left behind" the Nietzschean language
games of his earlier discourse, that he has now somehow arrived at a
"purer" analytic in the second half of his career. At the beginning of this
essay, I stated that Foucault's achievements have been both significant and
remarkable; however, if I have chosen to criticize Foucault's work, it is only
the "later" Foucault who I have found problematic, the Foucault who
denied his own arche or center while busily investigating and decentering
the logos within all discursive formations other than his own." Despite my
reservations about Foucault, however, I believe we may stiU profit from his
work, but only if we understand him primarily as a mythopoeic, creative
writer, rather than a philosopher or political thinker. Another way of
saying this would be to at least partly agree with Richard Rorty that ironist
theorists like Foucault and Nietzsche are "invaluable in our attempt to
form a private self-image, but pretty much useless when it comes to
politics" (Contingency, irony, and solidarity 83). In this regard, the category
of creative writer need not be construed as a devaluation of Foucault's
accomplishments, but, on the contrary, may be regarded as critical praise
of the highest order.

Notes

' Stephen Greenblatt in his essay, "Towards a Poetics of Culture," The New Historicism, New Yorlc
Routledge, 1989 (1-2), acknowledges how the presence of Foucault on the Berkeley campus of the
University of California shaped the development of his own theoretical position, which Greenblatt
himself later coined as "The New Historicism."

^ Hayden's White essay "Foucault Decoded: Notes From Underground" first appeared in History
and Theory, vol. 12, 1973 (23-54). John Schaeffer's essay "The Use and Misuse of Giambattista Vico:
Rhetoric, Orality, and Theories of Discourse" is printed in The New Historicism (89-101). Though my
interests here differ from the above thinkers, their exchange remains in my opinion, so far, the most
fruitful discussion of Foucault's thought.

^ Jurgen Habermas defines "paleosymbols" in the following way: they are "symbols which control
behavior and not merely signs, for [they] have genuine significative functions... [They] are not
installed in a grammatical rule system. They are not ordered elements and do not appear in
configurations which can be grammatically transformed. . .Prelinguistic symbols are heavily laden with
emotion and center in each case on definite scenes." From "On Hermeneutics' Claim to Universality."
The Hermeneutics Reader, New York: The Condnuum Publishing Company, 1990 (308).

55

'' See Mark Cousins and Athar Hussain, Michel Foucault, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1984 (2).
Cousins and Hussain argue that "it is redundant to construct a Foucault which has aU the attributes
of a general theory, one which can be wheeled into battle with the masters and fathers of social
thought. ..[for,]. ..while Foucault's treatment of power relations is distinct and novel, this does not
constitute a general theory" Such tendencies to aUow Foucault exemption from the construction of
a "general theory" in any attempt to analyze his work have contributed to the paralysis of theory in
demythologizing the writings of Foucault--the residual longing, no doubt, for a "pure" analytic or an
"empirical" approach to the human sciences. I am arguing instead that the "authority" of Nietzsche
extends throughout the trajectory of Foucault's writings, from his earliest work on mental illness to
his final publications on human sexuality. Also, see White's The Content of the Form: "Foucault's
answers to questions of his discourse's origin seem curiously weak..." (107).

^ Habermas states, "The specific element in linguistic intersubjectivity resides in its ability to serve
as a basis for communication between individual members of the language community.. .the
intersubjectivity of colloquial understanding cannot be sustained without a mutual self-representation
on the part of the speaking subjects" (308). "On Hermeneutics' Claim to Universality," The
Hermeneutics Reader. A less complicated way of saying this would be to follow Northrop Frye's
observation that "all commentary is allegorical interpretation, an attaching of ideas to the structure of
poetic imagery," The Anatomy of Criticism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957) 89.

''In Vice's cyclical scheme, metaphor is displaced by metonymy, followed by a similar displacement
of metonymy by synecdoche, followed by the final displacement of syncedoche by irony, which begins
the cycle all over again.

' See Hubert L. Dreyflis 6c Paul Rabinow, Michel Foucault, Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1982(11-12).

* Foucault, The Birth ofTheClinicyNewYoik: Vintage Books, 1975: "For centuries we have waited
in vain for the decision of the Word" (p. xvi).

' Martin Heidegger, "The Question Concerning Technology," in The Question Concerning
Technology, trans. Willliam Lovitt, New York: Harper & Row, 1977. For more on Neokantian
transcendentalism m Heidegger, see The Hermeneutics Reacier{41-47 &i.274-319), especially Tegardmg
the Gadamer-Habermas debates. Habermas argues that Heidgger's existential ontology presents us
with yet another inflection of a priori Kantian philosophy, as does the philosophical hermeneutics of
Gadamer. I am arguing here that Habermas's critique of a residual and categorical transcendentalism
in Heidegger may also be applied to Foucault; however, in the case of Foucault specifically I am
arguing that there lingers a more dubious transcendentalism, insofar as Foucault refuses to acknowledge
the mythical categories which empower his discourse, especially evident in the self-critical denunciations
of his early texts. There are also socio-pragmatic implications regarding the symbols which Foucault
chooses to privilege: for example, can Foucault's position ethically be endorsed within the academy?
Can his discourse be validated as a means of building human communities?

' In The Content of The Form, White discusses this problem in Foucault with remarkable insight,
arguing that Foucault's answers concerning the points of origin within his own discourse "seem
curiously weak" (106).

" For example, Dreyfus and Rabinow in Michel Foucault make clear that "there is no pre- and
post-achaeology or genealogy in Foucault [italics theirs]" (104). Though the emphasis shifts from
archaeology to genealogy in the late Foucault, Dreyfus and Rabinow point out that the genealogical
process of analyzing discursive formations could not be possible in Foucault without the preceding
archaeological process which "still isolates and indicates the arbitrariness of the hermeneunc horizon
of meaning" (106). Thus, throughout the trajectory of Foucault's work, the archaeological strategy of

56

identifying the " arche " of the " log os" in various discursive practices, as the procedure which must first
occur before the genealogy can even be undertaken, is never really abandoned.

