Journal articles on the topic 'Theatre history pedagogy'

Modern academic training for theatre in India has a history of just over fifty years (since independence). The National School of Drama (NSD) was set up in 1957, but the prime objective of the institution at that time was to generate professionals to develop children's theatre and rural theatre. Although India possessed a wide range of traditional performance cultures throughout the country, from rituals to folk performances and classical performances, the NSD was modelled on the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA) since the new institution was led by a graduate of RADA, Professor Ebrahim Alkazi, who put the institution on a functional track. Thus the toolkit used during the initial days was primarily based on Western models conducive to realism rather than growing organically out of the actual practices of the different forms of Indian performance. This early orientation remains today, emphasizing the creation of referential meanings on the stage through conventional methods and devices, taken as the unshakable organizing principle of theatre practice.

This article reflects on the experiences of a white male faculty teaching Black theatre history at a predominantly white institution. It views the Black theatre history classroom as a potential haven for theatre students of colour, and highlights the critical role of a white faculty member in honouring and protecting that space. It argues for the importance of self-reflection and humility on the part of white faculty as we engage with topics surrounding Black history. This piece references the traditional power dynamics between students and faculty, and reimagines those power dynamics when white faculty members teach Black theatre history to Black students. In our current moment of racial upheaval and reckoning within the rehearsal rooms and on our stages, this reflection contends that we must also examine the ways in which our pedagogy in Black theatre history can be actively antiracist. Ultimately, this piece advocates that white faculty work to de-centre their own whiteness in their theatre history classrooms and commit to humility and a willingness to learn from their students of colour.

Here, I outline a performative approach to the politicized public sphere specifically drawing on Moises Kaufman’s Laramie Project,1 Saldaña’s call for a critical ethnotheatre that engages key moments in a culture’s history, and Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed.

The article briefly describes the history of the development of theatrical practices in education in Russia and abroad. The main dimensions of theater and drama in contemporary pedagogy are considered. The article demonstrates that various forms of theater in education are more widespread and better developed in foreign pedagogy, where theater is not limited to the framework of school disciplines as it is used as a means for providing complex solutions of problems related to development, learning and socialization. It is substantiated that in the practice of Russian schools, theater is much less in use, since it is so far applied exclusively as a means of introduction to culture, its traditions and values.

This paper investigates the unique educational relevancy of Walter Benjamin’s radio broadcasts. While much has been written about Benjamin’s approach to both children’s literature and children’s theatre, his own pedagogical practice as a radio pedagogue remains largely marginalized in these discussions. In order to address this gap in the literature, I focus on the implications of shifting from the largely visual world of children (celebrated in color illustrations) to the auditory world of radio. Through a careful reading of the radio scripts, I argue that a perceptual alteration unique to the sonic medium of radio jumpstarts historical thinking in children. The following pedagogical principles which I extract from the radio broadcasts support and enhance this mode of historical materialist education. In conclusion, the article argues for the ongoing relevancy of Benjamin for thinking through the pedagogical implications of new information technologies within a postmodern era such as podcasts.

This paper analyses the relevance of Paulo Freire's pedagogical and philosophical ideas within the context of occupied Palestine. It specifically focuses on the work in continuing community action and education carried out by a particular centre established at Al-Quds University in Jerusalem, and at the heart of the ‘old city’, for this purpose. The major focus here is on community theatre foregrounding issues related to women in Palestinian society. Major themes broached include the politics of education, social mobilisation, women and the Intifada, the collective dimensions of knowledge, learning and praxis, purging oneself of the ‘oppressor within’ to break the cycle of violence, education for liberation.

The General Education Act, enacted in 1970, appears as the first attempt to regulate Theatre Education in Spain, considering all its diversity. On the one hand, this new law places Art Education in the General Education curriculum and provides it an expressive approach. This showed the pedagogical potential of different procedures of dramatic and theatrical nature, confirmed its educational legitimacy, and produced developments in both their empirical and scientific cultures. On the other hand, the Act stated and promoted the integration of Schools of Dramatic Art and its courses in the university, in tune with what had been its status since 1857 with the Moyano Education Act, and with similar transitions taking place in Europe in the same direction. This paper, which has been written after an analysis of the educational norms derived from the application of the Act, combined with a review of the literature generated at that period, shows the advances the change enhanced. Also, reveals that later Educational Acts were not always confirmed or consolidated, and that provoked important setbacks causing persistent of problems. Also, further research lines particularly relevant in the development of the further research lines particularly relevant in the development of the History of Theatre Education and also of the History of Theatre Pedagogy in Spain have been provided.

