After the Prestige: A Postmodern Analysis of Penn and Teller

By mocking the magic community and revealing the secret behind some of their tricks, Penn and Teller perform a kind of parodic and post-modern “anti-magic.” Penn and Teller display an artful use of rhetoric; in exposing the secrets and shortcomings of conjuring, they are revolutionizing the way people think about both the art of magic and the magic community. Individuals such as Penn and Teller may use parody to subvert the hegemonic interpretations. However, we also know that it is difficult to bring down a system while operating within that system. Thus, this article explores the way Penn and Teller are challenging the metanarrative of the magic community, using several of the duo’s more popular illusions as examples for analysis. Ultimately, this paper should help us gain a better understanding of the way parody can be used to challenge hegemonic conceptions, and the limitations of this type of rhetorical approach

Stories for Change

This compendium of nearly 50 best practices showcases the notable strategies that increase access to arts and culture for older adult and immigrant populations. Newcomers and older adults (65 +) are two of the fastest growing populations -- communities across the country are grappling with a demographic makeup that is increasingly diverse and proportionally older than in the past. Arts and cultural organizations have the opportunity to reach-out, to increase resources in the community, and to engage populations that are at risk for being overlooked."Stories for Change" is a compelling collection, brimming with new ideas brought to fruition by many types of organizations including: museums, libraries, community development organizations, theaters, orchestras, dance ensembles, area agencies on aging, transportation bureaus, parks, botanic gardens, universities, and more. Organizations that hope to enhance the lives of their older and immigrant residents can find approaches portrayed in these Stories that can be adapted to meet the needs of their communities.Best practices include the well-known Alzheimer's Project of the Museum of Modern Art, which has been adapted to museums around the country, and Circle of Care, a unique ride share program that partners young people with older adults to attend free arts performances in Boulder, Colorado. Stories are located in rural, mid-size, and metropolitan settings; many can be easily implemented, and do not require a major overhaul of staffing, operations, or an organization's mission

The Irony of Refuge: Gender-Based Violence Against Female Refugees in Africa

The Sudanese soldiers and the Janjawid invaded her village. When she tried to escape, they gang-raped her. At that time, she was eight months pregnant and described giving birth to a dead baby afterward and being very sick. She could not make it with her group to the border to flee to Chad so she had to walk alone. Once she got to Chad, she was raped by a Chadian soldier outside of the camp and became pregnant. Afterwards, her husband divorced her, and she now lives with the stigma of being a rape victim. She has been expelled from her family and has a child who is a product of this rape (Sharp 2009)

Forest Listening – An audio-visual installation

‘Forest Listening’ is an artwork that combines the field recording ‘Rainstorm Inside Forest Earth’ with its corresponding sound visualisation. The visualisation is a diagrammatical investigation that expands the form and function of the spectrogram from the explanatory to the exploratory. This expansion occurs in three ways: translation of the format from digital to analogue; the creation of four diagrams depicting separate levels of volume dynamics; and remaking those four diagrams as cyanotype prints using tonal shades to represent volume dynamics. The field recording ‘Rainstorm Inside Forest Earth’ is combined with hanging canvas banners, made from the cyanotype prints, to create the multimodal installation ‘Forest Listening’. Analysis of exhibiting ‘Forest Listening’ in the Limnerslease woodland at the Watts Artist Gallery & Artist Village, Surrey, UK, suggests that the woodland setting augments the multimodal listening experience, drawing attention to both the artwork and the forest itself

Engaging with a history of counselling, spirituality and faith in Scotland: a readers' theatre script

This paper presents an abbreviated version of a verbatim script developed from oral history interviews with individuals key to the development of counselling and psychotherapy in Scotland from 1960 to 2000. Earlier versions were used in workshops with counsellors and pastoral care practitioners to share counter-narratives of counselling and to provide opportunities for conversations about historical and contemporary relationships between faith, spirituality, counselling and psychotherapy. By presenting intertwined histories in a readers' theatre script, the narrative nature of lives lived in context was respected. By bringing oral histories into virtual dialogue with each other and with contemporary practitioners, whether through workshops or through publications, the interplay between individual, institutional and societal narratives remains visible and open to change

Exploring Creativity

Six professors share their views of the creative process in a liberal arts environment