Mobile, Alabama’s Joe Cain Procession

This article investigates the contradictions that characterize Mobile, Alabama’s Joe Cain Day celebration. We look at the official narratives that established Mobile’s Mardi Gras origin myths and the event’s tradition invention in 1967 with a People’s Parade centered around Cain’s redface character, Chief Slacabamorinico. Then we discuss the complicated and ever-evolving symbolism surrounding the character by discussing more recent iterations of this public performance. In its inception, the Joe Cain celebration was a clear example of Lost Cause nostalgia, yet it has been adopted, adapted, and embraced by historically marginalized people who use it as a way to claim their space in the festivities. Employing both historical and ethnographic research, we show that carnival can simultaneously be a space for defiance and reaffirmation of social hierarchies and exclusionary discourses. We discuss here some of the concrete material elements that lend this public performance its white supremacist subtext, but we also want to complicate the definition of “materiality” by claiming a procession as a Confederate monument/memorial.

Super-Human or Sub-Human? Positive Dehumanization and Gender in Public Performance Evaluations

Dehumanizing language, language that compares human beings to animals or machines, is typically thought of in problematic cases, where it is designed to denigrate individuals or entire groups in society. But, this language can also be used to praise—describing an employee as a machine can be done to signify super-human characteristics. We find that positive dehumanizing language has no effect on evaluations of a public employee’s competence, but do have an effect on evaluations of warmth. Contrary to expectations, we find no differences in these effects based on the gender of the employee.

Research note: Lies and presidential debates: How political misinformation spread across media streams during the 2020 election

When U.S. presidential candidates misrepresent the facts, their claims get discussed across media streams, creating a lasting public impression. We show this through a public performance: the 2020 presidential debates. For every five newspaper articles related to the presidential candidates, President Donald J. Trump and Joseph R. Biden Jr., there was one mention of a misinformation-related topic advanced during the debates. Personal attacks on Biden and election integrity were the most prevalent topics across social media, newspapers, and TV. These two topics also surfaced regularly in voters’ recollections of the candidates, suggesting their impression lasted through the presidential election.

Production and Consumption Model of a Modern Music Product

Introduction. The relevance of the study is in the formation of conceptual and terminological apparatus for the functioning of the music industry in Ukraine, the identification of music product producers, determining the specifics of music product and its essence, to develop an effective mechanism for copyright protection of authors and performers (artists) in a crisis of royalty payments formed in Ukraine in 2021. Purpose and methods. The study aims to determine the model of production and consumption of a modern music product given the rapid digitization of such a product in the last decade. The methodological basis of the study is comprehensive, systematic, and historical approaches. Results. A music product is defined in two definitions: first, like a musical composition with lyrics (song) or without lyrics (melody); secondly, “artist” as a music product that is directly involved in creating a track (song), public performance (concert), products with the symbols of their brand (merch) and content for social networks, television, radio, including advertising. Modern manufacturers of the music industry commercialize the artist's brand, his unique story. This strategy ensures rapid monetization of the music project and reduces investment risks. Conclusions. The scientific novelty of the research results is to determine the specifics of the functioning of traditional and modern models of modern music product production and consumption. The practical significance of the obtained results is in the use of the concept of “music product” for the development and improvement of legislation in the field of culture, the functioning of the music industry, and the protection of intellectual property rights, including copyright.

The Evidence Chamber: Playful Science Communication and Research Through Digital Storytelling

In a courtroom, it is essential that the scientific evidence is both understandable and understood, so that the strengths and limitations of that evidence, within the context of a legal case, can inform decision making. The Evidence Chamber brings together entertainment, public engagement with science and research into a public performance activity that is centred around digital storytelling and science communication. This experience engages public audiences with science and allows a better understanding of how people interpret scientific evidence. In this paper, we discuss how we created this experience as an in-person and fully virtual performance through successful collaboration between forensic science research, public audiences, public engagement professionals, the legal profession, and digital performance artists.

Activating Intangible Heritage

<p>Laurajane Smith argues that traditional approaches to heritage tend to conform to ideas of preservation; privileging tangible and physical connections between past and present. This thesis explores heritage as an experience that can be facilitated by, but not limited to these physical remains; proposing an approach in which intangible characteristics are privileged. This alternative approach to heritage employs themes of memory, performance and intangibility in order to establish a means of architectural intervention. Within this multi-sensory approach to heritage, reminiscence is achieved by formalising a historical narrative of space, visually evoking feelings in regard to memory of the site. The site of this investigation is the Fever Hospital in Mount Victoria, Wellington, an abandoned heritage building purpose built as an isolation hospital in 1919. Through multiple architectural interventions, this thesis designs the integration of this neglected, forgotten, and isolated site as a significant element of the city. Historical narrative is engaged as a tool to distil intangible conditions and preserve the sites heritage value that would not otherwise be considered. The method of this architectural investigation uses iterative design and critical reflection to test ideas of form, scale, and program. Throughout these tests light, shadow, material, and narrative are employed as mechanisms to accentuate these less tangible elements. Informed by the history of the site, this investigation explores the programs of a bath-house and public performance space. The result being a mixed-use public space that activates the site as a component within the social context of the city, while embodying a sense of reminiscence to intangible heirtage; experienced through the spatial narrative.</p>