He production of Haifa / haifa, performed in winter 2011 at the Haifa University Theatre, based on Tamar Berger's essay Rooftop, Cellar, 1, 100 Stairs and Four-Way Exposure, directed by Helit Michaeli with Jewish and Arabic theatre students, was a piece of devised or ‘post-dramatic’ theatre. The title of the play hints at its general stance, not only by using both languages, Hebrew and Arabic (here represented by italic caps), but also by replacing the hyphen, symbolizing co-existence, with an unsettled slash. In this article Dorit Yerushalmi examines the various layers of Haifa / haifa: first, the literary context of Berger's essay; second, the participants‘ voices which reflect the whirlpool of interpersonal relationships in which they found themselves when confronted with conflicting narratives; and finally, the theatrical means of expression which comprise what, following Emmanuel Levinas, she terms the ‘poetics of proximity’. As a case study, the Haifa / haifa project illustrates how an interventionist work in a university theatre may provide a shared space in which a new understanding of dialogical practice can be constructed – dialogue not merely as a meeting of equals but also (and mainly) a call for responsibility for the ongoing suffering of the others among ‘us’. Dorit Yerushalmi is a lecturer in Theatre Studies at the University of Haifa. Her research interests include Hebrew-Israeli theatre history, theatre and gender, theatre and pedagogy, and interventionist theatre.

Theatre and other forms of art have played an unarguable part in the formation of cultures and civilizations all around the world. There is some proof that performance began even before language was invented by man. In their rituals and traditions, our earliest ancestors used their body to convey messages and performed rituals on different occasions. The history of our culture and civilization is replete with various forms of art and performance narrating the stories of generations. From mothers’ bedtime stories to religious ceremonies, for a wide range of purposes, art in general and performance-based art in particular gave shape and meaning to human’s everyday life experiences. This article will present an overview of the history of performative arts in Iran, how it has come to contribute to foreign language teaching, and outline its limitations and future projections. Performative arts have a rather long history in Iran. In one of the most authoritative books on Iranian Performance Tradition, William O’Beeman (2011) presents the rich “tapestry” of Iranian traditional performance which took root many centuries ago, before Iran came into contact with the West. He believes that those who are not familiar with Iranian culture may be truly surprised to discover ...

Abstract In the following article we try to re-evaluate, the place drama occupies in contemporary elementary education. By limiting the role of drama to literature studies and theatre productions, we lose a greater potential Theatre Pedagogy has to offer to a much broader educational spectrum. The participatory practices of Theatre and Drama in Education (TiE, DiE) promote active learning, based on a most organic children’s activity - play. While students co-create the fictional world of drama, teacher's guidance is crucial in setting new challenges, encouraging students to find creative solutions and reflect on often-complex social issues. Because of its art component, drama challenges the participants on a cognitive as well as emotional level, becoming a truly transformational experience. As such, Drama in Education is especially useful when approaching sensitive and controversial topics. This thesis is presented on a case study observing Year 6 students at St’ Michael’s CE Academy in Birmingham, UK, using Drama in Education method as part of History curriculum.

I was very excited to get my hands on what was promising to be a magnificent and extremely helpfulHandbook of Rhetorical Studies, and my expectations were matched – and exceeded! This handbook contains no less than sixty contributions written by eminent experts and is divided into six parts. Each section opens with a brief orientation essay, tracing the development of rhetoric in a specific period, and is followed by individual chapters which are organized thematically. Part I contains eleven chapters on ‘Greek Rhetoric’, and the areas covered are law, politics, historiography, pedagogy, poetics, tragedy, Old Comedy, Plato, Aristotle, and closing with the Sophists. Part II contains thirteen chapters on ‘Ancient Roman Rhetoric’, which similarly covers law, politics, historiography, pedagogy, and the Second Sophistic, and adds Stoic philosophy, epic, lyric address, declamation, fiction, music and the arts, and Augustine to the list of topics. Part III, on ‘Medieval Rhetoric’, covers politics, literary criticism, poetics, and comedy; Part IV, on the Renaissance contains chapters on politics, law, pedagogy, science, poetics, theatre, and the visual arts. Part V consists of seven essays on the early modern and Enlightenment periods and is decidedly Britano-centric: politics, gender in British literature, architecture, origins of British Enlightenment rhetoric, philosophy (mostly British, too), science, and the elocutionary movement in Britain. With Chapter 45 we arrive at the modern age section (Part VI), with two chapters on feminism, one on race, and three on the standard topics (law, political theory, science), grouped together with those on presidential politics, New Testament studies, argumentation, semiotics, psychoanalysis, deconstruction, social epistemology, and environment, and closing with digital media. The volume also contains a glossary of Greek and Latin rhetorical terms. As the editor states in his Introduction, the aim of the volume is not only to provide a comprehensive history of rhetoric, but also to enable those interested in the role of rhetoric in specific disciplines or genres, such as law or theatre and performance, to easily find those sections in respective parts of the book and thus explore the intersection of rhetoric with one specific field in a chronological sequence.

