Performing Epic and Reading Homer

2018 ◽  
pp. 16-30
Author(s):  
Barbara Graziosi
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Performance Studies ◽  
Performing Arts ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Definition Of

There are two long-recognized obstacles to dramatic performances of epic. The first is scale and the second is portrayal of the gods. This chapter argues that both these features have been important for the definition of what literature is—i.e. what is characteristic of literature as opposed to the performing arts. The first section of the chapter offers a close reading of Aristotle, because he identified scale and the gods as issues that differentiate epic from tragedy, and because his Poetics was foundational for the later development of both literary criticism and performance studies. The second section of this chapter discusses the place of Homer in relation to both literature and the performing arts—by focusing again on scale and the gods, and the history of their reception. The final section considers Simon Armitage’s versions of the Iliad and the Odyssey for the theatre and for BBC Radio.

scholarly journals Cultural History, Ritual and Performance: George L. Mosse in Context

2021 ◽  
pp. 002200942094003
Author(s):  
Peter Burke
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Performance Studies ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
History Of ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries ◽  
Modern Europe ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Cultural Turn

George L. Mosse took a ‘cultural turn’ in the latter part of his career, but still early enough to make a pioneering contribution to the study of political culture and in particular what he called political ‘liturgy’, including marches, processions, and practices of commemoration. He adapted to the study of nationalism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the approach to the history of ritual developed by historians of medieval and early modern Europe, among them his friend Ernst Kantorowicz. More recently, the concept of ritual, whether religious or secular, has been criticized by some cultural historians on the grounds that it implies a fixed ‘script’ in situations that were actually marked by fluidity and improvisation. In this respect cultural historians have been part of a wider trend that includes sociologists and anthropologists as well as theatre scholars and has been institutionalized as Performance Studies. Some recent studies of contemporary nationalism in Tanzania, Venezuela and elsewhere have adopted this perspective, emphasizing that the same performance may have different meanings for different sections of the audience. It is only to be regretted that Mosse did not live long enough to respond to these studies and that their authors seem unaware of his work.

The Oxford Handbook of Quintilian

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Performing Arts ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
The United States ◽  
Educational Programme ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Visual And Performing Arts ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
History Of

M. Fabius Quintilianus was a prominent orator, declaimer, and teacher of eloquence in the first century ce. After his retirement he wrote the Institutio oratoria, a unique treatise in Antiquity because it is a handbook of rhetoric and an educational treatise in one. Quintilian’s fame and influence are not only based on the Institutio, but also on the two collections of Declamations which were attributed to him in late Antiquity. The Oxford Handbook of Quintilian aims to present Quintilian’s Institutio as a key treatise in the history of Graeco-Roman rhetoric and its influence on the theory and practice of rhetoric and education, from late Antiquity until the present day. It contains chapters on Quintilian’s educational programme, his concepts and classifications of rhetoric, his discussion of the five canons of rhetoric, his style, his views on literary criticism, declamation, and the relationship between rhetoric and law, and the importance of the visual and performing arts in his work. His huge legacy is presented in successive chapters devoted to Quintilian in late Antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Italian Renaissance, Northern Europe during the Renaissance, Europe from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Century, and the United States of America. There are also chapters devoted to the biographical tradition, the history of printed editions, and modern assessments of Quintilian. The twenty-one authors of the chapters represent a wide range of expertise and scholarly traditions and thus offer a unique mixture of current approaches to Quintilian from a multidisciplinary perspective.

Masked Interaction: The Case for an Enactive View of Commedia dell’Arte (and the Italian Renaissance)

2019 ◽  
pp. 153-170
Author(s):  
Jan Söffner
Keyword(s):  
Performance Studies ◽  
Performing Arts ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Cultural Analysis ◽  
Italian Renaissance ◽  
Commedia Dell'arte ◽  
Renaissance Humanism ◽  
Renaissance Studies ◽  
And Performance

