Viewing artistic works through the lens of both contemporary gerontological theory and postmodernist concepts, the contributing scholars examine literary treatments, cinematic depictions, and artistic portraits of aging from Shakespeare to Hemingway, from Horton Foote to Disney, from Rembrandt to Alice Neale, while also comparing the attitudes toward aging in Native American, African American, and Anglo American literature. The examples demonstrate that long before gerontologists endorsed a Janus-faced model of aging, artists were celebrating the diversity of the elderly, challenging the bio-medical equation of senescence with inevitable senility. Underlying all of this discussion is the firm conviction that cultural texts construct as well as encode the conventional perceptions of their society; that literature, the arts, and the media not only mirror society's mores but can also help to create and enforce them.

Joining the debate about the role of scholarship and research at American universities, this book examines contemporary academic issues, such as the evolution of postmodern concepts of scholarship, scholarship in the late age of print, and incentives for promoting grant writing and scholarly publishing. Contributors, including provosts, faculty development professionals, administrators, editors, and scholars, debate the impact of the German system of research-based graduate study and its faith in the ideal of pure research on American scholarship. Several contributors contend that the legacy of privileging pure research over applied research and pedagogy provides an inadequate model today. Teaching, conducting applied research, and writing works for broad audiences are undervalued, they claim, at many universities. As scholarship becomes more specialized, scholarly writing has become so specialized that few outside the specific discipline can read or understand it.

This volume continues the challenge to the concept of pure research and atheoretical teaching. Contributors demonstrate how postmodern theories and social and economic problems are working to explode the myth of disinterested research. The book goes on to analyze how academics can grapple with the social, political, moral, and pedagogical issues confronting society. It also considers the impact of new technologies, such as online databases and electronic journals, on scholarship. Current research suggests that only 10 to 20 percent of the nation's faculty produce the scholarly literature. This volume explores the changes that could help faculty find their voices as scholars, researchers, and grant writers.

How can the most silent member of the family carry the message of subversion against venerated institutions of state and society? Why would two playwrights, writing 300 years apart, employ the same dramatic methods for rebelling against the establishment, when these methods are virtually ignored by their contemporaries? This book considers these and similar questions. It examines the historical similarities of the eras in which Shakespeare and Shaw wrote and then explores types of father-daughter interactions, considering each in terms of the existing power structures of society.

These two dramatists draw on themes of incest, daughter sacrifice, role playing, education, and androgyny to create both active and passive daughters. The daughters literally represent a challenge to the patriarchy and metaphorically extend that challenge to such institutions as church and state. The volume argues that the father-daughter relationship was the ideal dramatic vehicle for Shakespeare and Shaw to advance their social and political agendas. By exploring larger issues through the father-daughter relationship, both playwrights were able to avoid the watchful eyes of censors and comment on such topics as the divine right of kings, filial bonds of obedience, and even regicide.