Works Cited

Dreyfiis, Herbert L. & Rabinow, Paul, Michel Foucault (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1982)

Cousins, Mark and Hussain, Athar, Michel Foucault (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1984)

Foucault, Michel, The Archeology of Knowledge , trans. A. M. Sheridan Smith (New York:
Vinatage, 1976)

, The Birth of The CUnic (New York: Vintage Books, 1975)

^ Language. Counter-Memory. Practice (Ithaca, New York: Cornell

University Press, 1977)
^ Madness and Civillization (New York: Vintage Books, 1988)

^ Mental Illness and Psycholog y (Berkeley: University of California Press:

1987)

^ The Order of Things (New York: Vintage Books, 1970)

^ Politics. Philosophy. Culture , ed. Lawrence D. Kritzman, (New York;

Routledge, 1988)

Habermas, Jurgen, "On Hermeneutics' Claim to Universality." The Hermeneutics Reader (New
York: The Continuum Publishing Company, 1990)

Heidegger, Martin, "The Question Concerning Technology," in The Question Concerning
Technology, trans. Willliam Lovitt (New York: Harper & Row, 1977)

Rorty, Richard, Contingency, irony, and solidarity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1989)

Veeser, A. E., The New Historicism (New York: Routledge, 1989)

White, Hayden, The Content of the Form (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1989).

57

ABSTRACTS OF FACULTY PROJECTS SPONSORED

BY THE LEARNING RESOURCES COMMITTEE OF

WEST GEORGIA COLLEGE

Developing a School Renewal Plan to
Improve School Climate

Clete Bulach, Department of Educational Leadership

The purpose of this research is to evaluate a school renewal process
which focuses on improving school climate. The overall design includes:
1) the collection of data prior to the implementation of a school renewal
plan; 2) the development and implementation of a school renewal plan;
and 3) the collection of data after implementation of the plan to determine
which plans are the most effective in improving school climate.

Five schools in the West Georgia College service area are involved in
the research. They are the following: Eastside Elementary in Coweta
County, Argyle Elementary School in Cobb County, Lake Harbin
Elementary School in Clayton County, Mt. Zion Elementary School in
Carroll County, East Paulding Middle School in Paulding County, and
Thomasville Heights Elementary School in Atlanta City Schools. Each
of these schools has collected school climate data on the following areas:
openness, trust, order, instructional leadership, collaboration, involvement,
expectations, instruction, and environment. Strengths and weaknesses
were identified and each school developed their own school renewal plan
based on an analysis of the data collected.

Each school's renewal plan will be further analyzed to determine
which parts of the plan contributed the most toward improvement of the
nine school climate variables. As a result of these analyses, it is anticipated
that a number of suggestions will be forthcoming that wiU be of assistance
to other schools regarding things they "should" or "should not" do if they
want to improve school climate.

58

Continuing Research Into the History
of Early Radio in Argentina

Robert Claxton, Department of History

No one has chronicled and analyzed the history of radio in Latin
America despite the fact that this medium was a principal means of mass
communication from the 1920s to the 1950s and the 75th anniversary of
the first broadcast is approaching. There is no study even of an individual
Latin American country which could be called "comprehensive," including
a discussion of the origins of the technology in that place, the financing of
the stations, the evolution of technology, the development of regulation,
a description of the programming, and reflections on the impact of radio
on society. The history of early radio in Latin America has special
significance because Latins pioneered that medium in the "lesser developed
world." By 1930, there were more radio stations in South America alone
than in Asia and Africa combined. Scholars have examined the histories
of film-making, photography, print journalism, and television in Latin
America but they have neglected radio.

This research project concentrates on Argentina from 1920 until the
rise of Juan Peron in the 1940s. Argentine radio resembled the United
States pattern (in some other ways anticipated it) by funding itself through
commercial advertising rather than licensing fee method of the B.B.C.
This on-going research project pursues answers to three fundamental
questions: (1) Is Latin culture really not conducive to technological
inventiveness? Initial research has shown that an extensive amateur radio
operator subculture existed in Argentina not unlike the network Susan
Douglas found in the United States and discusses m Inventing Broadcasting,
1899-1 922 (1987). (2) Do Latins lack an entrepreneurial attitude? Again,
I have already found that some Argentina radio pioneers took risks to
make their stations succeed and initially had no other revenue except that
from radio component stores and sale of advertising time. (3) What
impact does radio have? In particular, did radio sustain democratic values?
There was a swing toward democracy in Latin America from the World
War I era until the Great Depression. During that time, radio and movies
were introduced and telephones and record players spread. This is similar
to the swing to democracy in the 1980s and 1990s which is also the era of

59

FAX machines, satellite teleconferencing, VCRs, and e-mail. Does the
introduction of new communications technologies foster democracy?

A Mossbauer Study of Pre-Columbian Pottery

Ben de Mayo and Daniel White*, Department of Physics

Mossbauer spectra were obtained for pre-Columbian pottery sherds
from five riverine and coastal sites in Georgia. The spectrometer was
operated in a constant acceleration mode at room temperature; it is
calibrated with an iron foil enriched with Fe 57 and a primary standard
sodium nitroprusside absorber. The isomer shift, the quadrupole splitting,
the Fe*VFe*** ratio, and the Fe^O^ content have been measured. The
samples were supplied by D. L. Simpkins of the Anthropology Department
at West Georgia. In addition, clays from Lizella, Georgia, were studied
under various heat-treating conditions; results were compared with those
of the pottery sherds.