This chapter presents a case study for the use of enactivist phenomenology as a paradigm for Cultural Analysis and Renaissance Studies. It begins by describing a mask used in commedia dell’arte, first as a simple object and then as embedded in an acting praxis. The focus then turns to Renaissance cultures of the performing arts, fiction, and the constitution of subjectivity. Finally, the chapter considers what the mask has to say about sixteenth-century Italy, comparing the outcomes of this analysis with those of more conventional approaches, which are mostly focused on Renaissance humanism. The line of argumentation follows a bottom-up methodology based on enactivist assumptions. By the end the chapter will render the adopted approach theoretically explicit and offer closing remarks about the use of enactivist phenomenology for cultural analysis, by comparing it with neighbouring theories and methods in Cultural Studies (especially Praxeology, Actor-Network-Theory, studies on Material Cultures, and Performance Studies).

scholarly journals Introduction

2019 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 291-295
Author(s):  
SEDA ILTER
Keyword(s):  
Performing Arts ◽  
Artistic Expression ◽  
Recent History ◽  
Political Environment ◽  
Contemporary Theatre ◽  
Performance Culture ◽  
Complex Picture ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Performance

The sociopolitical turbulence in the recent history of Turkey has radically affected the theatre and performance scene. In a climate of fear and repression, performing arts have been fighting for survival and developing ways to endure the dark times, to achieve freedom of artistic expression and open platforms for critical communication. This collection of articles considers contemporary theatre and performance in Turkey, reflecting on some of the complex issues that practitioners, academics and institutions have faced in the current political environment. Each author presents a part of the complex picture of theatre and performance culture in Turkey, and hopes to start a conversation about this oppressed, yet fertile, artistic landscape.

Making Knowledge/Playing Culture

2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 83-101
Author(s):  
Antje Budde ◽  
Sebastian Samur
Keyword(s):  
Experiential Learning ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Performance Studies ◽  
Performing Arts ◽  
Undergraduate Research ◽  
Theoretical Background ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
University Of Toronto ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The University

(A project of the Digital Dramaturgy Lab at the Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies, University of Toronto) This article discusses the 2017 festival-based undergraduate course, “Theatre Criticism and Festival Dramaturgy in the Digital Age in the Context of Globalization—A Cultural-Comparative Approach” as a platform for experiential learning. The course, hosted by the University of Toronto’s Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies, and based on principles of our Digital Dramaturgy Lab, invited a small group of undergraduate students to critically investigate two festivals—the Toronto Fringe Festival and the Festival d’Avignon—in order to engage as festival observers in criticism and analysis of both individual performances and festival programming/event dramaturgy. We argue that site-specific modes of experiential learning employed in such a project can contribute in meaningful ways to, and expand, current discourses on festivalising/festivalization and eventification through undergraduate research. We focus on three modes of experiential learning: nomadic learning (learning on the move, digital mobility), embodied knowledge (learning through participation, experience, and feeling), and critical making (learning through a combination of critical thinking and physical making). The article begins with a brief practical and theoretical background to the course. It then examines historical conceptions of experiential learning in the performing arts, including theoriesadvanced by Burnet Hobgood, David Kolb and Ronald Fry, and Nancy Kindelan. The importance of the festival site is then discussed, followed by an examination of how the festivals supported thethree modes of experiential learning. Samples of student works are used to support this analysis.

Pop Culture/Visual Culture

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Wanzo
Keyword(s):  
Visual Culture ◽  
Performance Studies ◽  
Art History ◽  
Film Studies ◽  
Pop Culture ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
The Gaze ◽  
Feminist Study ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Performance

Feminist scholars in fields as varied as art history, film studies, cultural studies, literary studies, sociology, communications, and performance studies have made important contributions to discussions about representations of gender and sexuality in everyday life. This chapter examines themes and issues in the feminist study of popular culture and visual culture, including: the history of sexist representation; the gendered nature of the “gaze” and the instability of that concept; the question of whether or not representation has effects; the anxieties surrounding consumption of “women’s texts”; and the challenges in deciphering women’s agency and authorship given constraints produced by institutions and ideology.

scholarly journals “The point is to change it”: The Imperative for Activist Literary Studies

2020 ◽  
pp. 17
Author(s):  
Christian Smith
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Continental Philosophy ◽  
The State ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