Background. In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in studying the processes of the development of the creative personality of the drama actor, amongst other things, the modern methods of vocal training, focused on his future activity in nowadays-scenic conditions. Therefore, there is a need to renew the traditional system of the vocal training of drama actors in accordance with the trends of contemporary theatrical art, namely, the introduction of the principles of person-centered pedagogy. Objectives, methodology. The research is an attempt to provide an overview of the principles of person-centered pedagogy in the making of the creative personality of the singing actor. The purpose of the article is to characterize the system of vocal training of the dramatic theater actor and new “technologies” of education aimed at developing the personality of a singing actor, which are based on the principle of person-centered pedagogy. On based of interdisciplinary approach the following methods are used in this paper: empirical (observation, discussion, retrospective analysis of vocal-performing and pedagogical experience of the author) and theoretical (analysis, synthesis, comparison, generalization of theoretical and research data). The results of the study. The history of the development of vocal performing, acting and pedagogy shows that for many years the attempts carried out to determine the principles of vocal education of the actor of the drama theater, implement their testing, introduce into the system of training of acting skills for improvement the process of onstage singing. The contemporary study of this problem requires a comprehensive multidisciplinary approach, extensive contacts of art historians, musicologists, theater critics, vocalists, actors, and teachers. The constant development of theatrical art dictates new methods of educating the actor’s creative personality, including approaches to his vocal training, focused on his future activities on the modern stage. In the making of scenic image, an actor-singer needs to be constantly improved in a personal and professional way. The basis of continuous work on a vocal creative product is a worked out system of reflection regarding a person himself with all psycho-physiological features, and the image, which an actor creates onstage. The basis of the author’s developed program of the complex and personal development of the singing actor is the factor of individual diagnostics. The author of the article offers a method of individual diagnosis of the creative state of the singing actor in the educational process, by which this state can be divided into three psychological and pedagogical zones: the area of the mainstream development; the area of the highest potential development; the area of the nearest self-development. For these parameters and criteria, the author has developed a scheme of a diagnostic characteristic map for each actor’s student, which contains: ● analysis of the peculiarities of the actor’s psyche; ● descriptions of his voice and external data; ● information about language and vocal defects of sound; ● information on the shortcomings of the voice of the actor and ways to overcome them; ● repertoire list of works; ● analysis of the technical part of the actor’s vocal training at the beginning of training and at the end of it; ● analysis of performances on the drama scene. Thus, the introduction of a person-centered approach makes it possible to outline the optimal trajectory of the formation of the creative personality of a singing student-actor. On an optimal path to forming a creative personality of a singing actor student, the main task of the vocal teacher is to ensure his development, taking into account his psychological and physiological abilities, as well as updating of incentives for self-development and self-realization. To solve this problem, first, it is necessary to organize a psychologically rich “counter activity” of a student, taking care of updating and forming his internal personal motivation to developing. This kind of education focuses not so much on the amount of knowledge that is acquired, but on the feelings and experiences that are associated with them, the personal inte­rests and features of the subject of the educational process. In contemporary theatrical and vocal pedagogy, there is a vicious regularity: on the one hand, all (both teachers and students-actors) know about the existence of the above-mentioned issue, discuss it, declare it, and on the other – because of imperfection elaboration of these issues, lack of research and others difficulties, it is simply not taken into account. The author has analyzed the apparatus necessary for the study of the category of the worldview and psychological aspects of education: the structure of the personality of the actor, his socio-biological patterns, needs, motivation, etc. Conclusions. The most important mean of the vocal up-bringing of an drama theater actor as a component of his professional development is a person-centered approach to a student. This approach involves two complementary moments: the true understanding by a teacher of the individuality of a singing actor, his personality traits and features; the presence of a student’s desire for self-development within his abilities to vocal stage activity. In the process of development of the creative person of a singing drama actor, the new technologies of education arise aimed at the vocal-scenic activity in a today theatre, which are based on the principle of person-centered pedagogy. In part, the study of the processes of reflection allowed us to develop the program for complex individual development of a student-actor. Within its framework, the author proposed a diagnostic characteristic map, revealing the features of the singing student-actor’s abilities.

Opened in Warsaw in April 2013, POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews tells the story of the thousand years of continuous Jewish presence in this part of the world, a history largely overshadowed, understandably, by the Holocaust. While the exhibition avoids a master narrative, it enacts a theatre of history founded on 12 metahistorical principles outlining POLIN’s curatorial, pedagogic, and performative storytelling strategies.

If psychology is to accept responsibility for its own historiography, then it must instill within its students an interest in and love for history. We provide an argument for this assertion and describe a pedagogical assignment designed to achieve these objectives.