In this continuing project, a highly sensitive technique called Mossbauer
spectroscopy is being used to learn more about our Native Americans.
Archaeological pottery samples obtained from our own archaeologists are
being analyzed. Furthermore, local clays such as the Indians probably used
are being treated under known temperature-time conditions to determine
how the native pottery was produced.

The samples are ground into powders and then formed into pellets for
use in the Mossbauer spectrometer. Laboratory microcomputers are used
to record and plot the Mossbauer data, to prepare the data for transmission
to the mainframe computer for analysis, to store the results in a coherent
form, and to record the time/temperature profile of the heated samples. In
addition, pottery is being made both using as much as possible the
techniques of the archaic natives and using a computer-controlled and
recorded laboratory furnace. Student workers will continue to be heavily
involved in this project.

'Student

60

Superconductivity Research

Ben de Mayo, Department of Physics

This project is continuing to make excellent research progress in the
fascinating and technologically important area of high temperature
superconductivity. Because the new superconductors become
superconducting at temperatures much higher than conventional
superconductors, these materials offer much promise for practical devices.
In our particular study, we are applying a magnetic field to the sample in
its non-superconducting state, then adding liquid nitrogen to cause it to
become a superconductor. We monitor the magnetic field at the sample
by using a 3-axis probe built with student help in this lab, and we use a
computer to record and analyze the data. Also, we use powerful graphing
algorithms to present the results in a coherent form. We have so far this
year assembled and calibrated the air-core electromagnet that will be used
to apply a magnetic field to the sample. We are now designing the
framework for holding the superconducting sample in the field. Next we
shall take data on a number of superconductors purchased with an FRG
grant. The project is successfully involving students; support was received
this year from the Student Research Assistant Program.

Coupled Energy- Velocity Relations for the Damped

Motion of a Charged Particle in Electric and

Magnetic Fields: A Simple Scheme

Javier E. Hasbun, Department of Physics

The x-y motion of a charged particle in the presence of electric and
a magnetic fields is studied with the inclusion of scattering. The scattering
is included in the Lagrangian formulation for the particle through an
energy dependent Rayleigh dissipation function. This energy dependence
couples the x-y velocities with the particle's energy. While the rate of
energy loss can be obtained through the Hamiltonian of the system, the
lifetime is derived using a simple classical model. An enhanced damping
in the motion of the charged particle arises due to the energy dependence
of the collision time in marked contrast to the uncouple motion.

61

Damped Motion of a Charged Particle in the
Presence of Electric and Magnetic Fields

Javier E. Hasbun, Department of Physics

The classical motion of a charged particle in the presence of an electric
and a magnetic field is studied with the inclusion of scattering. The
scattering is included in the Lagrangian equations for the particle through
the use of the Rayleigh dissipation function. The resulting equations for
the motion are solved analytically as a fiinction of time. The behavior of
the charged particle motion is strikingly different from the case w^ithout
scattering. If the equations of motion are discretized, it is possible to
obtain unique patterns whose shapes depend on the values of the fields, the
characteristic scattering time, and the initial conditions.

A Comparative Study of Aging Policies

Between People s Republic of China (PRC)

and Republic of China (ROC)

Leejanjan, Department of Sociology and Anthropology

This study tries to explore how cultural, political and economic factors
may affect the making of aging policies by taking advantage of the fact that
PRC and ROC both share the same cultural heritage but have different
political and economic systems and different stages of economic
development. A comparison of the similarities and differences in PRC
and ROC aging policies may provide a good chance of finding out how
those factors separately and/or together affect policy making.

Research methods include: 1. Library and government archives
research. 2. Interviews with directors of Social Welfare Bureaus and civic
leaders of advocate groups for the aged. 3. Consulting with academic
members working in the field of gerontology. 4. Visits to selected public
and private nursing homes.

62

A Differential Geometric Approach to the Analysis
and Synthesis of Reflector and Refractor Systems

Eha Newman, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science

I have been studying the theoretical and numerical analysis of nonlinear
partial differential equations (PDEs), especially those of mixed type and
generalized Monge- Ampere equations. These equations arise in several
applications. The first application is that of optical system design and
analysis. The second application arises in the study of transonic flight
wherein one wishes to design fuel-efficient axisymmetric jet flows.
Ultimately in both of the above applications, one must solve a nonlinear
Monge-Ampere (MA) equation which may be of elliptic, hyperbolic, or
mixed type. As with most completely nonlinear PDEs, one does not
expect to find existence or uniqueness results for these equations except in
special cases. However, in order for my work on these applications to
maintain interest outside of the mathematics community, I must
demonstrate solidly how the techniques in modeling optical systems or
airplane wings can be used to design such objects effectively. Therefore,
some questions which must be considered are:

_ What are well-posed boundary value problems?

i_ What numerical schemes would provide the best solutions to the
MA equations?

_ What can we say about these numerical solutions mathematically?
While the MA equations describing the two appUcations are considerably
different, progress in answering these questions for one MA equation may
lead to the answers for the other equations.

I have worked for several years on the analysis and design of optical
systems. I used the Faculty Research Grant to travel to the University of
Delaware in December, 1994, where I met with Professors Pam Cook and
Gilberto Schleiniger. These researchers have worked in the area of
transonic flight for many years and are serving in an advising role as I learn
techniques which facilitate the analysis of nonlinear PDEs. With their
support, I applied for an NSF Research Planning Grant for Women. If the
grant proposal is successful, it will provide me with release time and travel
money which wiU accelerate my progress in this research.

