Drammaturgia transtestuale. Martin Crimp fra autocitazione e riscrittura

Il drammaturgo Martin Crimp, autore contemporaneo di talento misteriosamente 'oscurato' oltremanica, ha plasmato un originale territorio transtestuale, noto come Crimpland. La sua produzione si può infatti considerare un crocevia di vari stili drammatici che fecondamente vengono a contatto. Interessante è sottolineare come il corpus crimpiano offra la quasi completa gamma di relazioni transtestuali menzionate da Genette: intertestualità, paratestualità e ipertestualità. I critici, inoltre, riscontrano nella sua originale opera un'interessante forma di intertestualità interna (o d'autore). Questo articolo si focalizza principalmente sulle strategie ipertestuali crimpiane, esaminando The Misanthrope (1996), spassosa riscrittura dell'omonima pièce molieriana, e Cruel and Tender (2004), efficace versione contemporanea delle Trachinie di Sofocle. L'analisi di queste transdiegetizzazioni, basata sulla lettura comparata di ipotesto e rispettivo ipertesto, mostra come una vicenda possa essere brillantemente trasposta in una cornice moderna e come i materiali del passato possano rivelarsi valide fonti per riflessioni sulla contemporaneità.The talented playwright Martin Crimp, one of contemporary British drama's best-kept secrets, has shaped a singular transtextual territory, also known as Crimpland . Indeed, his output is a cross-pollination of various dramatic styles which fruitfully intermingle. Remarkably, Crimp's corpus reworks the almost entire range of textual transcendences mentioned by Genette: intertextuality, paratextuality, and hypertextuality. Moreover, critics have noted an interesting form of intra-authorial intertextuality in his highly original output. This article focuses in particular on Crimp's hypertextual strategies by examining The Misanthrope (1996), an entertaining rewriting of Molière's homonymous play, and Cruel and Tender (2004), a brilliant contemporary version of Sophocles' Women of Trachis . The analysis of these diegetic transpositions, based on the comparative reading of the hypotext and its hypertext, shows how a plot derived from past dramatic traditions can be successfully transferred into a modern setting, and how such materials can be effective sources for current dramatic reflections on contemporaneity

« Perhaps That Taste of Nothing Is What You Can Taste » : Sensory Landscapes, Absence, and Objects in Martin Crimp’s « The Country »

When Martin Crimp’s The Country was first performed at London’s Royal Court Theatre in 2000, critics focused on its Pinterian echoes, the popular motif of betrayal, as well as its attack on the rural myth, and described it as a disturbing and ambiguous play. Despite its unsettling elusiveness and coolness, The Country is a hot piece, in which sensual and sexual tensions permeate chilling verbal exchanges between cryptic – and seemingly unemotional – characters. Staging an intricate web of sensory reactions, provoked by the (im)materiality of language and the evocative potential of props, this drama effectively «works through affective nuances […], acoustic and visual, which develop an almost haunting presence in their absence» (Angelaki 2012: 97). Examining Crimp’s sensory landscapes and his subtle dialogue between presence and absence, this article aims to demonstrate how, in an opaque play built on ellipses, the body sous rature speaks as loud as the ostended body.

"A Myriad of Literary Impressions". L’intertextualité dans le roman anglophone contemporain, Sous la direction de E. Walezak & J. Dupont, Saint Estève, Presses Universitaires de Perpignan, 2010 [recensione – review]

Recensione di: "A Myriad of Literary Impressions". L’intertextualité dans le roman anglophone contemporain, Sous la direction de E. Walezak & J. Dupont, Saint Estève, Presses Universitaires de Perpignan, 2010.Review of: "A Myriad of Literary Impressions". L’intertextualité dans le roman anglophone contemporain, Sous la direction de E. Walezak & J. Dupont, Saint Estève, Presses Universitaires de Perpignan, 2010

IL CONTRARIO DI UN PROCESSO VISUO-SPAZIALE RAPPRESENTATO. I REQUISITI DELLA CONTARIET\uc0: DALLA PERCEZIONE AL RAGIONAMENTO RELAZIONALE.

Esistono numerosi studi nell\u2019ambito delle scienze cognitive che mostrano che i contrari costituiscono una relazione fondamentale nella percezione dello spazio e nella percezione motoria (ad es., Bianchi et al., 2017, 2014), nel linguaggio (ad es., Jones et al., 2012; Paradis, 2013) ed in diversi processi di ragionamento (ad es., Augustinova, 2008; Bianchi et al., 2019; Gale & Ball, 2012; Rothenberg, 2001, Dumas, 2016). Un test grafico del ragionamento relazionale (TORR) \ue8 stato sviluppato (Alexander et al., 2012) al fine di misurare la capacit\ue0 di ragionare per contrari. Gli studi sulla percezione hanno mostrato che sia la produzione spontanea che il riconoscimento di una figura contraria richiedono il mantenimento della sua identit\ue0 globale mentre inverte la sua direzione (ad esempio, Bianchi & Savardi, 2008). Abbiamo testato se questi criteri sono stati osservati nella produzione spontanea dei nostri partecipanti di un processo grafico opposto ad uno dato. Quaranta studenti universitari sono stati assegnati in modo casuale a due condizioni sperimentali. Nella prima, \ue8 stato chiesto loro di disegnare uno o pi\uf9 processi contrari (max. 3) per ciascuno dei cinque processi grafici dati e successivamente di descrivere sia quelli dati che quelli prodotti. Nell'altra condizione, i partecipanti sono stati invitati a descrivere prima il processo target e, solo poi, a disegnare i suoi contrari ed, infine, a descrivere i processi disegnati. In entrambe le condizioni, i materiali erano una selezione di cinque stimoli della sezione antitesi del TORR. I nostri risultati evidenziano relazioni tra le caratteristiche spaziali di un processo grafico contrario ad uno dato, prodotto spontaneamente da un soggetto adulto non esperto ed i criteri per la percezione della contrariet\ue0 in figure bidimensionali semplici, da un lato, ed i criteri delle risposte corrette della sezione antitesi del TORR, dall'altro

Can Contraries Prompt Intuition in Insight Problem Solving?