Opened in Warsaw in April 2013, POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews tells the story of the thousand years of continuous Jewish presence in this part of the world, a history largely overshadowed, understandably, by the Holocaust. While the exhibition avoids a master narrative, it enacts a theatre of history founded on 12 metahistorical principles. This essay sets out the curatorial, pedagogic, and performative storytelling strategies at work in this multimedia narrative exhibition. They include the following. The most important period in the history of Polish Jews is 1,000 years. Jews are integral part of the history of Poland: they are not only in Poland, but also of Poland. This is a story of coexistence and conflict, cooperation and competition, separation and integration. They created a civilization that is “categorically Jewish, distinctly Polish”. Polish Jews became the largest Jewish community in the world and a center of the Jewish world. To tell the story in the very place where it happened is to harness the emotional power of the site. The narrative strategy – driving the story through excerpts from primary sources exclusively from within a given historical period –is intended to pull back from avoid the teleological narrative to the Holocaust as an inevitability.

Readers theater productions are meaningful expressions of creative pedagogy in higher education. This article presents the script of a readers theater called Identify This… A Readers Theater of Women's Voices, which was researched, written, and produced by undergraduate and graduate students in a women's studies class called Intersections of Race, Class, and Gender. Section one of the article reproduces the script of Identify This that was based on life history interviews with a diverse selection of women to illustrate intersectional identities. Section two briefly describes the essential elements of the process we used to create and perform Identify This.

The article discusses excursion work related to theatrical museum collections, which is one of the interesting, but little developed types of activities in the field of tourism. Гhe author refers to the specifics of the theater museums involved in updating knowledge and raising the professional level, developing practical skills and professional competencies of tourism service specialists in the field of a holistic presentation of the history of the development of such a museum as a specific sociocultural institute. It touches on the interesting history of the creation, formation and composition of collections, as well as the modern activities of major museums and the latest museum centers around the world, hosting tourists. It is noted that the purpose of excursion and tourist programs using the collections of theater museums is not only to improve the modern tourist structure, but also to create a special spatial and artistic image that complements the content of the text, overcomes psychological discomfort due to the frequent presence of tourists in the bus or in open spaces , by creating favorable environmental conditions, the realization of the aesthetic potential of the museum atmosphere, capable of Favorably affect the emotional state and enrich the tour. In this regard, today, an important complex of problems that lie in the aesthetic field arises in the context of intensive tourism development processes, along with the need to solve infrastructure and technological issues, problems of implementing socio-economic problems in the tourism sector. Theater museums in excursion programs are considered as a special historical and cultural phenomenon. Their development is a continuation of world and domestic experience and, at the same time, a unique cultural phenomenon, inextricably linked both with the regional traditions of the countries and with the theater school - the academic school, for which the theater exhibit has become the most important area for the realization of creative potential. An attempt is being made to reflect the optimal combination of considering general theoretical and methodological issues and concrete and practical material on museum theater pedagogy.

There has been much discussion on promotion of the health of young people in vulnerable situations; but little work has been done analyzing its actual operation - and this is especially true in relation to programs and projects that are outside the health services. This article aims to analyze the relationship of an experience in Community Theater with the promotion of health. It is a qualitative, ethnographic study made at the Pombas Urbanas Institute, in the Cidade Tiradentes district of the municipality of São Paulo, and is coordinated by a theater group with a history that is relevant to the objective of the study. Participatory observation was carried out for one year, with semi-structured interviews with young people, and with actors of the Pombas Urbanas group, and analysis of documents. The theoretical framework that was used is made up of concepts from the fields of collective health, Community Theater, and liberation pedagogy. The results are presented in two interlinked sub-categories which have arisen from the empiric material and from the references adopted: (i) 'True friends', and (ii) 'Dialog'. The analysis clearly shows the importance of this type of theatrical joint experience for the promotion of health by transforming the quality of relationships between people. Concepts of health, culture and education were used in analysis of the results.

- The essay explains the first results of a research on the spreading of the acting between children and teenagers in Italy in the period ranging between the XIXth century and the early years of the XXth. Staging various kind of theatrical works - like monologues, dialogues, comedies, both in schools, boarding schools, orphanages, and in domestic theatres of middle-class families, was a very common practice. This phenomenon gave birth to a real publication type where some publishers in particular of Milan, Florence and Turin became skilled in, together with amateur writers, who were often teachers and educationists. A large number of paperback or valuable collections were printed with the purpose of becoming an outline for the performance, by circulating within a heterogeneous public. The great children's theatrical publication season coincides with the building of a Unitarian State: it is therefore not by chance that the themes and subjects echo the objectives of national, patriotic events and pedagogy throughout time.

