22 research outputs found

    John Gay and the London Theatre

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    The Beggar’s Opera, often referred to today as the first musical comedy, was the most popular dramatic piece of the eighteenth century—and is the work that John Gay (1685-1732) is best remembered for having written. That association of popular music and satiric lyrics has proved to be continuingly attractive, and variations on the Opera have flourished in this century: by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht, by Duke Ellington, and most recently by Vaclav Havel. The original opera itself is played all over the world in amateur and professional productions. But John Gay’s place in all this has not been well defined. His Opera is often regarded as some sort of chance event. In John Gay and the London Theatre, the first book-length study of John Gay as dramatic author, Calhoun Winton recognized the Opera as part of an entirely self-conscious career in the theatre, a career that Gay pursued from his earliest days as a writer in London and continued to follow to his death. Winton emphasizes Gay’s knowledge of and affection for music, acquired, he argues, by way of his association with Handel. Although concentrating on Gay and his theatrical career, Winton also limns a vivid portrait of London itself and of the London stage of Gay’s time, a period of considerable turbulence both within and outside the theatre. Gay’s plays reflect in varying ways and degrees that social, political, and cultural turmoil. Winton’s study sheds new light not only on Gay and the theatre, but also on the politics and culture of his era. Calhoun Winton is professor of English at the University of Maryland. A concise, useful, and lucid book that delivers what it promises. —Modern Language Review Winton is a meticulous scholar. His book will be of real value as an introduction for those unfamiliar with Gay\u27s drama and the London stage of the period. —Reviews in English Studieshttps://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_english_language_and_literature_british_isles/1091/thumbnail.jp

    Authorship of The Fatal Extravagance

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    An improved algorithm for model-based analysis of evoked skin conductance responses

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    Model-based analysis of psychophysiological signals is more robust to noise - compared to standard approaches - and may furnish better predictors of psychological state, given a physiological signal. We have previously established the improved predictive validity of model-based analysis of evoked skin conductance responses to brief stimuli, relative to standard approaches. Here, we consider some technical aspects of the underlying generative model and demonstrate further improvements. Most importantly, harvesting between-subject variability in response shape can improve predictive validity, but only under constraints on plausible response forms. A further improvement is achieved by conditioning the physiological signal with high pass filtering. A general conclusion is that precise modelling of physiological time series does not markedly increase predictive validity; instead, it appears that a more constrained model and optimised data features provide better results, probably through a suppression of physiological fluctuation that is not caused by the experiment

    Surfing between the local and the global: identifying spatial divisions in surfing practice

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    Geography emphasises the spatial influence on human identity; however, this influence is often seen as exclusively terrestrial in nature. This paper focuses on a group of individuals for whom geographical identity is both terrestrial and littoral in constitution. It introduces how surfers’ identities are not only defined by the terrestrial co-ingredience of the shores that support their surfing activity, but also by the littoral space of the surf zone itself. However, due to advances in transport, communication and surf forecasting, surfers are increasingly global in their search for waves. The paper goes on to demonstrate the effect of this mobility on surfer identity. It outlines how mobility dislocates surfer identity from its ‘surf-shore’ moorings and produces in its place a routed but rootless ‘trans-local’ surf identity. The paper examines the tensions and contradictions that arise between these spatially divided surfing practices before commenting on how surfers’ shared affiliation to the littoral zone may offer the potential to reconcile them
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