Loose Coordinations: Theater and Thinking in Gertrude Stein

2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 447-467 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Frank
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Group Dynamics ◽  
William James ◽  
Gertrude Stein ◽  
Wilfred Bion ◽  
New Knowledge

ArgumentThis essay offers a reading of Gertrude Stein's lecture “Plays” (1934) alongside the work of several thinkers on emotion, William James, Silvan Tomkins, and Wilfred Bion. The problem of what Stein calls “emotional syncopation” at the theater is understood in the context of James’ theory of emotion. The essay proceeds to unfold Stein's emphasis on varieties of excitement by way of Silvan Tomkins’ writing. It then turns to Wilfred Bion's theory of thinking to argue that the main problem with theater, for Stein, is the difficulty it poses to learning or arriving at genuinely new knowledge. The essay concludes with the suggestion that Stein's plays address the further difficulties of analyzing group dynamics or numbers of individuals, especially in the context of modernist mass media.

Wilfred Bion's Letters to John Rickman (1939–1951)Introduction

2012 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dimitris Vonofakos ◽  
Bob Hinshelwood
Keyword(s):  
Group Dynamics ◽  
Group Work ◽  
Military Hospital ◽  
Profound Influence ◽  
Wilfred Bion ◽  
The Social ◽  
Analytical Work ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Post War ◽  
First Time

This is a collection of 29 letters, 27 from Wilfred Bion to John Rickman, one addressed to Mrs Rickman and one from Rickman to Bion. These letters have been fully transcribed, annotated and published for the first time and offer a rare glimpse into the blossoming relationship between the two men and the gradual emergence of Bion's intellect through his work in War Office Selection Boards (WOSBs), the Northfield Military hospital and the exploratory groups at the Tavistock Clinic.Through this material it becomes evident that Bion's fascination with the work undertaken at WOSBs had more to do with the social ramifications of the principles and ideology applied there rather than with particular techniques per se, such as ‘leaderless groups’. Furthermore, the reader becomes witness to Rickman's profound influence on Bion's analytic work and in cultivating his interest in therapeutic institutions, ultimately leading to their groundbreaking work at Northfield Military hospital. While Bion's descriptions of his post-war group work at the Tavistock Clinic offer the first signs of his unique theory and technique on the exploration of group dynamics. The continuation of their correspondence until Rickman's untimely death is a testament to their strong collegial and personal relationship which transcended analytical work and other professional engagements.

scholarly journals Direct and Indirect Effect between the Antecedent Characteristics of Women Self-help Groups of Gujarat and their Group Dynamics

2020 ◽  
pp. 38-42
Author(s):  
N. D. Chethan Patil ◽  
J. K. Patel ◽  
Naveen Kumar Gattupalli ◽  
Rahul Dundesh Bellagi ◽  
G. Manunayaka
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Path Analysis ◽  
Direct Effect ◽  
Group Dynamics ◽  
Indirect Effect ◽  
Media Exposure ◽  
Economic Motivation ◽  
Self Help ◽  
Self Help Groups ◽  
Mass Media Exposure

Self-help groups are informal associations of people who choose to come together to find ways to improve their living conditions. This paper presents the results of a study conducted in Ahmedabad district of Gujarat, India during the year 2018-19 to determine the direct and indirect effect between the members of women self-help groups and group dynamics effectiveness. The Direct and Indirect effect of antecedent characteristics of women Self-help groups and their group dynamics effectiveness was calculated with the help of path analysis. The path analysis of group dynamics effectiveness revealed that attitude towards SHG, annual income and market facility had exerted a positive and direct effect on group dynamics, while, mass media exposure, age and education had exerted maximum negative direct effect. Whereas economic motivation, social participation and market facility exerted maximum positive indirect effect and age, farm size and mass media exposure exerted an indirect negative effect. Attitude towards SHGs and economic motivation routed maximum times in the maximum substantial indirect effect.

scholarly journals Pembuatan lilin aroma terapi menggunakan sarang lebah dan ekstrak lemon di Kelurahan Sungai Pagar Kecamatan Kampar Kiri Kabupaten Kampar