Introduction and statement of the problem. Before the revolution of 1917, artists, writers, musicians and teachers created a rich literary fund that could be the basis for professional musical children’s theater in Ukraine. That is why there is a need to study the children’s musical and dramatic heritage of the past, which is an inexhaustible treasury of cultural and educational ideas that can be creatively developed and successfully applied in modern conditions. The process of creative development of the genre of children’s musical performance is today one of the most pressing problems of professional theater for children, take in account its growing popularity, both in the world and in Ukrainian musical culture. The lack of scientific research that fully and comprehensively cover the scientific and practical significance of musical children’s plays by Marko Kropyvnytskyi for the development of musical children’s theater in Ukraine indicates the need for more in-depth researching of the chosen topic. In our research, we rely on the works and articles of authoritative experts – in particular, I. Franko (1910), M. Voronyi (1913), D. Antonovich (1925), P. Rulin (1929), I. Mar’ianenko (1953), P. Kyrychok (1985), N. Yosipenko (1958), P. Perepelitsa (1956), A. Novikov (2007; 2011), L. Moroz (1990). The vast majority of researchers noted the great merits of the artist to the national drama in particular and Ukrainian culture in general. Among the scientific works devoted to Kropyvnytskyi as a children’s playwright, one can distinguish the research by A. Novikov (2007), which focuses on the history of creation of the first children’s troupe in the country, which had no analogues in the history of the world theater, since the actors in it were peasant children. In mentioned critical and scientific works, the innovative features of the playwright’s creative heritage are outlined, attention is focused on the specifics of the genre and problem-thematic range, literary-aesthetic, socio-political, and pedagogical views. The literary and theatrical activity of M. Kropyvnytskyi has been thoroughly studied. However, there is still no work that comprehensively reveal his musical and dramatic creativity for children. The purpose of the article is to show the significant role of M. Kropyvnytskyi in the development of children’s musical theater in Ukraine based on the research of children’s musical and dramatic creativity by the artist. The research methodology is integrative. The work uses knowledge of various fields of art history and related sciences: history and theory of theater, music theory, music and theater psychology, vocal and theater pedagogy. Presentation of the main material. A great pride of the playwright is the foundation by him on the territory of his village Zatyshok of the children’s theater, “actors” in which were his own and peasant children. This event was and remains unprecedented, since nothing like this has been observed in the history of Ukrainian and European culture. The troupe consisted of peasant children aged 10–13. For performances, Kropyvnytskyi assigned the largest room (hall) in the old house, where, as in a real theater, the stage was equipped. The first performance, “Goat-Dereza” (“Koza-dereza”), took place on Christmas day, 1906. The playwright drew the scenery himself, and prepared the costumes together with the children. The play was a great success. A few days later, the children’s troupe was invited to a “tour” in the neighboring village, and the entire theater with the scenery on five carts went on a journey of six versts (Novikov, 2007: 33). In the children’s repertoire at that time, there was, in fact, only one work – the opera by M. Lysenko “Goat-Dereza” (“Koza-dereza”) (libretto by Dniprova Chaika). Ukrainian children’s repertoire did not exist at that time, and in 1907, Kropyvnytskyi created two plays for young performers based on folk tales – “Ivasyk-Telesyk” and “At the behest of the pike” (“Po shchuchomu velinniu”). The performances included vocal numbers composed by M. Kropyvnytskyi on the themes of Ukrainian folk melodies. In a letter to his good friend entrepreneur A. Suslov in January 1908, the writer, in particular, notes: “I have assembled a troupe of peasant children and I am staging in the villages: Goat-dereza, IvasykTelesyk, and At the behest of the pike (the latter both are my)” (Kropyvnytskyi, 1960: 530). Based on the plot of folk tales of the same name, he wrote original musical and dramatic works for children of great educational value. The plays are quite simple in meaning and clearly depict the images of all the negative and positive characters. The first represent such social vices as lies and insincerity, and the second are carriers of eternal positive qualities – sincerity, candor, hard work. The plays are written in an exquisite Ukrainian language, close to the oral poetic creativity. All this, as M. Yosypenko rightly notes, is evidence of “a serious approach of M. Kropyvnytskyi to the business of writing plays for children, a deep knowledge of the psychology of the young audience and its cultural and educational needs and demands” (Yosypenko, 1958: 265). The performances require participation of music, which organic include into the language range of the play itself. Music explains and complements the true meaning of the situation to the young audience. Ukrainian musical folklore material formed the basis of the musical solution of M. Kropyvnytskyi’s children’s performances. Most often, folk songs served as a means to create the image and were introduce before the dramatic action mainly by the method of self-presentation: performing a particular song, the characters showed certain traits of their nature. The songs help to reveal the inner world of the characters, to express their state of mind and moods; often they contributed to the creation of the necessary stage atmosphere: festivities, fun and jokes. A significant part of the characters could not be imagined without songs. Using some folk melodies, Kropyvnytskyi mainly wrote original music, close in melody to the folk-song sources. Solo numbers, ensembles, and choirs are organically woven into the dramaturgy of these plays. A clear reflection of the integrity and unity of the musical and dramatic process is the principle of end-to-end development of the main musical idea of performances. In preparation for productions of his children’s plays, Kropyvnytskyi wrote an orchestration for them also. Intending to put these plays on the professional stage, Kropyvnytskyi wrote down advice to future directors regarding the production of their children’s plays. He began to think of broader horizons for them. In the spring of 1910, small artists had to show their art to the audience of the neighboring county town Kupyansk. However, the premature death of the Ukrainian playwright did not allow this plan to be realized. The children’s troupe soon ceased to exist. Kropyvnytskyi children’s troupe and the repertoire he created for it became a prologue to the development of the Ukrainian theater’s creativity for young viewers. In nowadays from the repertoire do not go off the pearls of drama for children “Ivasik-Telesik’ and “At the behest of the pike”. Conclusions. Marko Kropyvnytskyi’s creative heritage and practical activities wrote the gold pages to the history of Ukrainian musical children’s drama and Ukrainian children’s theater. Children’s musical and dramatic works of the writer based on song folklore are the effective mean to educate positive attitude of young Ukrainians to folk tradition as well as to form positive nature traits: generosity, hospitality, goodwill, charity.

