This article examines the role of epideictic rhetoric as a tool for promoting civic virtue in the public realm through the application of Kenneth Burke's theory of identification and John Dewey's explanation of an aesthetic experience. Long the jurisdiction of Aristotle's logical arguments, civic discussion usually works within the realm of forensic or deliberative persuasion. However, scholarship in the last fifty years suggests there is an unexplored dimension of Aristotle's discussion of epideictic and emotion that needs to be examined in an attempt to identify its usefulness as a tool for examining human experience and practical behavior in the political realm. I attempt to add to the discussion by exploring the presidential funerals of Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan as opportunities for a nation to display a hero's virtues as extensions of society's virtues. Virtues often define what a nation considers good which, in turn, influences the nature of the discussion and often determines political action.

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The subject of this bachelor thesis in political science has been to study how populistic rhetoric has evolved as a political phenomenon. The study has more specifically researched how presidential candidates have used populism in presidential debates. The bachelor thesis also studied if populistic rhetoric has changed over a time period between 1960 to 2016. To be able to study this, the essay has used critical discourse analysis to develop and understand how populism works. Ernesto Laclau’s On Populist Reason has also been used to create three models of understanding populism to develop the essays framework.  Through this the study has found that populistic rhetoric has come to be used more frequently in presidential debates. The study has also found that populistic rhetoric has changed form into a more aggressive style of rhetoric targeting the opponent’s character instead of the individual’s style of politics.

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Data obtained through content analysis of articles about or concerning President Reagan in Newsweek, Time and U.S. News & World Report during two time periods indicated that no relationship existed between time and variance of news coverage given to Reagan. Three content analysis measures were used: comparison of favorable and unfavorable statements, amount of coverage and number of quoted words. The study is composed of four chapters: Chapter I introduces the study, Chapter II presents the data, Chapter III evaluates the data and Chapter IV summarizes and makes recommendations.

<p>Splatterpunk was a short-lived, but explosive horror literary movement birthed in the 1980’s that utilized graphic depictions of violence in its prose. Drawing parallels to other subversive and radical art movements like Dada and Hardcore Punk, this paper examines through a Marxist lens how Splatterpunk, influenced by the destructive nature of 1980’s neoliberalism, reflected the violence, categorized as direct and structural, of its period of creation and used extreme vulgarity as an act of rebellion against traditional horror canon.</p>

In master thesis "U.S. Foreign Policy under Ronald Reagan: Strategic Defense Initiative and disarmament process" is analysed development of the Strategic Defense Initiative and consequent disarmament process in the second half of 1980's. At the beginning of the thesis it is mentioned a stadium of disarmament by the end of 1970's, but the main attention focuses on the Ronald Reagan's presidential administration, when the development of the SDI started. Master thesis also analyses disarmament dialogue among representatives of the United States and the Soviet Union, which started in Geneva in 1985, and continued in Reykjavik, Washington, and Moscow.

Costa Rica embodies many of the characteristics which the United States would like to foster in Central America and elsewhere. In recent years, however, misunderstandings have often been present in the development of relations between both nations, and leaders. These differences have been particularly visible between Presidents Reagan and Arias when carrying out their foreign policies towards Central America. Recent developments in warfare, social and political unrest and economic crises in the region added to the emergence of a Central American political leadership--independent of U.S. decision making-have increased international misunderstandings between both political speakers. These misunderstandings are shown by Reagan and Arias' through their public discourses which have revealed deterioration in communication and cooperation between them. Since Reagan and Arias come from different cultures, their values are different, making it difficult for the two men to communicate effectively. Towards discovering the differences m cultural values underlying arguments between them, this study uses the Toulmin model to provide a critical and interpretative analysis of the exchange of political arguments from both leaders concerning Central America. Data were collected from public discourses by Reagan and Arias. An intercultural communication perspective is then used to assess the effects of the arguments on international understanding. This research was successful in isolating a number of political arguments concerning Reagan and Arias' respective policies toward Central America, it revealed consistently different underlying cultural values. These differences in cultural values may affect the mutual understanding between the two political leaders, since their discourses did not acknowledge each other's cultural values or patterns of thinking. At the core of Reagan and Arias' disagreements is the ethnocentric assumption that each is similar to the other. This assumption is not a recommended strategy for intercultural interaction. Because of the novelty of this type of interdisciplinary interpretative research, the results can not be compared adequately with previous research on values in public discourse. Further investigation in this area should support the worth of studying political argumentation from the combines approaches of rhetorical analysis and intercultural communication.