This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 26 titles deal with a variety of topics including the following: (1) multicultural representation in children's books, (2) moral education through literature, (3) the effect of death awareness on the protagonists of selected adolescent novels, (4) the image of the family in adolescent literature, (5) the semiotic model and its use in the analysis of literary texts, (6) Kenneth Burke's dramatistic theory of literature and language, (7) a fantasy theme analysis of Harlequin Romances, (8) feminist literary criticism, (9) a values-centered approach to the teaching of literature on the college level, (10) the development of a system of value analysis of literary texts, (11) the Canadian short story database, (12) children's and teachers' concepts of a story, (13) narrators and narrative contexts in fiction, (14) an approach to teaching inference-making to junior high school students, and (15) a comparison of the attitudes and achievements of 11th and 12th grade students taught literature through the vocal-auditory and the written-analytic modalities. (HTH)