The Human Posterior Superior Temporal Sulcus Samples Visual Space Differently From Other Face-Selective Regions

Neuroimaging studies show that ventral face-selective regions, including the fusiform face area (FFA) and occipital face area (OFA), preferentially respond to faces presented in the contralateral visual field (VF). In the current study we measured the VF response of the face-selective posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS). Across 3 functional magnetic resonance imaging experiments, participants viewed face videos presented in different parts of the VF. Consistent with prior results, we observed a contralateral VF bias in bilateral FFA, right OFA (rOFA), and bilateral human motion-selective area MT+. Intriguingly, this contralateral VF bias was absent in the bilateral pSTS. We then delivered transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) over right pSTS (rpSTS) and rOFA, while participants matched facial expressions in both hemifields. TMS delivered over the rpSTS disrupted performance in both hemifields, but TMS delivered over the rOFA disrupted performance in the contralateral hemifield only. These converging results demonstrate that the contralateral bias for faces observed in ventral face-selective areas is absent in the pSTS. This difference in VF response is consistent with face processing models proposing 2 functionally distinct pathways. It further suggests that these models should account for differences in interhemispheric connections between the face-selective areas across these 2 pathways

Moving Statues in Ireland: Theatre, Nation and Problems of Agency

“Learning to see is training in careful blindness.” Peggy Phelan, Unmarked: The Politics of Performance What theatres and nations have most in common conceptually are processes of sublimation and imaginative projection. A standard definition of nations—“systems of cultural representation whereby people come to imagine a shared experience of identification with an extended community”—can be applied just as easily to the collective experience of theatre. Acts of empathetic imagination that are ..

"At a Loss for Words": Theatre, Performance and the Northern Ireland Prison Protests

In plays as diverse as Brian Friel’s The Freedom of the City, Frank McGuinness’s Carthaginians and Vincent Woods’s At the Black Pig’s Dyke, there is evidence of an intemperate opposition to the idea of republicans performing protest against the state in Northern Ireland. Using Augusto Boal’s conception of theatre as a cultural weapon with a powerful emancipatory and utopian potential (“theatre as a rehearsal for revolution”) and drawing on Joseph Roach and Nicholas Argenti’s ideas of the kinesthetic imagination, this essay considers the republican prison protests that took place Ireland in the period 1978-81. “At a Loss for Words” argues that the cultural logic, not to mention the disconcerting effectiveness of these protests in mobilizing mass opposition to the state, is best understood in terms of theatrical performance.

Théâtre et nation

Le théâtre se trouve au carrefour de la construction et de la déconstruction de conceptions de la nation, participant à la fois à l'élaboration et à la remise en question d'identités nationales. Théâtre et nation donne à ce nexus toute sa dimension hybride et éclatée dans une perspective résolument internationale et contemporaine. Les différentes contributions qui composent l'ouvrage traitent d'une grande variété d'époques historiques et de cultures dramatiques. Ensemble elles posent des questions essentielles : quel théâtre pour quelle nation ? Mais aussi quelles nations pour quel théâtre ? Et surtout quelles formes théâtrales pour quelles identités nationales, y compris celles aujourd'hui en recomposition ? L'ouvrage se divise en trois parties. Du cas français, historiquement et philosophiquement emblématique, à la remise en cause des identités nationales et aux regards croisés entre théâtres de différentes nations, il jette un éclairage nouveau sur des aspects souvent peu connus de cette interaction entre théâtre et nation

Staging Beckett: constructing histories of performance

This multi-authored essay presents some selected initial findings from the AHRC Staging Beckett research project led by the universities of Reading and Chester with the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. For example, how did changes in economic and cultural climates, such as funding structures, impact on productions of Beckett's plays in the UK and Ireland from the 1950’s to the first decade of the twenty-first century? The essay raises historiographical questions raised by the attempts to map or construct performance histories of Beckett's theatre in the UK and Ireland