The task undertaken in this paper is to discover a means by which the practice of literary criticism can derive an imperative for activism that confronts and changes the social conditions it critiques. The case of Karl Marx’s use of world literature in his critique of capitalism and the state, set within the history of the development of continental philosophy, is explored through a close-reading of its interterxtuality. Particular attention is paid to Marx’s use of quotations from and allusions to world literature, including Homer, Sophocles, Virgil, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Goethe and Heine, to register the harmful inversions caused by an economy based on money and commodities. If literature registers the contradictions of its time in its form and content, then the urge to resolve those contradictions sits restless in literature. When Marx inserts literature into his theoretical texts, he transfers into his text the impulse of the contradiction to resolve itself. Similarly, literary criticism is well-placed to unfold clear, obvious and necessary logic which leads to activism.

A Clinical Trial of Warfarin in Cancer (Ca)

1979 ◽  
Author(s):  
L.R. Zacharski
Keyword(s):  
Performance Status ◽  
Preliminary Evidence ◽  
Bleeding Complications ◽  
X Rays ◽  
Patient Screening ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Physician Extenders ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
To Receive

A 5-year study of the effect of warfarin on the natural history of human ca is in progress. The basis for this study is: the occurrence of clots at ca sites, uptake of tagged fibrinogen or anti-fibrinogen antibody into ca, occurrence of localized and disseminated intravascular coaqulation with ca, evidence from experimental ca systems of involvement of the clotting mechanism in the growth and spread of ca, and preliminary evidence of such involvement in man. Patients with either limited or extensive ca of the lung or large bowel, advanced prostatic ca or recurrent head and neck ca are randomized by hospital and performance status within 1 of 9 different strata to receive standard therapy with or without warfarin. Study design includes : 11 definition of exclusion criteria, 2) comparison of included vs. excluded patients, 3) classification and recording of bleeding complications, 4) serial tests for intravascular coagulation, 5) blinded reading of x-rays and scans used to follow tumor responses and, 6) use of physician extenders for patient screening and data collection. Patients are evaluable only if on-study at least 2 weeks. Response criteria include survival, tumor resDonse, changes in laboratory tests, causes of death and autopsy findings. Supported by the VA Cooperative Studies Program (CSPS75) of the VA Medical Research Service.

The Dancing Body on the Line

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Victoria Fortuna
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Performance Studies ◽  
Buenos Aires ◽  
Federal Funding ◽  
The United States ◽  
Transnational History ◽  
Contemporary Dance ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Line P

The introduction first considers the movement for a National Dance Law (2008–), which aims to establish infrastructure and federal funding for all genres of dance in Buenos Aires and throughout the Argentine provinces. It introduces the book’s central concept of “moving otherwise,” outlining the kinds of political engagement it encompasses, as well as how it dialogues with conversations in dance and performance studies. It then explains how the category of “contemporary” dance functions in the text, and argues for an approach to contemporary dance history that decenters the United States and Europe as the original sites and ongoing loci of production. Additionally, it offers a brief overview of the transnational history of modern and contemporary dance in Buenos Aires through examination of the work of Miriam Winslow; Susana Tambutti; and Luciana Acuña and Alejo Moguillansky. Finally, it details the archival, ethnographic, and embodied research methodologies that Moving Otherwise employs.

“Defining the Performing Artist”: How a Health Psychology Course Integrates into University Performing Arts Training

2000 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 148-154
Author(s):  
David J Popalisky ◽  
Marie G Herbert
Keyword(s):  
Young Adulthood ◽  
Performing Arts ◽  
Health Needs ◽  
Preliminary Assessment ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Psychology Course ◽  
Performing Artist ◽  
Primary Instrument

University dance and theatre students are at risk for a range of eating disorders because their bodies are their primary instrument of focus and performance and because of the developmental challenges of young adulthood. The head of the dance program and a psychologist from the same private university’s counseling center collaborated to create a course to address the psychological and physical health needs of this group of students. The history of the development of the course is presented, followed by a discussion of its content, preliminary assessment of its effectiveness, and future directions.

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