63

Synthesis of a Family of Polyamines

Jeffrey Reid, William J. Pottorf, II and Victoria Geisler,
Chemistry Department

Protein kinase C is a family of lipid activated enzymes which are
important in the regulation of cell growth and differentiation, as well as
the onset of cancer and AIDS. The inhibition of this enzyme could lead
to clinically useful drugs. In particular, charge has been shown to play an
important role in inhibiting enzyme function. Our research focuses on the
synthesis of polyamines which contain sufficient lipophilic character that
will enable multiple interactions with the membrane bound enzyme. We
have developed synthetic procedures to produce a series of long chain
aliphatic polyamines. Two of the proposed compounds have been
successfilly prepared and two others are currently being pursued. The
synthesis of these compounds represents a viable route for preparing a
novel class of lipophilic polyamines. The compounds will be studied for
their effects on protein kinase C.

Equations of Diffusion and Oscillation
with Applications to Biology

William Rivera, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science

The travel grant was applied to fund a visit to the Applied Math
Institute at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. The grantee
collaborated with H.I. Freedman on topics in Mathematical Biology with
an emphasis on Ecology and the environment. The grantee also discussed
applications of chaotic and periodic orbits with Muldowney and others.
The grantee delivered the first applied math seminar for the Mathematics
Department of Alberta in Fall 1994.

The grantee also presented talks on their joint research at the
conference at UT Knoxville in October 1994 and at West Georgia College
in February 1995. The grantee has also written the first of a series of
articles stemming from this joint research entitled: "Stable Patterns with
applications to Biology." The article contains a variety of proofs, examples,
applications, and computer graphical plots of solutions obtained by
numerical computation.

64

Investigation of High Spin and Low Spin

Iron Complexes Designed to Undergo

Proton Coupled Electron Transfer

Spencer J. Slattery, Department of Chemistry

Proton-coupled electron transfer (PCET) reactions involve the transfer
of electrons concurrent with the transfer of acidic hydrogens (H* or
protons). The importance of PCET processes in biological systems and
its apphcation in areas such as molecular electronics and catalysis have
recently prorhpted the design and study of PCET systems. No studies
have been focused at developing a series of complexes to model simplistic
to progressively more complicated PCET processes. For such a series,
nitrogen-heterocyclic iron (II) complexes are excellent candidates. These
compounds can be designed to exhibit one-electron/one proton or one-
electron/ two-proton reactions in which their complexity will depend on
the Fe (II) spin state (number of unpaired electrons). We are currently
designing nitrogen- heterocyclic iron (II) complexes to model the various
couplings which can occur between three chemical processes: proton
transfer, electron transfer, and spin state transition. These complexes are
studied by various instrumental methods such as electrochemistry, nuclear
magnetic resonance, magnet susceptibility, and ultraviolet/visible
spectrophotometry.

The Industrial History and Archaeology
of Carroll County, Georgia

Steve Taylor, Department of History

The purpose of this project is to identify and document the early
development and industrialism in the county. This research will be
conducted in conjunction with Karl Steinen of the Anthropology program
as a preliminary step to the nomination of these resources to the National
Register of Historic Places. Funding from the Georgia Department of
Natural Resources will be sought for preparing the actual National
Register nomination.

65

Carroll County is undergoing an amazing amount of change. Spurred
by our proximity to Atlanta there has been an impressive amount of
population growth over the past twenty years, an increase in the number
of houses built, and industrial development. This growth has had a
devastating and unmeasured effect on the cultural and historical resources
of the county. The history of Carroll County is intimately tied with the
beginnings of industrialism in the Southeast. Mills, cotton gins, and
mines are only three examples of the kinds of structures and locations that
were developed during the late 19th and early 20th centuries that shaped
the growth of our county and rural Georgia in general.

66

ABSTRACTS OF MASTER'S THESES AND SPECIALIST
IN EDUCATION PROJECTS

Social and Economic Conditions of

Small Farmers in Antebellum and

Postbellum Coffee County, Tennessee

Victoria S. Anderson
MA History
March 1995

This thesis studies small farmers of antebellum and postbellum
Coffee County, Tennessee, to determine how their experiences and
concerns compared to those of other small farmers of the South. The class
made up of small farmers who owned their own land and tenants who were
in the process of acquiring property in the nineteenth century comprised
the largest in the South. Yet, it was not until the 1930s that attention was
focused on small farmers by historians of the South.

Filled with a strong sense of independence and patriotism, small
farmers entered the South in the early nineteenth century in search of
private land ownership, social equality, and adventure. They supported
their church, family, and community, and in 1861, often reluctantly
fought a war in defense of these institutions. Four years of fighting proved
disastrous for many small farmers. Extended absences from home meant
that soldiers were unable to defend and provide for their families. Fields
went unplanted, livestock was lost or stolen and family members went
hungry and unprotected. When they did return, the soldiers were often
injured, sick, or disabled to such a degree that they were never able to farm
extensively again. Facing debt and with no means by which to provide for
their families, many small farmers were forced to sell most if not all of their
land. Many resorted to permanent tenancy, sharecropping, and mill work,
all with the same consequences, the loss of independence. The effects of
their loss transcended into the twentieth century as more and more of
these small farmers were forced to turn to government intervention in
order to survive. The legacy of an entire class of people who had prided

67

themselves on their self- sufficiency, loyalty, and strong belief in democratic
principles, was, for many, gone forever.

The introductory chapter discusses the historiography of small farmers
from the first writing of Frederick Law Olmsted, who failed to recognize
their existence, to Frank Owsley, who revolutionized the study of social
history by using previously unpublished census returns to prove the
existence of these small farmers. Recent studies building on Owsley's
research, by historians such as Steven Hahn, Paul Escott, Bill Cecil-
Fronsman, and Orville Vernon Burton, provide more historical data as to
the lifestyle of small farmers, their plight during the Civil War, and the
devastating results that followed the conflict. Included as well is a
definition of small farmers as it applied to Coffee County; as coming to an
agreement on who "small farmers" were has been almost as controversial
as the Civil War itself.