On the 8th of July 2018 died Janusz Wałek, art historian, museologist, pedagogue, born in 1941 in Bobowa. He graduated from the Jagiellonian University, the history of art faculty. In 1968, he started working in the Czartoryskis’ Museum – Branch of the National Museum in Krakow, where some time after he became a head of the European Painting Department for many years. He was a lecturer at the Fine Arts Academy, the National Academy of Theatre Arts and the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. He wrote two books and numerous articles about art. He was also a poet, the winner of the Main Prize in the 1997 edition of the General Polish Poetry Competition. He was a student of Marek Rostworowski, they worked together on a number of publicly acclaimed exhibitions: “Romanticism and Romanticity in Polish Art of the 19th and 20th centuries”, “The Poles’ Own Portrait”, “Jews – Polish”. Many exhibitions and artistic shows were prepared by him alone, inter alia “The Vast Theatre of Stanisław Wyspiański”, presentations of artworks by great artists: Goya, Rafael, Titian, El Greco. He also created a few scenarios of permanent exhibitions from the Czartoryskis’ Collection – in Krakow and in Niepołomice – being a great expert on this collection. “Europeum” – European Culture Centre was organised according to the programme written by him. He specialised mostly, although not exclusively, in art and culture of the Renaissance. Janusz Wałek is presented herein as a museologist who was fully devoted to art, characterised by: creativity, broad perception of art and culture, unconventional approach to museum undertakings, unusual sensitivity and imagination. What the author of the article found worth emphasising is that J. Wałek talked and wrote about art not only as a scholar, but first of all as a poet, with beauty and zest of the language he used.