This paper aims to test whether the use of contraries can facilitate spatial problem solving. Specifically, we examined whether a training session which included explicit guidance on thinking in contraries would improve problem solving abilities. In our study, the participants in the experimental condition were exposed to a brief training session before being presented with seven visuo-spatial problems to solve. During training it was suggested that it would help them to find the solution to the problems if they systematically transformed the spatial features of each problem into their contraries. Their performance was compared to that of a control group (who had no training). Two participation conditions were considered: small groups and individuals. Higher success rates were found in the groups exposed to training as compared to the individuals (in both the training and no training conditions), even though the time required to find a solution was longer. In general, participants made more attempts (i.e. drawings) when participating in groups than individually. The number of drawings done while the participants were trying to solve the problems did not increase after training. In order to explore if the quality (if not the number) of drawings was modified, we sampled one problem out of the seven we had used in the experiment (the \u201cpigs in a pen\u201d problem) and examined the drawings in detail. Differences between the training and no training conditions emerged in terms of properties focused on and transformed in the drawings. Based on these results, in the final discussion possible explanations are suggested as to why training had positive effects specifically in the group condition

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the psychological health of midwives

Objective. The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has changed the therapeutic relationship between women and midwives and these changes have been perceived as stressors. The aim of this work is to investigate the effect of these stressors on midwives through an online questionnaire. Materials and Methods. The VRS tool was used, and statistical analysis was performed using Stata. Results. Significant differences were found in the somatization cluster and in subjective stress cluster. Conclusions. The analysis shows that there is a need to implement resilience-enhancing factors such as communication, sharing of distress and the presence of support

Opposites in Reasoning Processes: Do We Use Them More Than We Think, but Less Than We Could?

Our aim in this paper is to contribute toward acknowledging the general role of opposites as an organizing principle in the human mind. We support this claim in relation to human reasoning by collecting evidence from various studies which shows that “thinking in opposites” is not only involved in formal logical thinking, but can also be applied in both deductive and inductive reasoning, as well as in problem solving. We also describe the results of a series of studies which, although they have been developed within a number of different theoretical frameworks based on various methodologies, all demonstrate that giving hints or training reasoners to think in terms of opposites improves their performance in tasks in which spontaneous thinking may lead to classic biases and impasses. Since we all possess an intuitive idea of what opposites are, prompting people to “think in opposites” is something which is undoubtedly within everyone’s reach and in the final section, we discuss the potential of this strategy and suggest possible future research directions of systematic testing the benefits that might arise from the use of this technique in contexts beyond those tested thus far. Ascertaining the conditions in which reasoners might benefit will also help in terms of clarifying the underlying mechanisms from the point of view, for instance, of analytical, conscious processing vs. automatic, unconscious processing

Factors Influencing The First Thousand Days Of Life: The importance of Nurturing Care

Background: WHO, Unicef, the World Bank and the Maternal and Child Health Partnership wrote the document "Nurturing care for early child development: a global framework action".This paper highlights the benefits of early intervention and thus the need to invest more in health during this period.The aim of our study is to assess how much social support received by pregnant mothers can influence maternity outcomes. Materials and Methods: The retrospective observational study was conducted on a sample of mothers enrolled via social networks, who were administered a questionnaire from 1 July to 1 September 2021.The questionnaire consisted of 37 questions, 6 of which were used to calculate the "Maternity Social Support Scale".The ODDs Ratio was calculated. Results:Our sample consisted of 3447 women. 59.01% were between 26 and 35 years of age.The mean Maternity Social Support Scale (MSSS) score was calculated to be 23.9 points.A low MSSS score correlated with a higher probability of stopping breastfeeding before 6 months of age(OR:1. 2;C.I:1.1-1.4) and of having a caesarean section(OR:1.2;C.I:1.1-1.4) and to a lower probability of having a spontaneous labour(OR:0.9;C.I:0.7-0.9) and a spontaneous delivery(OR:0.8;C.I:0.7-0.9). In contrast, a high MSSS score had a lower likelihood of ceasing breastfeeding before 6 months (OR:0.8;C.I:0.7-0.9) and caesarean section(OR:0.8;C.I:0.7-0.9) and higher likelihood of spontaneous onset labour(OR:1.2;C.I:1.1-1.3) and spontaneous delivery(OR:1.2;C.I:1.1-1.4). Conclusions:Pregnancy, childbirth and maternity outcomes are strongly influenced and conditioned by the social context in which they occur and the support the woman may receive.The presence or lack of this support may affect the health of newborns

Common-sense temporal ontology: an experimental study

Temporal ontology is the philosophical debate on the existence of the past and the future. It features a three-way confrontation between supporters of presentism (the present exists, the past and the future do not), pastism (the past and the present exist, the future does not), and eternalism (the past, the present, and the future all exist). Most philosophers engaged in this debate believe that presentism is much more in agreement with common sense than the rival views; moreover, most of them believe that being in agreement with common sense is epistemically valuable for a philosophical view. We studied experimentally non-experts’ ideas pertaining to the domain of temporal ontology, i.e., as we called it, common-sense temporal ontology, focusing on the Italian population. We found that a non-overwhelming majority of participants (~64%) favoured presentism, while two significant minorities favoured pastism (~19%) and eternalism (~17%). We think that our findings provide some support, albeit weaker than expected, for the view that presentism is more in agreement with common sense than the rival positions