Establishing Coffee County as a region of small farmers is the purpose
of Chapter One. The county itself will be described in relation to its
position in the state and further in the region of Middle Tennessee and the
state as a whole. Settlement patterns are explained. The economy of
antebellum Coffee County is examined, particularly as it pertains to small
farmers.

The institutions which were important to small farmers are presented
in Chapter Two. Their families and churches are described in some detail
in order to provide the reader a more comprehensive understanding of
daily life of small farmers in antebellum Coffee County and the South.

Chapter Three discusses the Civil War and how it affected the people
of Coffee County. Located in an area which was occupied early in the war,
these people suffered at the hands of both Union and Confederate troops
as well as bushwhackers and marauders.

The final chapter. Four, is an epilogue discussing some of the long-
term effects the war had on small farmers in Coffee County. Many of
them lost land, personal property, and independence as they were forced
to become tenants, laborers, and factory workers. Others, like their
ancestors before them, moved further West in search of the autonomy and
self-sufficiency they had lost by 1865.

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The conclusion looks again at the farmers of Coffee County and
compares their experiences with those of small farmers described by
Hahn, Burton, Ash, Escott and Cecil- Fronsman. Comparisons are made
as to the similarities of the lifestyle of the farmers in different sub-regions
before and after the Civil War.

Perception of Fitness Compared to Fitness

Performance on a One Mile Run AValk Test

Between Active and Inactive Sixth Grade Boys

Glenn Davis Darden

EdS, Physical Education and Recreation

August 1994

This study was conducted to compare perception of fitness to fitness
performance on a one mile run/walk test between active and inactive sixth
grade boys. One hundred-and- twenty-four sixth grade boys participated
in this study. A demographic survey was administered to the subjects
during physical education classes at a local area middle school, and
information obtained was used to classify them into level of activity (active
or inactive). Immediately after completing the demographic survey, each
subject completed a modified version of the Perceived Physical Fitness
Scale to measure perception of fitness. Data from the perception scale
were compared to performance data for each subject from the one mile
run/walk test administered as part of the Coweta County physical education
curriculum. Results of the analysis revealed no significant difference in
perception of fitness compared to fitness performance on a one mile run/
walk test between active and inactive subjects. However, there was a
significant difference in fitness performance scores between subjects in
this study and those studied previously. A significant difference also was
found in fitness performance on a one mile run/walk test between active
and inactive subjects in this study.

69

opinions of Regular and Special Education Teachers

Toward Proposed Changes in Program Structure

Under the Regular Education Initiative

ylmy Whitton Edge

EdS, Middle Grades Education

June 1994

A descriptive research project was conducted to determine the opinions
of regular and special education teachers toward the proposed changes in
program structure that would occur under the basic tenets of the Regular
Education Initiative.

The population consisted of all kindergarten through eighth grade
certified, currently employed regular and special education teachers in a
small, rural Northwest Georgia town of approximately 10,000 people,
largely in the lower socioeconomic level.

A survey instrument developed by Robert D. Coates and used in
research reported in the Journal of Learning Disabilities . 22, 1989, was
used to survey the teachers. The instrument contained 14 statements
covering identifying, testing, and classifying students for special education,
using the same techniques to teach both regular and special education
students, preserving resources currently reserved for special education
students, and meeting the needs of all students in the regular classroom.

Cover letters and survey instruments were distributed to the five
schools used in the survey. A total of 133 regular education teachers and
18 special education teachers were surveyed. Responses were received
from 95 regular education teachers (71.4%) and 11 special education
teachers (61.1%).

The frequencies of responses of agree, undecided, and disagree on the
Likert scale were tabulated for the 14 statements on the instrument.
Responses by regular education teachers were separated from those by
special education teachers. The responses of the two groups were then
compared. An analysis of each tabulation was reported using percentage
of frequencies.

Results showed that 65.8% of regular education teachers and 72.7%
of special education teachers disagreed with the basic tenets of the Regular
Education Initiative that would result in changes in the way educational
services would be delivered to both regular and special education students.

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The percentage of disagreement was higher (+6.9%) for special education
teachers than for regular education teachers.

Opinions of regular and special education teachers, as evidenced by
responses on the survey instrument, indicated disagreement with proposed
changes in program structure that would occur under the basic tenets of
the Regular Education Initiative.

The Effects of Inductive and Deductive Teaching of
English Agreement in Ninth Graders' Writing

Harriett M. Gillham

EdS, Secondary Education

August 1994

The purpose of this research project was to examine whether inductive
or deductive instruction in the rules of English agreement subjective/
verb and pronoun/antecedent would assist students in producing a
writing sample with fewer agreement errors. Thirty-four randomly
scheduled students in two classes of average ninth grade students of
Grammar/Composition 92 at a public high school in Cobb County,
Georgia, were used.

The research procedure for this project was conducted in the following
way. One class was labeled Group 1 (inductive) and the other class Group
2 (deductive). All students submitted a pretreatment writing sample on
an assigned topic within the first two weeks of an 18-week semester. The
researcher (teacher) collected and duplicated the papers to return the
originals to the students with errors in agreement marked for the student
to note.

The researcher devised a three-day instructional unit each day
made up of 50 minutes focusing on subject-verb and pronoun-antecedent
agreement, which was taught approximately two weeks after the
pretreatment writing. Group 1 was taught the instructional unit inductively
by working through examples of correct agreement in teacher/student
designed examples. Group 2 was taught this instructional unit deductively
by memorizing rules and completing textbook exercises and worksheets.
During the rest of the semester, the students were given other writing
topics at different times. The researcher marked the same types of errors

71

as they occurred, giving the students practice in learning to write without
these errors. With two weeks left in the semester, a post-treatment
writing was collected on a topic done in the same mode and on the same
level of difficulty as the pretreatment writing.