Background. Today in the minds of Ukrainians there is a process of reappraisal of values, which requires new approaches to the cultural education of citizens. At the current stage of the formation of the Ukrainian state, in front of its culture, in particular, children education, important and responsible educational tasks arise for the younger generation to develop a worldview focused on national ideals and traditions, preserved in folk songs, tales, in outstanding literary, musical works and other significant achievements of spiritual culture. That is why there is a need to study the children musical and dramatic heritage of the past – an inexhaustible treasury of cultural and educational ideas that in modern conditions can get their new life. The pearl in this treasury are the children plays by Olena Pchilka. The lack of research that fully and comprehensively covers the scientific and practical significance of children musical plays by the writer for the development of children theater in Ukraine determines the relevance of the chosen topic. Appeal to it seems very timely, given the growing popularity of the children musical genre today both in the world and in Ukrainian musical culture. The process of creative development of this genre is now one of the important problems of a modern professional theater for children. Olena Pchilka’s work has been studied by such scientists as D. Dontsov (1958), I. Denysiuk (1970), N. Kuprata (1998), H. Avrakhov (1999), L. Miroshnichenko (1999, 2014), L. Novakivska (2002), L. Drofan (1992, 2004), O. Mikula (2007, 2011), V. Shkola (2010), A. Zaitseva (2014), I. Shchukina (2015), O. Yablonska (2019) and others. In critical and scientific studies, innovative genre features of the writer’s work are identified, attention is focused on the specifics of his problematic and thematic range, the features of literary and aesthetic, sociopolitical, pedagogical views of the writer. However, there is still no work that would comprehensively reveal our chosen topic. The purpose of the article is to show Olena Pchilka’s contribution to the development of children musical theater in Ukraine on the basis of a study of the children’s musical and dramatic work of the writer. The research methodology is comprehensive. The work uses knowledge from various fields of art and related sciences: the history and theory of theater, the theory of music, music and theater psychology, vocal and theater pedagogy. Analytical method is applied for Olena Pchilka’s musical plays for children’s theater, which are the material of this study. Results of the study. Results of the study. An outstanding Ukrainian writer, translator, editor, teacher Olga Petrovna Dragomanova-Kosach (1849–1930) is known better under the nickname Olena Pchilka. Half of all her works are works for children and youth: poems, translations, tales, stories, plays. Olena Pchilka’s legacy in the field of children theater, in terms of his qualities – an active educational orientation, a benevolent understanding of the child’s inner world and its highly artistic reflection in word and music – is a unique cultural phenomenon. During her lifetime, only three of her twelve plays for children were published. However, every play was put on the school stage. The author herself usually directed performances. The writer’s awareness of musical folklore formed the foundation for the creation of children plays. The author interweaves melodies in the texts of plays (“Melodies for singing”, as Pchilka called it) as an organic component of the child’s very existence, they sound in a dance, game or some imaginary action of children, thereby “feeding” and directing the Grand vector of the stage action. There is the information that Olga Petrovna became the author of some songs. The writer outlined the creative directions of her future children theater: 1) dramatizations of a “suitable” literary work; 2) a children musical play; 3) an original dramatic work with a wide use of poems, fables, folk songs, ritual dances with singing, children games with toys, and the like. “Honor your native...”, “...it is good to know your own folk language, song...” – expressions from Olena Pchilka’s article “Work of upbringing” formulate the dominant of her creativity, pedagogy, social and scientific activities and, to a high degree, her children drama. Olena Pchilka considered the life and work of Taras Shevchenko one of the most influential sources of education of conscious Ukrainians. Therefore, in her children theater, the theme of his life and creativity is a leitmotif (the play “Spring morning of Taras” etc.). Olena Pchilka was convinced that the Ukrainian language, song and native nature are a necessary and irreplaceable environment for a child. Folk art and folk mythology reign in a number of her children plays. In one of them (“Dreamdreamy, or a Fairy tale of a Green Grove” – “Son-Mriya, Kazka Zelenogo Gayu”) we meet a Forest Mouse, a Cuckoo-a girl, a Nightingale-a boy, a Crow-a girl, a Sparrow-a boy, children-Quail, Forest Mermaid, Goblin (Lisovik), Field Mermaid. For this play the author introduced the row of various songs, from the song of field workers to lullaby. The play “Bezyazykiy” (“Without tongue”) touches on the theme of refugees, the psychology of the child, his behavior in the school team, and at the same time the ethical problems of teaching. The play also includes the songs. The operetta “Two Sorceresses” (1919) is the pinnacle of Olena Pchilka’s children drama. The writer repelled from folk melodies and poems; games, ceremonies, festivals; from children’s naturalness, clarity, rainbow imagination, playfulness, organically weaving into the fabric of their works their own verses and melodies to them. The play contains a variety of numbers: solo (“Singing of the Earth”, “Singing of Santa Claus” and others), choral (“Choir of boys and girls”, “Spring-Beauty is coming”, etc.), conversational and vocal scenes (“I’m Winter, Winter”, “Girl, Fish”, “We are the clear rays of the sun”, “Lala, bobo”, etc.). Another title of the work is “Winter and Spring”, so the names of the main characters who oppose each other are placed in the title. The presence of conversational and vocal scenes, folk games and dances, comedy episodes allows us to consider the play as the predecessor of the modern genre of “musical” for children. The festive theme continues in the one-act play “A Christmas tale”. The play traces the process of becoming a person as a person. A large amount of ethnographic musical material has been introduced into the artistic structure of the work. The writer meant the “Christmas fable” as a dramatic action. To “AChristmas Fable” the author has included Ukrainian folk songs: the Christmas Carol “New joy”, a Christmas caroling girls “Oh red, plentiful viburnum”, the dance song “Dance of the groom” (“Kozachok”), the refrain “At the house of Pan Semen” etc. In 1920, in Mogilev-Podolsk, Olga Petrovna Kosach, a teacher of Ukrainian language and literature, organized a children’s drama Studio at the Ivan Franko school, where almost all the plays of her “Ukrainian children theater” were staged: “Peace-Peace!” (Mir-Mirom), “Kiselik” and “Treasure” (“Skarb”). The play “MirMirom!” is based on the games of preschool children: the song “Go, go, rain”, the game for friendship “Peace-Peace!”, the song “My mother gave me a cow” and other. Among Olena Pchilka’s children plays, there are “tales” of Patriotic content. “Treasure” performance in one action, which also include the songs, is teaching for responsibility and patriotism. In her play “Out of captivity”, where the Ukrainian childhood during the October revolution shows, the children sing the choral “liberated singing” – the singing of the Ukrainian anthem. Conclusions. It is concluded that Olena Pchilka contributed to the creation of the foundations for the formation of children musical theater in Ukraine with her creative heritage and practical activities, developing a new literary genre of musical children play, which we can call the genre of musical in modern times. After all, Olena Pchilka’s plays, written in a form accessible to children, are examples of Patriotic and cultural education, full of music, singing, folk and household melodies, folk songs, carols, poems, games, dances, rituals, celebrations. This problem is poorly understood and requires further research.

