The Powers Of Speech

In this definitive study, David Bathrick examines East German culture both before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. Bathrick argues that dissident East German writers were unique among East European literary intellectuals in that they attempted “to open up alternative spaces for public speech from within [the] framework” of Marxism and state socialism. According to Bathrick, “the fact that some of them had been censored, hunted, questioned, and ridiculed does not belie the fact that they were also—and sometimes even simultaneously—privileged, nurtured, courted, and coddled. . . . It was precisely their function on ‘both sides’ of the power divide, as official and nonofficial voices within the whole, which defined a particular kind of intellectual in the GDR.” Bathrick applies his insights into this “particular kind of intellectual” to a wide range of topics. He compares oppositional culture in East Germany to radical cultures elsewhere, examines the complex political and cultural relations of East and West Germany, traces the anguished history of the East German avant-garde, and describes the troubled effort to develop a revolutionary theatrical tradition in East Germany. The book also includes nuanced insights into the collapse of the East German political order in the late 1980s and more recent revelations about the collaboration of allegedly oppositional writers with the Stasi (state police). In his treatment of these and other issues, Bathrick enters hotly contested territory. Yet he brings clarity and scrupulous fairness to these issues that are still very much alive in Germany—and elsewhere—today.

Lifelong liberal Kirsten Powers blasts the Left's forced march towards conformity in an exposé of the illiberal war on free speech. No longer champions of tolerance and free speech, the "illiberal Left" now viciously attacks and silences anyone with alternative points of view. Powers asks, "What ever happened to free speech in America?"

Patsy Rodenburg is the leading acting coach in the UK (she has worked with Judi Dench, Helen Mirren, Ian McKellen and Cate Blanchett). Patsy has discovered the principles of speech in theatre apply extremely effectively when transferred into the workplace. Do you want to be more persuasive? Do you want to enthuse and inpsire and feel good whenever you present or speak in public? This practical programme will make you as effective as Judi Dench is on screen in every meeting, pitch and conversation in person or on the phone. You will learn how to impress your boss without being overbearing, connect with people if you are introvert and you will have true confidence in all your communication. There are practical exercises and example throughout and Patsy's results are amazing.

The POWERS provides a quantitative means of measuring an individual's ability to produce meaningful words in natural conversation. It provides guidelines for collection of the conversation, and for analysis of the sample, scoresheets to be completed based on the analyzed sample, and worked examples of conversation data, including audio-files provided on CD. This is a versatile tool that can be used in both research and the clinical setting to analyze whether word-finding improves after a period of therapy.