The results of the number and kinds of agreement errors and the
number of words and paragraphs per student and per group were tabulated
for the pretreatment and the post- treatment writing for comparison. To
determine the difference in gain between Group 1 (inductive) and Group
2 (deductive) in number and types of errors from the pretreatment writing
to the post-treatment writing samples, two t tests were used at the 0.5 level
of significance. The results showed that there was no significant difference
in either Group 1 (inductive) or Group 2 (deductive) to the number and
kinds of errors made in subject-verb and pronoun-antecedent agreement
in the two treatment writing samples.

The conclusion for this limited study is that both inductive and
deductive methods of teaching English agreement made no significant
difference when taught to two randomly selected groups. Since slightly
more students in the deductive group made more gains, this difference
might be attributed to the smaller size of the group than the inductive.
The implication of this study is that perhaps students with different
learning styles might learn better with different methods.

The Effect of Computer Simulation on

Posttest Achievement in a Chemistry

Unit on Molecular Structure

Kathleen M. Gray

EdS, Secondary Education

December 1993

The purpose of this study was to determine whether the utilization of
computer simulation activities in a chemistry unit on molecular structure
improved achievement more than the utilization of mechanical model
activities. The study was conducted as a quasi- experimental pretest-
posttest group design. The posttests of the experimental and control
groups were compared by an analysis of covariance with the pretest scores
and first semester chemistry grades as the covariates. The pretest and

72

i

posttest scores of each group were also analyzed separately to see whether
any significant achievement gains were made by either group. One
assumption made in this study was that the sample was representative of
college preparatory junior and senior high school students who were
enrolled in chemistry classes in order to satisfy the state requirement of
three science courses. A second assumption was that the pretest posttest
instruments were appropriate measures of achievement in relation to the
objectives of the study. The subjects for this study included first-year
chemistry students over a three year period. The combined experimental
groups, composed of 67 students, and the combined control groups,
composed of 69 students, both received 10 to 12 days of teacher-centered
instruction on molecular structure. The experimental groups then
participated in computer simulation while the control groups participated
in molecular model activities. All students completed the same worksheets
during the activities. The results of this research indicated that while the
posttest scores of both groups were significantly higher than were the
pretest scores, there was no significant difference between the posttest
scores of the experimental and control groups. These analyses suggested
that while significant gains were produced by both the computer simulation
program and molecular model activities, neither method was superior. In
view of the findings of this investigation, it is suggested that the study be
replicated using a larger sample size as well as other computer programs
that might now be available on molecular modeling. It is also recommended
that further studies be conducted to determine the effects on student
achievement of using computer simulation programs and molecular
activities together. Finally, it is suggested that further investigations be
conducted to determine teacher needs in the area of computer literacy.

73

An Existential-Phenomenological Critique
of Modernity Via Richard Kalich's Novel:

The Nihilesthete

Steven Michael Grice
MA, Sociology
August 1994

This is a sociological literary critique of Richard Kalich's novel, The
Nihilesthete. An existential-phenomenological perspective v^^as used to
offer a critique of modern, positivist society via the novel as a sociological
landscape. Henri Lefebvre, Alfred Schutz, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty
are the primary interpreters of social existence employed in this analysis.
Alienation, art, and transcendence are the main themes explored and
parallels are drawn betw^een Kalich's characters and the aspects of modern
society they embody.

The Impact of Teacher Expectations on
Student Achievement in Social Studies

Edward Clark Hanes, Jr.

EdS, Secondary Education

August 1994

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of teacher
encouragement through the communication of expectations on high
school social studies students. Previous research on this subject has been
contradictory in its findings, with more recent studies disputing the self-
fiilfilling prophecy theory.

During a six-week period, three world history classes at Griffin High
School in Griffin, Georgia, were observed after receiving varying degrees
of encouragement through teacher expectations. The students were
divided into nine subgroups, most of which responded positively to the
amount of encouragement they received. However, only the subgroup of
aU males in the study showed a significant level of improvement.

74

A Comparative Study of Two Methods of
Instruction in Middle Grade Science Reading

Mary A. Heard

EdS, Middle Grades Education

June 1994

Teaching of science is one of the most abstractly structured areas in the
school curriculum. Teachers need to supplement instructional strategies
or methods to facilitate and promote an interest, as well as an understanding
of science reading. The aim of this study is to determine how effective
instructional reading strategies are on student achievement and attitudes
toward science reading.

Subjects consisted of seventh-grade students from Carrollton City
School System. Students were recruited through a consent letter sent
home to parents describing the purpose of the study and a request for their
children's voluntary participation. In addition, research subjects were
assured of confidentiality by this consent form.

Two groups of seventh graders received the same lecture from the
researcher. The experimental group received instructional reading
strategies, in addition to a lecture format. This method of instruction was
for a 4-week period. Achievement was measured by a pre- test and post-
test designed to measure objectives covered by the textbook. Students'
attitudes were measured by a pre-test and post-test agreement scale
developed by the researcher.

Data were collected and analyzed using analysis of covariance to
determine the level of significant differences using the 0.5 level of
significance. The results of the data from this study indicated that the
mean scores for science achievement were not significantly different for
students taught using the traditional lecture format and students taught in
traditional science classes with the implementation of science reading
strategies. In addition, there was no statistically significant difference
between students' attitudes toward science reading in the experimental
group and the control group.

Based on the findings, observations, and conclusions of this study, the
researcher recommends that further studies be made in this area to
determine if these findings hold true under different conditions.