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 355-361
Author(s):  
Silvia Reni Yenti ◽  
Ahmad Fadli ◽  
Zultiniar Zultiniar ◽  
Sunarno Sunarno
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Community Service ◽  
Positive Response ◽  
National Development ◽  
Appropriate Technology ◽  
Community Work ◽  
Work Program ◽  
New Knowledge ◽  
Service Activities ◽  
Journal Publications

Village development is one of the national development interests in which universities contribute to the implementation of the Community Work Program (KUKERTA) in the form of Community Service in a designated area. Kampar is one of the areas that has the biggest honey sialang potential in Riau Province, one of which is Sungai Pagar sub-district, Kampar Kiri Hilir sub-district. Honey honeycomb processing that is not processed optimally can provide the latest innovation, namely the making of aromatherapy candles by using honeycomb and lemon extract. This dedication activity aims to provide new knowledge expertise to the community of Sungai Pagar sub-district as one form of efforts in increasing national development. A series of activities include counseling or outreach, training in aromatherapy candle making, packaging and marketing. This activity gave a positive response from the Sungai Pagar community by forming a collaboration between the KUKERTA Community Service Team and Imbo Kaluang UKM. The outputs generated from these community service activities are aromatherapy candle products, Appropriate Technology Book (TPG), mass media publications (print and online) and journal publications.

Psychophysics to Literary Experiments: Gertrude Stein and Neural Composition

2021 ◽  
pp. 156-192
Author(s):  
Randall Knoper
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
William James ◽  
Gertrude Stein ◽  
Psychology Laboratory ◽  
Industrial Efficiency ◽  
Automatic Writing ◽  
Reflex Arc ◽  
The Creation

The last chapter returns to automatisms and the concept of the reflex arc as they were investigated and rethought in Gertrude Stein’s early writings. Critics frequently analyze Stein’s work by reference to William James, one of her teachers at Harvard. Only a few think it important that Hugo Münsterberg, the German physiological psychologist, supervised most of her work in the Harvard psychology laboratory. I argue that Stein sided with Münsterberg against James’s interest in split personalities and his belief that they explained automatic writing. Stein conducted an experiment to discount such ideas, and in the process she discovered her process of allowing automatism to foster invention in composition. But, eventually recoiling from Münsterberg’s aim to exploit unconscious physiological automatisms for industrial efficiency and social order, Stein later experiments in Tender Buttons with ways to escape such determined responses in the creation of meaning.

scholarly journals Gertrude Stein and the Metaphysical Avant-Garde

Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 152
Author(s):  
Dana Tanner-Kennedy
Keyword(s):  
William James ◽  
Gertrude Stein ◽  
Experimental Theater ◽  
Alternative Healing ◽  
Wooster Group ◽  
American Theater ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Metaphysical Religion

When American metaphysical religion appears onstage, it most often manifests in the subject matter and dramaturgies of experimental theater. In the artistic ferment of the 1960s and 1970s counterculture, theater-makers looked both to alternative dramaturgies and alternative religions to create radical works of political, social, and spiritual transformation. While the ritual experiments of European avant-garde artists like Artaud and Grotowski informed their work, American theater-makers also found inspiration in the dramas of Gertrude Stein, and many of these companies (the Living Theatre and the Wooster Group, most notably) either staged her work or claimed a direct influence (like Richard Foreman). Stein herself, though not a practitioner of metaphysical religion, spent formative years in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at Radcliffe under the tutelage of William James. Cambridge, at the turn of the twentieth century, was a hotbed of spiritualism, theosophy, alternative healing modalities, and James, in addition to running the psychology lab in which Stein studied, ran a multitude of investigations on extrasensory and paranormal phenomena. This article traces a web of associations connecting Ralph Waldo Emerson, Transcendentalism, and liberal Protestantism to Gertrude Stein and landscape dramaturgy to the midcentury avant-garde, the countercultural religious seeking of the 1960s and 1970s, and the Off-Off-Broadway movement.

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