Knowing what is known: accessing craft-based meanings in research by artists

Much of the work of artists relies on tacit or inert understanding of their craft and consequently communicating this knowledge is not necessarily easy or straightforward. This presents many challenges for art-based researchers. It also presents teaching and learning challenges involved in developing appropriate education and training to prepare artists. Arts practitioners have ways of knowing about themselves as ‘artists’ and it is argued in this commentary that these have grown out of their own deep and personally significant experiences. The ways in which this knowledge is rendered also appears to be based in practical experience – that is, in particular communities of practice. Artists may typically express values and concepts that are practice based, are difficult to express in theoretical terms and reflect what is deemed by them as desirable or preferable conditions for the execution of their art form. Socially and artistically constructed ways of knowing are formed in practice and through practice as craft-based meanings. Craft-based ways of knowing are founded on particular meanings inherent in practice that are often difficult to communicate. By drawing upon the author’s own research into practical actor training, this exposition attempts to capture the particular types of knowledge artists possess and why these may present challenges for researchers in using more open-ended methodologies whilst ensuring they provide validity. In doing so, this exposition also examines the fundamental question of what represents ‘evidence’ in art-based research – knowing what is know

How arts education makes a difference: research examining successful classroom practice and pedagogy, edited by Josephine Fleming, Robyn Gibson and Michael Anderson

Book Review How Arts Education Makes a Difference: Research examining successful classroom practice and pedagogy, Edited by Josephine Fleming, Robyn Gibson and Michael Anderson. London and New York: Routledge, xvii+ 301pp., £95.00 (hardcover), ISBN 9781138845794. For the most part this book is a report on an ambitious Australian project drawing on the findings of a two-year longitudinal qualitative study led by an educational psychologist, who was the principal investigator, and was supported by a team of researchers. The book results from an Australian Research Council Linkage Project grant in partnership with the Australian Council for the Arts, 2009–2011. The project attempted to study the impact of arts involvement in the academic outcomes of 643 students from 15 schools on the East Coast of Australia in an attempt to investigate what might constitute best practice in learning and teaching in the arts within primary and secondary schools in Australia. The project was entitled “The Role of Arts Education in Academic Motivation, Engagement and Achievement” (AEMEA)

Art-led communitas for developing improved mental health in higher education in a time of rapid change

Aimed at those who have a responsibility for policy and practice in relation to education, health improvement and community, this position paper explores how the corporatization of the modern university has arguably shifted how students see themselves – and how academics see students and how students see academics. Increasingly, education is being economized in an age of neo-liberalist ideology. Universities spend considerable resources on recruiting students, promoting why students should attend university but arguably spend far less on how they enable students to be effective learners. The author argues that it is time to pay attention to two key responsibilities in higher education: well-doing and well-being. However, it is argued in this paper that universities are far too focused on behavioural well-doing agendas and not sufficiently focused on experiential wellbeing of staff and students. This paper concludes that there is an urgent case for realigning higher education through acknowledging the fundamental importance of communitas – defined as “inspired fellowship” to enable human, personal, spiritual and social well-being. It is argued that universities must take seriously the mental health of their staff and students, and in so doing, the role of the arts may provide plausible answers in realigning the culture of higher education

From ‘discovered’ to ‘constructivist’ in applied theatre programmes: Preparing postgraduate students as future artist-educators

© Ross W. Prior, 2016. The definitive, peer reviewed and edited version of this article is published in ArtsPraxis, Volume 3, pp. 39–55, 2016.Applied theatre as a named field is still relatively new yet ‘the range of applied theatre practice is vast; it happens all over the world as part of a grassroots movement involved in social change and community reflection’ (Prendergast & Saxton, vi: 2009). This article explores the underlying teaching philosophies inherent in the published course descriptors of a sample range of eight graduate/postgraduate programmes in applied theatre across three countries. The selection of these programmes, although somewhat random, has been based upon their prominence within academic parlances and those that provide programme documents in English. Consequently the representative sample survey is across one cross-section of postgraduate provision and is analysed in order to extract a range of philosophical themes underpinning learning and teaching. In distilling these philosophies the article presents a discussion of how the subject knowledge of applied theatre work ranges from ‘discovered’ to ‘constructivist’ in nature. In Ross W. Prior 40 turn these themes are interrogated against published research in the field and postulate on how applied theatre programmes might further consider the ways in which they adequately prepare their students as future artist-educators to work in this diverse and challenging field. An outcome of the survey revealed grand claims made in the published programme descriptors

Preliminary Analysis of Functional Variability in the Mousterian of Levallois Facies: A Reexamination

Author Institution: Department of Antrhopology, Case Western Reserve UniversityAn integral part of the New Archeology is a method of dealing with lithic variabilities based on a behavioral model and the use of mathematical techniques for the analysis of variance. To test some of the underlying assumptions of this paradigm a factor analysis was performed on published data for several Russian Mousterian sites. Seven factors were produced, and their content was interpreted as indicating two different types of activity: base camp killing and butchering and work camp transient food preparation

Immediacy and personalizing: celebrating Philip Taylor

Many students, over four decades, could write about how Dr Philip Taylor’s scholarship has influenced their thinking and intellectual interests, particularly in the area of drama in education. As one of those former students, I can offer some insights into that particular influence of his, spanning a number of different countries around the globe. Numerous students have travelled great distances for the opportunity to study with him, which also forms part of my own personal story. However no matter whom you are or how you have been introduced to Taylor’s work, you will quickly recognize that he is deeply and authentically affected by the classroom experience

Properties of the spokes in coaxial and parallel - Plate plasma accelerator

Photographic, magnetic, and spectroscopic study of vortex spokes in coaxial and parallel-plate plasma accelerator

Efficient simulation of strong system-environment interactions

Multi-component quantum systems in strong interaction with their environment are receiving increasing attention due to their importance in a variety of contexts, ranging from solid state quantum information processing to the quantum dynamics of bio-molecular aggregates. Unfortunately, these systems are difficult to simulate as the system-bath interactions cannot be treated perturbatively and standard approaches are invalid or inefficient. Here we combine the time dependent density matrix renormalization group methods with techniques from the theory of orthogonal polynomials to provide an efficient method for simulating open quantum systems, including spin-boson models and their generalisations to multi-component systems

Rethinking church and state during the English Interregnum

This essay offers a re-examination of the concept of Erastianism as an explanatory tool in discussions of church and state. It focuses in particular on three texts – by Pierre du Moulin, Thomas Cobbet and John Milton - that took up the question of the nature of civil power in the sphere of religion. Based on this, the essay argues that the term ‘Erastianism’ obscures the complexity and nuance of arguments about religious politics in the civil war period. It concludes by suggesting that we should instead consider these debates as contributions to discourse on civil religion