Communicating and accentuating the aesthetic and expressive dimension in choral conducting

This article considers the issues that are involved in effective choral conducting from an aesthetic dimension. Drawing upon research, theories and practice, it provides some insight into the nature of communication and the significance of gesture on vocal outcome as well as qualities of leadership concomitant with such musical activity. The article also reports on a research study that investigated the professional development of students and teachers in the area of choral conducting, focusing on their attitudes, skill acquisition and the importance attached to reflection on practice. The findings reveal that consideration of what counts as effective conducting gesture and communication skill can promote better conducting and, consequently, better, more expressive singing. In addition, the positive impact of self and peer reflection on progress (both face-to-face and within a virtual learning environment) was also acknowledged. Certain suggestions for promoting effective musical leadership in the area of choral conducting are provided, in order to ground theoretical perspectives in practice

Evolution, Consciousness, and the Internality of Mind

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The Meaning of Action in Learning and Teaching

Action is a highly theorised aspect of social life nonetheless it remains a relatively neglected source of data within educational research. This paper attempts to highlight the significance of the analysis of organised action within educational research. It describes and demonstrates an analytical approach to action applicable to the classroom developed from approaches to the analysis of bodily communication and action in drama education (Franks, 1995 & 1996) and from new approaches to rhetoric developed in the research project ‘Rhetorics of the Science Classroom’ funded by the ESRC (Kress, Jewitt, Ogborn & Tsatsarelis, forthcoming). These approaches draw on social semiotic theories of making meaning in order to describe the complex relationship between the semiotics of social action and the situated experience of learning in the classroom. This paper describes how action realises meanings and shapes classroom interaction through the application of the schema to video data from a science lesson on energy with year nine pupils (14 years-old). Finally, it draws attention to the research and pedagogical implications of a focus on action in the science classroom and in education more generally

Choreography, controversy and child sex abuse: Theoretical reflections on a cultural criminological analysis of dance in a pop music video

This article was inspired by the controversy over claims of ‘pedophilia!!!!’ undertones and the ‘triggering’ of memories of childhood sexual abuse in some viewers by the dance performance featured in the music video for Sia’s ‘Elastic Heart’ (2015). The case is presented for acknowledging the hidden and/or overlooked presence of dance in social scientific theory and cultural studies and how these can enhance and advance cultural criminological research. Examples of how these insights have been used within other disciplinary frameworks to analyse and address child sex crime and sexual trauma are provided, and the argument is made that popular cultural texts such as dance in pop music videos should be regarded as significant in analysing and tracing public perceptions and epistemologies of crimes such as child sex abuse

Parsing the Australian English curriculum: Grammar, multimodality and cross-cultural texts

The release of the Australian Curriculum English (ACE) by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) has revived debates about the role of grammar as English content knowledge. We consider some of the discussion circulating in the mainstream media vis-à-vis the intent of the ACE. We conclude that this curriculum draws upon the complementary tenets of traditional Latin-based grammar and systemic functional linguistics across the three strands of Language, Literature and Literacy in innovative ways. We argue that such an approach is necessary for working with contemporary multimodal and cross-cultural texts. To demonstrate the utility of this new approach, we draw out a set of learning outcomes from Year 6 and then map out a framework for relating the outcomes to the form and function of multimodal language. As a case in point, our analysis is of two online Coca-Cola advertising texts, one each from South Korea and Australia

The birds and the bees : gender performance in Grandville's Scènes de la vie privée et publique des animaux

Published between 1840 and 1842, J. J. Grandville’s Scènes de la vie privée et publique des animaux is a hybrid work of satirical allegory that stages the scandals, polemics, and power struggles of the July Monarchy through a collection of illustrations by Grandville and stories written to accompany them. The printed image significantly disrupted artistic hierarchies of the period and sparked heated debates about both the expertise of illustrators and the possibilities of the image, described by Philippe Kaenel as an “instrument of seduction”. Scholarly engagement with Scènes des animaux has all but ignored gender, yet the increased visibility of women in the publishing industry during the July Monarchy permanently altered the terms of modern artistic legitimacy. In this paper, I demonstrate that gender has been conceptualized, represented, and reified in terms of animality and evolutionary discourses in Grandville’s text. Drawing on Alexandra Wettlaufer’s analysis of the dialectic between word and image at play in Scenes des animaux, as well as Bakhtinian polyphony and Eve Sedgwick’s concept of erotic triangles, I consider the work in terms of a triple dialectic between word, image, and gender. Through the figures of bird and bee and their associated verbal tropes, Grandville, Hetzel, and Balzac all link women to consumerism, materialism, stupidity, and sensuality. This set of associations distance women from the field of “legitimate” literary production and disempowers them as sociopolitical agents. At the same time, the overdetermined containment strategies employed by the contributors reveal that they rely on women as their primary reading public and clientele. Economic anxiety has been displaced onto the body of the animal-woman, and the contributors dress up their objections with the accoutrements of conservative morality. In titling this project “The Birds and the Bees” —a euphemism used to explain sex and courtship to small children— I call attention to the persistence of animal metaphors related to gender and sexuality in contemporary culture.Comparative Literatur

Contours of Inclusion: Frameworks and Tools for Evaluating Arts in Education

This collection of essays explores various arts education-specific evaluation tools, as well as considers Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and the inclusion of people with disabilities in the design of evaluation instruments and strategies. Prominent evaluators Donna M. Mertens, Robert Horowitz, Dennie Palmer Wolf, and Gail Burnaford are contributors to this volume. The appendix includes the AEA Standards for Evaluation. (Contains 10 tables, 2 figures, 30 footnotes, and resources for additional reading.) This is a proceedings document from the 2007 VSA arts Research Symposium that preceded the American Evaluation Association's (AEA) annual meeting in Baltimore, MD

Spinoza and the Logical Limits of Mental Representation

This paper examines Spinoza’s view on the consistency of mental representation. First, I argue that he departs from Scholastic tradition by arguing that all mental states—whether desires, intentions, beliefs, perceptions, entertainings, etc.—must be logically consistent. Second, I argue that his endorsement of this view is motivated by key Spinozistic doctrines, most importantly the doctrine that all acts of thought represent what could follow from God’s nature. Finally, I argue that Spinoza’s view that all mental representation is consistent pushes him to a linguistic account of contradiction

Understanding Dance Understanding

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