Abstract
The paper discusses "My Career with the Leafs" by Brian Fawcett, which offers an ironic glimpse at our perception of professional hockey as it is represented to us by the popular media. The paper describes the fictional account of a poet who became a hockey player and thereafter experienced brushes with fame and the media. The paper also explains how this book is relevant to contemporary Canadian culture.

Outline:
Introduction
A Career With the Leafs
Conclusion

From the Paper
"Fawcett's story opens up with the character, a self-described poet, explaining how he came to be a famous hockey player for the highly acclaimed Canadian hockey team, the Toronto Maple Leafs. Fawcett's ironic wit comes early on in the book: he describes his move into the Big League (that revered institution of popular culture) as "surprisingly easy" (Beardsley 180). This early reference indicates that Fawcett's story will be a fairy-tale one - in reality, movement into the major hockey league is difficult and arduous and based on years of hard work, though in the minds of hopeful Canadian boys lives the dream of being instantly accepted into professional hockey through some miraculous offer. Though this is far from realistic, such dreams are encouraged by the media and popular culture, who enjoy such rags-to-riches type good luck tales: this theme is common in movies, television shows, books, and, more recently, in fan fiction on the internet."

Tags:media, fame, celebrities, violence, Western, culture

Abstract
This paper discusses the article, "Dual in the Sun," by John Brant, which is an in-depth background piece about the Boston Marathon in 1982. The paper focuses on the portion of the article which deals with the lives of the two principle stars that were co-protagonists in the race, Alberto Salazar and Dick Beardsley. The paper also focuses on many aspects of the Ronald Reagan era, in order to give us a better understanding of the period of the marathon.

Table of Contents:
The Ronald Reagan Era: Popular American Culture
The Ronald Reagan Era: Economics and Getting Tough
The Ronald Reagan Era: Nike
The Ronald Reagan Era: Sports Popularity and Drug Usage
The Ronald Reagan Era: American Design & Fashion
Drugs and Society - Beardsley's Problem

From the Paper
"And while nearly 23% of college students are abusers of alcohol and prescription drugs, only 8.5% of the general public (people 12 years of age and older) is dependent on alcohol and/or prescription drugs. The painkillers most popular with students, according to the USA Today piece, are Percocet (which is one of the pills Beardsley was hooked on prior to his rehabilitation), Vicodin and OxyContin. In 1993, about 1 percent of students were using those prescription drugs; but in 2005 that rose to 3.1 percent of students, the article points out."
"The "binge drinking" problem on campuses, while still a serious issue, has not grown in percentages, the article concludes; about 40% of students in 1993 admitted to binge drinking "at least occasionally"; and in 2005, the same percentage admitted to binge drinking, which is described as "having five drinks for male students" and for females, four drinks, at "one drinking occasion" during the previous two weeks."

Tags:Percocet, Reagan, Nike

Abstract
The paper relates that Brian Fawcett's story, "My Career With The Leafs", part of a collection of short tales about hockey in Canada entitled "Our Game" (Doug Beardsley, Ed.), is a different type of hockey story: it doesn't regale the reader with tales of hockey love and fan idolatry, but instead is an ironic glimpse at our perception of professional hockey as it is represented to us by the popular media. The paper discusses how Canadian children (and adults) dream about becoming a professional hockey player, as the media portrays these people as celebrities, God-like and strong, an unrealistic image for people to aspire to but compelling nonetheless.

From the Paper
"The story "My Career with the Leafs" by writer Brian Fawcett is a fictional account of a poet who becomes a hockey player and thereafter experiences brushes with fame and the media. Fawcett's story is interesting and relevant to contemporary Canadian culture, a society based on a passion for hockey at a national level and a media-based consumerist culture based on Western society. Fawcett's tale furthermore says much about hockey players and their status in modern society. Sport stars are revered as Gods: they are idolized by fans, and their images are..."

Tags:hockey, fawcett, society

Abstract
This paper focuses on authorial intent, not as it pertains to judgment or criticism but to the struggle to find meaning and value in works of literature. The essay discusses ideas from "The Intentional Fallacy" by Wimsatt and Beardsley in order to provide a plausibility structure for the concerns that underlie that work. The essay argues the work should be separated from the author, and that the work should have its own ontological status. Further, the essay examines Sartre's phenomenological inquiry into the act of writing to reveal the transactional nature of writing between the author and the reader. Finally, the essay uses Husserl's formulation of the process of sedimentation to show that the introduction of a biological or genetic inquiry into the author of a work potentially "sediments" elements which do not belong intentionally to the text.

From the Paper
"Carlos Fuentes, noted Mexican author of The Death of Artemio Cruz, suggests, "Writing is the struggle against silence." It would be reasonable to contend that the struggle is the author's alone. Yet, the act of writing is irrevocably tied up in the act of reading. Sartre suggests that the question of "Why write" is "tied up with another one...For whom does one write?" The author once she has written-passes the struggle onto the reader. In 1946, W.K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley in their landmark essay, "The Intentional Fallacy," contend that the author's struggle cannot and should not factor into ours, "the design or intention of the author is neither available nor desirable as a standard for judging the success of work of literary art.""

Tags:literary criticism, biographic inquiry, meaning

Abstract
The paper begins with a brief introduction utilizing an old saying. It continues into the construction of gender that Vladimir Nabokov portrays throughout the novel, "Lolita". The paper peers into Humbert's and Quilty's respective constructions initially and later in the novel. This paper was from a postmodernist perspective.

From the Paper
"In the novel Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, Butler's theory of self-construction applies magnificently to the novel's construction of gender. Throughout the novel, masculinity and femininity are constructed, deconstructed, and rebuilt by the actions of the protagonist, Humbert, in order to better facilitate his changing goals and desires. Consequently, one learns that gender's only constant facet is change."

Tags:Beardsley, masculinity

Abstract
This paper explains that American Impressionist Mary Cassatt began using a Japanese motif in works such as "The Fitting," one of a series of ten color prints, which are considered among the landmarks of Japonisme. The author points out that, while most American architects in the early 1900s looked to European architects for ideas, Frank Lloyd Wright found Japanese design and art more inspiring. The paper concludes that now, in the 21st century, Japanese creativity has taken a new approach based on electronic and computerized technology advances combined with art, called animation, or anime in the Japanese language, which is an art form eagerly consumed by the market.

From the Paper
"Van Gogh wrote his sister how Buddhism was also impacting his life. He even shaved his head to look more like Japanese. He deeply studied the works "not to simply comprehend Japan art by copying it, but to dig down to the very roots of Japanese culture to be able to generate original creative impulses of his own from the encounter." American artist Frank Benson painted Impressionist images of table settings that mingled Japanese, Chinese, and American objects. Benson also applied Japanese technical considerations to his paintings. This interest is especially evident in a group of black-watercolor washes that suggest the swiftness and economy of Japanese ink painting."

Tags:van-gogh, beardsley, art-nouveau, disney, fashion