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"Divorce Not Wisdom from Your Honor":

Conceptual Ambiguity in Shakespeare's

Henry IVy Part Two

Dena Thomas Lumpkin
MA English
March 1995

In 2 Henry IV, William Shakespeare produces ambiguity with the
terms wisdom and honor. The different meanings of the words and the
value judgment of each interpretation are in part based upon which
character in the play is making the distinction. Different value systems
institute different emphases of the terms. The ambiguity of the play finds
its climax in the newly crowned Henry Vs severe rejection of his old friend
Falstaff in the final scene of the play. This action creates an intense
ambivalence in the audience, a reaction anticipated by the play since it is
swamped with ambiguity. The ambiguity of the terms wisdom and honor
and of the rejection of Falstaff provides internal validity in the play so that
the play comes to life because of its ambiguity, not despite it.

Multivocality in the Short Fiction
of Carlos Fuentes

Lucy Barnes McDowell
MA, English
March 1995

In her book Carlos Fuentes, Wendy Paris describes the multivocality
of Carlos Fuentes's texts as it reflects a many-layered country and a
complex contemporary world. Fuentes achieves this multivocal effect in
three primary ways, Faris says one, through formal shifts of narrative
stance; two, through processes of multiplication; and three, through
intertextual allusion (186-87). The cumulative effect of the workings of
these multivocal features of Fuentes's text is a tangled web of voices, ideas,
and meanings.

76

In Fuentes, the third category is almost endless in its forms and
includes a multitude of voices. Two of the most consistent voices belong
to Argentina's Jorge Luis Borges and Carl Gustavjung. Borges is heard
not only on the surface of Fuentes's texts but below the surface; in endless
variation, Fuentes replicates the logic of Borges's "The Garden of Forking
Paths" {The Labyrinth) with its multiple and alternating realities as the
basic structure of most of his stories. In fact, "The Garden of Forking
Paths" is generally considered to be the "blueprint" for magical realism.

Magical realism is, perhaps, the most important development in
recent Latin American literature, having grown out of several Uterary
traditions from the 1940s on in the works of contemporary Spanish
writers; but it has its origins in earlier writers particularly Edgar Allan
Poe and Horacio Quiroga as well as Borges who combine the strange
and dreamlike images of European surrealism and the marvels reported by
early travelers to the new world. Fuentes says that Don Quixote is the
archetypal figure in Hispanic magical realism.

What draws Jung's subterranean voice to Fuentes's texts can be
summed up in a single statement by Fuentes: "The past is a memory that
must be dreamed again." This statement contains key words past,
memory, dream, and dream again which define a single word myth-
-that connects Jung and Fuentes. Fuentes uses magical realism in two
distinct but related capacities to underline extreme psychological power
and to suggest the presence of ancient cosmic forces. Psychological power
and ancient cosmic forces are the stuff of Jung's work as well. Both Jung
and Fuentes observe how the past takes the form of history, religion, and,
ultimately, myth.

In many of Fuentes's works, the physical threshold is the magic
threshold which serves as the entrance to Fuentes's world of the second
reaUty which Fuentes repeatedly portrays. For Jung, dreams or other
reduced states of consciousness (deUriums, reveries, visions, hallucinations)
serve as the threshold to the second reality i.e., the collective unconscious
and the life of the archetypes.

77

A Study of the Effects of Computer

Assisted Instruction on Achievement

in Eighth Grade Social Studies

Roy Perren

EdS, Secondary Education

June 1994

The effects of Computer Assisted Instruction (CAI) on achievement
in eighth grade social studies are examined in this paper. The research was
designed to determine if there was a significant difference in the achievement
of students taught by conventional methods and the achievement of
students taught by CAI. A control group (N=49) and an experimental
group (N=50) were given a pre-test before a six week instructional period.
The control group was taught by conventional methods while the
experimental group was taught using extensive, but not exclusive CAI. At
the end of the six-week period both groups were given a post-test identical
to the pre-test. The students were also given the Computer Assisted
Learning Attitude Survey to determine if there was a significant difference
in the attitudes of students taught by conventional methods and the
attitudes of students taught by CAI.

The research determined that CAI has no significant effect on
achievement in eighth grade social studies, male or female. It was also
determined that there was no significant difference in the attitudes toward
CAI of students, male or female, who have been taught by conventional
methods and those taught by CAI.

Suggestions were made, based on observations during the study and
findings of other studies, as to how CAI may become more effective in the
classroom.

78

A Comparison of the Effects of Literature-Based

Reading Programs and Basal Reading Programs on

Student Achievement in the Middle Grades

Pamela Wells Pierce

EdS, Middle Grades Education

August 1993

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of a
literature-based reading program compared to that of a basal program on
achievement scores for middle grade students. The study was based on
scores from the Iowa Test of Basic Skills given to fifth-grade students at
Battlefield Elementary School in Catoosa County in north Georgia.
Scores collected from the years 1988-1989 through 1989-1990 reflect
reading taught by the basal approach. These teachers generally followed
the lesson plans set forth by the teachers' manuals, including skill sheets,
workbooks, vocabulary activities, and basal readers. Some independent
reading was assigned, usually in the form of book reports, and some
reading aloud was done at the discretion of the teacher. These grade
equivalent scores were compared to those gathered from the fifth grade
from 1990-1991 through 1991-1992. The last two sets of scores show
results from a literature-based reading program. In these literature
classrooms, the emphasis was on reading. Much more independent
reading was expected, and time was provided for it. The classes also read
trade books together at times, and skiU lessons were taught as needed.
Teachers made a point to read aloud to these classes daily.

A grade-equivalent mean was determined for the two years of basal
instruction as well as for the two years of Hterature instruction. The two
mean scores were compared using the t-test and were found to exhibit a
statistically significant difference, thereby supporting the hypothesis that
the literature-based reading approach produces significantly higher gains
on reading achievement than the basal approach as evaluated by the Iowa
Test of Basic Skills.

