Author: John Wyver File Type: pdf No theatre company has been involved in such a broad range of adaptations for television and cinema as the Royal Shakespeare Company. Starting with Richard III filmed in the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre before World War One, the RSCs accomplishments continue today with highly successful live cinema broadcasts. The Wars of the Roses (BBC, 1965), Peter Brooks film of King Lear (1971), Channel 4s epic version of Nicholas Nickleby (1982) and Hamlet with David Tennant (BBC, 2009) are among their most iconic adaptations. Many other RSC productions live on as extracts in documentaries, as archival recordings, in trailers and in other fragmentary forms.Screening the Royal Shakespeare Company explores this remarkable history of collaborations between stage and screen and considers key questions about adaptation that concern all those involved in theatre, film and television. John Wyver is a broadcasting historian and the producer of RSC Live from Stratford-upon-Avon, and is uniquely well-placed to provide a vivid account of the companys television and film productions. He contributes an award-winning practitioners insight into screen adaptations numerous challenges and rich potential.

Author: Lani Guinier File Type: epub A fresh and bold argument for revamping our standards of merit and a clear blueprint for creating collaborative education models that strengthen our democracy rather than privileging individual elitesbr br Standing on the foundations of Americas promise of equal opportunity, our universities purport to serve as engines of social mobility and practitioners of democracy. But as acclaimed scholar and pioneering civil rights advocate Lani Guinier argues, the merit systems that dictate the admissions practices of these institutions are functioning to select and privilege elite individuals rather than create learning communities geared to advance democratic societies. Having studied and taught at schools such as Harvard University, Yale Law School, and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, Guinier has spent years examining the experiences of ethnic minorities and of women at the nations top institutions of higher education, and here she lays bare the practices that impede the stated missions of these schools. Goaded on by a contemporary culture that establishes value through ranking and sorting, universities assess applicants using the vocabulary of private, highly individualized merit. As a result of private merit standards and ever-increasing tuitions, our colleges and universities increasingly are failing in their mission to provide educational opportunity and to prepare students for productive and engaged citizenship. To reclaim higher education as a cornerstone of democracy, Guinier argues that institutions of higher learning must focus on admitting and educating a class of students who will be critical thinkers, active citizens, and publicly spirited leaders. Guinier presents a plan for considering democratic merit, a system that measures the success of higher education not by the personal qualities of the students who enter but by the work and service performed by the graduates who leave. Guinier goes on to offer vivid examples of communities that have developed effective learning strategies based not on an individuals merit but on the collaborative strength of a group, learning and working together, supporting members, and evolving into powerful collectives. Examples are taken from across the country and include a wide range of approaches, each innovative and effective. Guinier argues for reformation, not only of the very premises of admissions practices but of the shape of higher education itself. From the Hardcover edition.ReviewDrawing on academic research and anecdotal evidence, the book makes a strong pedagogical case. Kirkus Reviews This little book is an answer to the big question Why is our so-called meritocracy so blatantly unfair? With characteristic brilliance and insight, Lani Guinier not only answers the big question but points the way toward a more just and inclusive conception of education in a democratic society. Her transformative vision offers a hopeful alternative to our modern testocracy, which values standardized test scores (which measure little more than access to privilege), over the values and qualities that will contribute to a genuinely thriving, collaborative democracy. Tyranny of the Meritocracy is a must-read for all those who have guessed, but could not prove, that our hyper-competitive approach to higher educationwhich rewards those with the most wealth and privilege and blames the rest for their plightnot only makes a mockery of the term meritocracy but endangers our democracy. Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow A visitor from Mars might wonder whyin assigning opportunity to individuals and status to higher education institutionswe rely so heavily on a highly imperfect operationalization of meritthe standardized testor at least why there is so little debate about this practice. In this compelling, beautifully written book, Lani Guinier, one of our nations greatest legal minds, launches this debate anew. Here! Here!Claude Steele, author of Whistling Vivaldi coauthor of Young, Gifted, and Black Lani Guinier has written a new book that digs deep into the issue of meritocracy . . . a very powerful report on how we are to look at meritocracy and think about it in the 21st century. This book has something for every generation students, professors, and business leaders. I recommend it with great enthusiasm. Read it and learn, but also be one who looks very carefully at the issue of meritocracy and what it means today.Charles J. Ogletree, Jr., author of The Presumption of Guilt and All Deliberate Speed What I know is this we used to advertise for errand boys of good German descentand we no longer do. We dont because we now know that merit lies not in ethnic descent but in other placesin the ideas we have, in the work we do. It is quite clear than in another 50 years, todays systems of judging merit will seem to a new generation to be similar to our view of asking for a good German boy. Lani Guinier, Americas leading civil rights theorist, makes us question the notion of merit today so that we may achieve our own aspirations of an enlightened citizenry.Mahzarin R. Banaji, co-author of Blind Spot Hidden Biases of Good PeopleAbout the AuthorIn 1998, Lani Guinier became the first woman of color appointed to a tenured professorship at Harvard Law School. Before her Harvard appointment, she was a tenured professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Guinier has published many books, including The Tyranny of the Majority, Becoming Gentlemen, Lift Every Voice, and The Miners Canary. In 1993 President Clinton nominated her to be the first black woman to head the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, which set off a firestorm of controversy. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.