A Bibliography Representing Clark Atlanta University Faculty Publications, 2013

On February 28, 2006, the Robert W. Woodruff Library and the Library Advisory Council hosted an exhibit and reception celebrating the published works of Atlanta University Center faculty. As a complement to that event, the Robert W. Woodruff Library presents this publication, Atlanta University Center Faculty Publications: A Brief Bibliography, which highlights selected scholarly and research contributions of the Atlanta University Center faculty. The celebration has become an annual event and the bibliography illustrates the richness of faculty contributions within each institution and across the Atlanta University Center community. It should be viewed as a fluid document to be updated as new contributions emerge and will be preserved on the Librarys website for future reference and use

Moving Ourselves, Moving Others

The close relationship between motion (bodily movement) and emotion (feelings) is not an etymological coincidence. While moving ourselves, we move others; in observing others move – we are moved ourselves. The fundamentally interpersonal nature of mind and language has recently received due attention, but the key role of (e)motion in this context has remained something of a blind spot. The present book rectifies this gap by gathering contributions from leading philosophers, psychologists and linguists working in the area. Framed by an introducing prologue and a summarizing epilogue the volume elaborates a dynamical, active view of emotion, along with an affect-laden view of motion – and explores their significance for consciousness, intersubjectivity, and language. As such, it contributes to the emerging interdisciplinary field of mind science, transcending hitherto dominant computationalist and cognitivist approaches

Accessible theatre: the application of human ethology and innate neurobiological systems to full-masked devised theatre practice

This thesis is concerned with the challenges of devising a full-masked theatre performance that is largely accessible to audiences of every age, social background and culture. The contribution to original knowledge is in the study's examination of the relationship between the devising processes of a full-masked performance, neurobiology, human ethology and the accessibility of audience reception (Bennett, 1994). The thesis addresses the concept of accessibility by taking a phenomenological approach to devising and audience reception, with particular focus on the role of neurobiological systems and structures, in particular the mirror neuron system, the pleasure-reward system, and pattern recognition systems, in the communication and reception of performance meaning (McConachie, 2008). The research is framed by the concept of a universal theatrical language proposed by practitioners Peter Brook and Tadeshi Suzuki, which has the potential to connect people at the deepest levels of their humanity (Pavis, 1996: 6). Practical approaches adopted in the research are informed and supported by anthropological and human ethological claims of universality (Ekman, 1975; Brown, 1991; Eibl-Eibesfeldt; 2007 [1989]; Schmitt et al. 1997). This thesis theorizes that human beings possess innate neurobiological systems that interact with culturally specific concepts, conditions and knowledge in such a way that when deployed appropriately, these innate neurobiological systems can be a platform for human cognition and for the designing of performances accessible to an audience of different ages, social backgrounds and cultures. It also proposes that innate neurobiological systems create a universal framework that makes it possible for the said broad-based audience to read and receive a performance using similar codes of cognition and aesthetic reference irrespective of age, social and cultural backgrounds. The research process led to the creation of an original full-masked theatrical performance and eighteen performances of this piece were given to different audiences in a range of venues and locations in Northamptonshire. Qualitative and quantitative data analysis of how the various audiences received the performance suggest that the devising methods employed did contribute to making the performance accessible to an audience with a broader constituency than theaters normally envision (Pitts-Walker, 1994: 9-10). This research enables practitioners for whom a wide audience and accessibility are an explicit focus to adopt devising approaches that will help to achieve the desired wide-ranging reception and accessibility in mixed audiences irrespective of race, age, gender and culture

Accessible theatre: the application of human ethology and innate neurobiological systems to full-masked devised theatre practice