79

The Effects of Real-Time Microcomputei^

Based Laboratory Tools on the Achievement

of Kinematics Concepts and Related Analysis

by High School Physics Students

Sandra J. Rhoades

EdS, Secondary Education

March 1995

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of microcomputer-
based laboratory (MBL) real-time measurement and graphing of motion
on students' understanding of kinematics concepts and ability to interpret
and analyze data. Four Honors Physics classes (n=112) from a suburban
high school were randomly designated as either control or treatment
groups. The students were pretested and posttested with the Test of
Kinematics Concepts developed at Dickinson College.

All students accomplished the same laboratory and graphing tasks.
The treatment group completed the MBL kinematics activities, while the
control group did standard experiments on the same concepts: velocity,
acceleration and force. A significant difference in gain scores in the
treatment group and control group was found, with the gain of the
treatment group being substantially higher than the gain of the control
group.

Moral Development as Viewed in
Selected Young Adult Novels

Nancy S. Spears

EdS, Secondary Education

August 1994

The purpose of this study was to examine the moral development of
adolescent characters in selected young adult (YA) novels to determine
whether characters faced decisions that involved a moral dilemma, a
conflict between 2 of the 10 moral issues as defined by Kohlberg. The
study focused on five research questions:

80

1 . What types of moral issues as defined by Kohlberg created moral
dilemmas for adolescent characters in selected YA novels?

2. Did male adolescent characters use Kohlberg's justice ethic or
GiUigan's caring ethic when solving dilemmas in selected YA
novels?

3. Did female adolescent characters use Kohlberg's justice ethic or
Gilligan's caring ethic v^hen solving dilemmas in selected YA
novels?

4. On w^hat moral development levels did male adolescent characters
operate when solving dilemmas in selected YA novels?

5 . On what moral development levels did female adolescent characters
operate when solving dilemmas in selected YA novels?

The analyses of the 12 selected YA novels, published between 1986
and 1992, indicated that the adolescent characters most often dealt with
the moral issue of affiHation in their dilemmas. Other issues they faced,
in order of frequency, were life, governance, law, punishment and blame,
sex or eroticism, truth and contract, moraUty and conscience. The results
indicated that adolescent characters used both Kohlberg's justice ethic and
Gilligan's caring ethic in solving their dilemmas but that both males and
females most frequently used Gilligan's caring ethic. The results also
indicated that when solving their dilemmas the male adolescents operated
most often on the preconventional level of moral development but that
females operated most often on the conventional level.

The conclusions of this study suggest that English might use YA
novels to encourage students' awareness of moral development on
Kohlberg's justice ethic and Gilligan's caring ethic by using vicarious
models of adolescent characters solving moral dilemmas.

81

The Effects of Birth Order and Sibling Age
Differences on Giftedness of Students

Venita L. Thomas

EdS, Middle Grades Education

August 1994

Researchers have studied the relationships between birth order and
students' achievement for over one hundred years. It is important for both
teachers and parents to be aware of any and all factors which contribute to
the academic success of children, in order to plan for the best educational
outcome of all students. The purpose of this study was to investigate the
relationship between two birth order variables and the giftedness of
students in the Carroll County Gifted Program. The two factors which
were considered were birth order/only child and sibling age differences
within the family. Two hypotheses were made at the beginning of the
study. First, it was hypothesized that a greater percentage of gifted
subjects would be first-borns or only children. Also it was suspected that
a greater percentage of middle- and later-boms would display a wide
range sibling age difference within the family. Data were obtained from
student biographical surveys and/or from student cumulative record
folders. Parents of subjects were notified by a letter accompanying the
survey used for gathering the biographical information. Data was then
analyzed in regard to both ordinal birth positions and age differences in
families of two or more. Analysis was made by percentages of students in
each category, and reported by grade, sex, and schools. In all three main
sub-divisions (varying sex and total), oldest children comprised the largest
percentage. Only children were slightly more numerous than middle-
borns. However, taken together, onlies and oldests made up more than
50% of the total in each breakdown by number of siblings in family.
Hypothesis #2 concerning wide range spacing for younger horns was not
supported by the survey data. Recommendations and implications for
future study were included.

82

An Assessment of the Effectiveness of a Pilot

Transition Program on the Academic Achievement

of First Grade Students at Mount Carmel

Elementary School in Douglas County, Georgia

Linda T. Watson

EdS, Reading Instruction

March 1995

This research study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of
a pilot transition program on the academic achievement of first grade at-
risk students. The sample consisted of 22 students in the first grade during
the 1994-95 school year. Eleven of the at-risk first graders were in the
piloted transition program whereas the other 11 were in a traditional first
grade program. The raw data were collected between August 1994 and
January 1995 from two parallel forms (A and B) of the Bracken Basic
Concept Scale Screening Test given as pre- and posttests. Then the gain
scores from the transition and regular groups pre- and posttests were
analyzed and compared using the t-test for independent samples. A .05
level of significance was estabUshed to reject the null hypothesis. The
results of the study indicated that there was no significant difference in
gains between the two groups. Therefore, the null hypothesis stating that
no significant relationships exists between the academic achievement test
scores based on a pretest and posttest of at-risk first grade students in a
pilot transition program and at-risk grade students in a regular program
was not rejected.

The Effects of Outdoor Instruction on Students'
Learning of Environmental Concepts

Elaine McGhee Wood

EdS, Secondary Education

August 1993

A study was conducted to determine whether time spent outdoors
affects tenth grade biology students' learning, attitude, or behavior in
terms of environmental issues.

83

The control group received all of its basic ecology instruction indoors,
using traditional teaching techniques. The experimental group studied
the same ecology concepts, but went outdoors on the school campus two
days per week.

All students were administered a presurvey that assessed their ecological
attitudes and their ecologically related behavior, as well as an ecology
knowledge test. After the ten week experimental period the same
instruments were administered as post surveys and post test.

Results showed that only the outdoor group of students improved
their environmental knowledge scores significantly. Neither group
significantly improved their scores on the environmental behavioral
survey or the attitudinal survey.

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