Peaceful Embodiment: Not Merely Tranquil In Nature

Choreography influences theoretical research and theoretical research influences choreography. In the past, bodies have served as vehicles for protest and have been equipped with training, plans, and choreographic tactics used to carry out movements aimed toward revolution. It is these bodies in space at a lunch counter, at a sit-in, at a march, and on a street which possess the ability to influence a revolt just as the body on a proscenium stage can influence a visceral reaction from the audience members toward taking action. My research as a choreographer is directly influenced by my interest in demonstrations and protests, from the past to the present, and how they are in fact an extension of dance through their own use of choreography. My objective as a choreographer is to present how more traditional forms of dance choreography can be an extension of protest. In the piece of choreography Buckworld One, choreographer Carrie Mikuls, takes the dance form of krumping to the concert stage. Dr. Megan Ann Todd, Independent Scholar and adjunct professor of Dance at Mesa Community College in Mesa, Arizona, states this about the work, These moments in performance are exactly how and why art and performance can and do change lives. They bring the audience into presence, into the present… These moments in performance act as a catalyst for social justice inciting visceral and emotional responses, critical thought, discussion and a deep sense of accountability that begins in the space of the theatre and reaches beyond. [i] Dr. Todd’s words succinctly encapsulate the impetus of what motivates me to create choreography. Whether an audience member understands all of the crafted nuances or not, of the dance work being witnessed, seeing bodies dance can cause a visceral reaction to make audience members move. [i]Todd, Megan Anne “Aesthetic Foundations & Activist Strategies of Intervention in Rickerby Hinds’ Buckworld One.” The Journal of Pan African Studies 4.06 (2011): 164. Web

Modelling transdisciplinary pedagogy: A method for collaborative curriculum design

This article explores a transdisciplinary, collaborative, curriculum design project to promote institutional belonging as a driver of student engagement, and to equip graduates with the fluency to work across disciplines. It demonstrates a facilitated method, to construct learning outcomes that break with typical subject-based knowledge and associated hierarchies of expertise. After considering a small number of precedents, the authors use curriculum models to inform a design specification. Following the formation of a multidisciplinary design team, a development tool (Lego® Serious Play®) was selected for a design workshop. A qualitative analysis of the workshop transcript was then used to inform the learning outcomes for a common module to be taken by all first-year undergraduates. Finally, the article considers how the process provided a framework for collaborative design that has been implemented in further projects, and led to the creation of a growing community of practice. The project provides insights for others embarking on collaborative curriculum design initiatives, especially where transdisciplinary learning is an objective

Magnetoelectric polarizability: A microscopic perspective

We extend a field theoretic approach for the investigation of the electronic charge-current density response of crystalline systems to arbitrary applied electromagnetic fields. The approach leads to the introduction of microscopic polarization and magnetization fields, as well as free charge and current densities, the dynamics of which are described by a lattice gauge theory. The spatial averages of such quantities constitute the fields of macroscopic electrodynamics. We implement this formalism to study the orbital electronic response of a class of insulators to applied uniform dc electric and magnetic fields at zero temperature. To first-order in the applied fields, the free charge and current densities vanish; thus the response of the system is characterized by the first-order modifications to the microscopic polarization and magnetization fields. Associated with the dipole moment of the microscopic polarization (magnetization) field is a macroscopic polarization (magnetization), for which we extract various response tensors. We focus on the orbital magnetoelectric polarizability (OMP) tensor, and find the accepted expression as derived from the "modern theory of polarization and magnetization." Since our results are based on the spatial averages of microscopic fields, we can identify the distinct contributions to the OMP tensor from the perspective of this microscopic theory, and we establish the general framework in which extensions to finite frequency can be made.Comment: 24 page

From magnetoelectric response to optical activity

We apply a microscopic theory of polarization and magnetization to crystalline insulators at zero temperature and consider the orbital electronic contribution of the linear response to spatially varying, time-dependent electromagnetic fields. The charge and current density expectation values generally depend on both the microscopic polarization and magnetization fields, and on the microscopic free charge and current densities. But contributions from the latter vanish in linear response for the class of insulators we consider. Thus we need only consider the former, which can be decomposed into "site" polarization and magnetization fields, from which "site multipole moments" can be constructed. Macroscopic polarization and magnetization fields follow, and we identify the relevant contributions to them; for electromagnetic fields varying little over a lattice constant these are the electric and magnetic dipole moments per unit volume, and the electric quadrupole moment per unit volume. A description of optical activity and related magneto-optical phenomena follows from the response of these macroscopic quantities to the electromagnetic field and, while in this paper we work within the independent particle and frozen-ion approximations, both optical rotary dispersion and circular dichroism can be described with this strategy. Earlier expressions describing the magnetoelectric effect are recovered as the zero frequency limit of our more general equations. Since our site quantities are introduced with the use of Wannier functions, the site multipole moments and their macroscopic analogs are generally gauge dependent. However, the resulting macroscopic charge and current densities, together with the optical effects to which they lead, are gauge invariant, as would be physically expected.Comment: 24 pages. Minor typographical errors in Eq. 5, 14, 15 of the earlier version are correcte