This thesis is concerned with the challenges of devising a full-masked theatre performance that is largely accessible to audiences of every age, social background and culture. The study is original and contributes to knowledge in two distinct ways; it is to this researcher’s knowledge the only such research that examines the relationship between the devising processes of a full-masked performance, neurobiology, human ethology and the accessibility of audience reception (Bennett, 1994). Secondly, this is the first study to investigate how universal innate neurological processes can be used in the making and reception of stage performance to help ensure wide accessibility of information and meaning. The thesis addresses the concept of accessibility by taking a phenomenological approach to devising and audience reception, with particular focus on the role of neurobiological systems and structures, in particular the mirror neuron system, the pleasure-reward system, and pattern recognition systems, in the communication and reception of performance meaning (McConachie, 2008). The research is framed by the concept of a universal theatrical language proposed by practitioners Peter Brook and Tadeshi Suzuki, which has the potential to connect people ‘at the deepest levels of their humanity’ (Pavis, 1996: 6). Practical approaches adopted in the research are informed and supported by anthropological and human ethological claims of universality (Ekman, 1975; Brown, 1991; Eibl-Eibesfeldt; 2007 [1989]; Schmitt et al. 1997). This thesis theorizes that human beings possess innate neurobiological systems that interact with culturally specific concepts, conditions and knowledge in such a way that when deployed appropriately, these innate neurobiological systems can be a platform for human cognition and for the designing of performances accessible to an audience of different ages, social backgrounds and cultures. It also proposes that innate neurobiological systems create a universal framework that makes it possible for the said broad-based audience to read and receive a performance using similar codes of cognition and aesthetic reference irrespective of age, social and cultural backgrounds. The research process led to the creation of an original full-masked theatrical performance and eighteen performances of this piece were given to different audiences in a range of venues and locations in Northamptonshire. Qualitative and quantitative data analysis of how the various audiences received the performance suggest that the devising methods employed did contribute to making the performance accessible to an audience with a ‘broader constituency than theaters normally envision’ (Pitts-Walker, 1994: 9-10). This research enables practitioners for whom a wide audience and accessibility are an explicit focus to adopt devising approaches that will help to achieve the desired wide-ranging reception and accessibility in mixed audiences irrespective of race, age, gender and culture

Embodying English Language: Jacques Lecoq and the Neutral Mask

My study explores the process of settlement for Newcomer-to-Canada youth (NTCY) who are engaged in English-language learning (ELL) of mainstream education. I propose the inclusion of a modified physical theatre technique to ELL curricula to demonstrate how a body-based supplemental to learning can assist in improving students’ language acquisition and proficiency. This recognizes the embodied aspect of students’ settlement and integration as a necessary first-step in meaning making processes of traditional language-learning practices. Foundational to this thesis is an exploration of the Neutral Mask (NM), an actors training tool developed by French physical theatre pedagogue Jacques Lecoq. A student of Lecoq (1990-1992), I understand NM as a transformative learning experience; it shapes the autoethnographic narrative of this study. My research considers the relationship between the body and verbal speech in English-language learning, as mediated by the mask. An acting tool at the heart of Lecoq’s School, the mask values the non-verbal communication of the body and its relationship to verbal speech. My study explains how the mask, by its design, can reach diverse learning needs to offer newcomer students a sense of agency in their language learning process. I further demonstrate how through discussion of an experimental applied practice field study. One of the overarching questions of this research is whether the ELL experience enhances or hinders newcomer youth in their settlement integration. Through the critical lenses of phenomenology and embodiment, I suggest reshaping the language-learning classroom into a pedagogical space that better fosters newcomer youths’ bodies-of-cultural origin as they begin to distance from their heritage language. Preparing to make Canada their home, newcomer youth can be provided with a learning space for the exploration of the body before the language – for the learning

The Literature of Bio-Political Panic: European Imperialism, Nervous Conditions and Masculinities from 1900 to 9/11