Activating Intangible Heritage

<p>Laurajane Smith argues that traditional approaches to heritage tend to conform to ideas of preservation; privileging tangible and physical connections between past and present. This thesis explores heritage as an experience that can be facilitated by, but not limited to these physical remains; proposing an approach in which intangible characteristics are privileged. This alternative approach to heritage employs themes of memory, performance and intangibility in order to establish a means of architectural intervention. Within this multi-sensory approach to heritage, reminiscence is achieved by formalising a historical narrative of space, visually evoking feelings in regard to memory of the site. The site of this investigation is the Fever Hospital in Mount Victoria, Wellington, an abandoned heritage building purpose built as an isolation hospital in 1919. Through multiple architectural interventions, this thesis designs the integration of this neglected, forgotten, and isolated site as a significant element of the city. Historical narrative is engaged as a tool to distil intangible conditions and preserve the sites heritage value that would not otherwise be considered. The method of this architectural investigation uses iterative design and critical reflection to test ideas of form, scale, and program. Throughout these tests light, shadow, material, and narrative are employed as mechanisms to accentuate these less tangible elements. Informed by the history of the site, this investigation explores the programs of a bath-house and public performance space. The result being a mixed-use public space that activates the site as a component within the social context of the city, while embodying a sense of reminiscence to intangible heirtage; experienced through the spatial narrative.</p>

Tasks in action in Vietnamese EFL high school classrooms: The role of rehearsal and performance in teaching and learning through oral tasks

<p>Task-based language teaching (TBLT) has attracted considerable attention in research on language teaching and learning. Numerous publications have made a case for TBLT and the role of tasks in learning. TBLT has been introduced in language curricula around the world, including English as a foreign language (EFL) curricula in many countries in Asia. Yet research into tasks in action from both teaching and learning perspectives is rare with scant examination of decisions on task design and implementation that teachers make in the classroom and how their pedagogical decisions are linked to student learning and engagement. The present research addresses these gaps. The research was conducted in two phases in a Vietnamese high school where a series of task-based EFL textbooks have been adopted to promote curriculum innovation. Phase 1 was a descriptive study which investigated how the Vietnamese EFL teachers implemented oral textbook tasks through adapting task design and creating classroom activity and how learners engaged in the tasks. The data were collected over two and a half months through classroom observations, stimulated recalls and in-depth interviews with teachers and students. The results revealed that the teachers displayed a strong tendency to adapt or replace the textbook tasks, with specific preferences for open over closed tasks, input-independent over input-dependent tasks and divergent over convergent tasks. They also opted for tasks that are not just 'real world', but 'real' to students. Teacher task choices were found to be guided by their own task experimentation, by clearly articulated beliefs about teaching and learning and by a strong orientation to learner engagement. Decision making by all the teachers reflected a general commitment to a final public performance of the task by groups of students. This public performance was preceded by rehearsal for the performance, involving students doing the task in pairs or groups to prepare for the performance of the task in front of the class. The terms rehearsal and performance were used because they captured the teachers' and students' orientation and intent as observed in the lessons and explained in the interviews. Rehearsal and performance constituted two of four identifiable stages of task implementation used by the teachers: pre-task, rehearsal, performance and post-task. Both the teachers and students valued the notion of performance as a driving force for the use of English and as a social classroom event to engage students in task work. The centrality of public performance in these EFL classrooms, and a lack of empirical evidence about its impact in task-based learning motivated Phase 2 of the thesis. Phase 2 specifically addressed the impact of task design and learner proficiency on the occurrence and resolution of language-related episodes (LREs) (Swain, 1998) in task rehearsal and on the subsequent take-up in the public performance of the language items which were focussed on in LREs. Three proficiency groups (n=8 dyads in each) from six intact classes carried out two tasks: one problem-solving task (a convergent task) and one debate task (a divergent task), with a 15-minute rehearsal for their performance. The first group was composed of dyad members of the same higher proficiency (HH); the second group consisted of mixed proficiency dyads (HL) and the third group was lower proficiency dyads (LL). The total data included 48 rehearsals and 48 corresponding performances collected in normal classroom hours. Students were also interviewed after they had finished all the tasks. The results showed that task design and proficiency affected not only the occurrence and resolution of LREs in task rehearsal but also uptake in the public performance. Specifically, while the problem-solving task induced more LREs, the debate task was more conducive to uptake because the latter task, from the students' perspective, lent itself to performance in ways that the former did not. Overall lower proficiency dyads produced more LREs in rehearsal than higher proficiency dyads. However, it was how LREs were resolved rather than the frequency of LREs that correlated positively with successful uptake in performance. Proficiency also influenced the problem-solving strategies that the learners adopted to prepare for the public performance. Taken as a whole, this thesis suggests that teacher thinking plays an essential role in transforming tasks in classrooms, and that building in performance to tasks and rehearsal for that performance may contribute to language learning and development. The research has useful implications for task design and implementation, as well as for theory and research methodology.</p>