This thesis examines selected literary representations of personal and political panic in the period 1899-2005, with a particular focus on the way in which literary languages are able to mediate issues around embodied experience. The main emphasis of this thesis is to demonstrate how nervous conditions, informing embodied phenomenological experience and existentialist insights, can be politically subversive in their un-learning of interpellated knowledge. In its opening section, this work studies a novel published in 1899 that depicts contemporary fears about nervous degeneration and offers an interrogation of the ideology of masculinity corresponding to the expansionist era of European imperialism. The trauma of First World War shell-shock and the nervous anxiety of colonial ‘white’ masculinist performance feature in the second and third sections respectively. These study literary texts that juxtapose masculinity crisis with the politics of identity and the articulation of the related problematic of agency. The final section studies a novel that depicts neo-Darwinism and genetic determinism in an age of political terrorism and counter-terrorism post-9/11 and before the 2003 Iraq War. It investigates the novel’s suggestion that bio-political reifications may be resisted by the exercise of emotional empathy and existentialist ambivalence. The thesis as a whole explores how masculinity and existentialist crisis can produce emotional and epistemic interruptions in ideologies that inform normative bodily and social behaviour. In order to offer deeper analyses of nervous conditions and cultural cognition, this work attempts to incorporate various tenets and experimental findings of modern neuroscience with ideas and theories from philosophy of mind. Through a study of selected literary texts, the thesis is offered as a small contribution to the understanding of the nature of human agency, empathy and identity in the changing political world of the last and the current century

Lingering 'on the borderland': the meanings of home in Elizabeth Gaskell's fiction

This thesis explores the meanings of home in Elizabeth Gaskell’s fiction. I argue that there are five components to Gaskell’s fictional iteration of homes, each of which is explored in the chapters of this thesis. I analyse the ways in which Gaskell challenges the nineteenth-century cultural construct of the home as a domestic sanctuary offering protection from the strains and stresses of the external world. Gaskell’s fictional homes frequently fail to provide a place of safety. Even the architecture militates against a sense of peace and privacy. Doors and windows are ambiguous openings through which death can enter, and are potent signifiers of entrapment as well as protective barriers. The underlying fragility of Gaskell’s concept of home is illustrated by her narratives of homelessness, which for her, is better defined as a psychological, social and emotional separation rather than the literal lack of shelter. Education takes place within the home and is grounded in Gaskell’s Unitarian beliefs and associationist psychology. Gaskell creates challenging paradigms for domestic relationships in her fictional portrayals of feminized men and servants. Her detailed descriptions of domestic interiors provide nuanced and unconventional interpretations of character and behaviour. I draw on Gaskell’s letters, her non-fiction writing and a range of other contemporary documents for insights into her fictional presentations of home. This methodology provides a creative, holistic interpretative framework within which Gaskell’s achievement can be more adequately measured. I argue that Gaskell’s own experience of home was that of an outsider lingering on the borderland, and her concept of home was therefore unstable, fluid and unconventional. The tensions she experienced in her personal life found their way into her fiction, where her portrayal of home is multifaceted and complex

The interactionist approach to virtue

In this dissertation, I took sides with virtue ethicists and argued that virtue is possible despite the mounting empirical evidence of how situational features impact human behavior. The main innovation I bring into the character debate is the idea that humans are creatures with various species-specific and socio-cultural constraints, and that this dimension should be integrated into theorizing about virtue. To do this, I extended and refined the concept of human limitations, to encompass not only natural disasters, as Aristotle did it, but also contain psychological and socio-cultural elements that impose limits to the way we see the social world and navigate it. Respectively, so was my argument, the idea of virtue should be refined as well, as an aspiration of creatures like us, and not those of heroes with a divine power or even half-gods. In a nutshell, I proposed to rethink three core concepts: moral failure, human limitations, and moral virtues

T.S. Eliot : a bibliography of T.S. Eliot criticism, 1987-2013.

This bibliography of scholarship related to the writer T.S. Eliot is arranged chronologically by year and alphabetically within each year. This bibliography contains 1624 entries. Select entries have been annotated. Where available, annotations have been taken from the research database and are enclosed in brackets ([ ]). Annotations that have been taken from the works themselves are enclosed by asterisks. Annotations written by the author of this thesis have no special characters to distinguish them from other annotations. An annotated bibliography of Eliot criticism is essential to keep up with the recent resurgence in Eliot studies. The last bibliography published regarding Eliot's works was Sebastian Knowles and Scott A. Leonard's T.S. Eliot: Man and Poet, Volume 2: An Annotated Bibliography of a Decade of T.S. Eliot Criticism, 1977-1986. This new bibliography creates a central location for Eliot research for the years of 1987-2013