Problem statement. Conductor is considered to be one of the most prestigious occupation in musical field, so there has always been a certain interest to its history. But, despite a large amount of literature, there are no musicologist’s scientific works, with the systematized and generalized materials on training conducting staff in Ukraine in the 1920s – 1940s. This is partly due to a shortage of primary documents at a difficult historical period: most of them were destroyed by the employees of state institutions before being evacuated behind the lines during the Second World War; the other part was burned down during the hostilities; the third one was lost in the territories temporarily occupied by the fascists. The most important information was restored in the postwar years on the basis of personal documents of the musicians and memoirs of the contemporaries. The names of many other talented performers, who were not high ranked in the hierarchy of Ukraine musical culture, were forgotten. Research and publications analysis. Dealing with this article, the author relied on the research of three scientists. For example, the episode devoted to the history of the Kuban State Conservatory is based on the materials of the book by V. A. Frolkin, PhD in musicology, Professor of Piano Department of Krasnodar University of Culture and Arts. (Frolkin, 2006 : 70–89). The Kharkov period of Ya. Rosenstein’s activity is based on the article by E. M. Shchelkanovtseva, PhD in musicology, Department of Orchestral String Instrument of I. P. Kotlyarevsky Kharkov National University of Arts (Shchelkanovtseva, 1992 : 178–179), as well as the memoirs of conductor S. S. Feldman (Feldman, 2006). Ya. Rosenstein activities in T. G. Shevchenko Kiev Academic Opera and Ballet Theater of the Ukrainian SSR was described in research of Yu. A. Stanishevsky – Doctor in musicology, Professor. (Stanishevsky, 1981 : 533–534). The objective of this article is to create Ya. Rosenstein’s complete and non-biased biography, to analyze various aspects of his activity, and, as a result, to revive the name of a talented musician who was at the forefront of Ukraine musical pedagogy. This is the urgency and novelty of this study. Core material. Yakov A. Rosenstein (1887–1946) – a cello player, conductor, professor. In1907–1912 he studied at St. Petersburg Conservatory specializing in cello. Until February 1917, he had served as a cello player in the Royal orchestra of the Imperial Mariinskyi Theater. During the Civil War, he moved to Yekaterinodar (Krasnodar), where in 1918–1919 he was a director of Russian Musical Society Conservatory. October 1, 1920 witnessed the opening of Kuban State Conservatory. The university was funded from the budget of the People’s Commissariat for Education, so the training of all students was free. Ya. Rosenstein taught the cello class. But at the end of 1921, the Kuban Conservatory was deprived of state funding, and in summer of 1922 the university was reorganized into the Kuban Higher Technical School. (Frolkin, 2006 : 74–89). In autumn of 1923, Ya. Rosenstein moved to Kharkov, where he was a cello player in Russian State Opera orchestra. Later Ya. Rosenstein became a theater conductor. Also, he was engaged in pedagogical activity: in 1925 he became a dean of the instrumental faculty of Kharkov State Higher Music and Drama Courses, and in 1926 he became the head of the courses. According to E. M. Shchelkanovtseva, since 1927, Ya. Rosenstein had been teaching at the Music and Drama Institute (currently – I. P. Kotlyarevsky Kharkov National University of Arts) – Professor of cello class, chamber ensemble, orchestra class, conducting; in 1929 he became an Academic Director. (Shchelkanovtseva, 1992 : 179). Opera-symphonic conducting class at Kharkov Music and Drama Institute, which was opened in autumn of 1927, is a merit of Ya. Rosenstein. During 8 years, he had been training such conductors as: P. Ya. Balenko, M. P. Budyansky, I. I. Vymer, F. M. Dolgova, K. L. Doroshenko, D. L. Klebanov, B. T. Kozhevnikov, V. N. Nakhabin, V. S. Tolba and others. In 1926–1927, the Orchestra of Unemployed Musicians in Kharkov was transformed into the First State Symphony Orchestra of All-Ukrainian Radio Committee, which in autumn of 1929 was integrated with the Ukrainian Philharmonic. In 1929–1932 Ya. Rosenstein acted as a chief conductor. Then he was replaced by German Adler, a graduate of German Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Prague, and a world-famous conductor. In 1937, this musical group was the base for creation the State Symphony Orchestra of the Ukrainian SSR in Kiev (nowadays the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine). (Pluzhnikov, 2016 : 358). In 1935–1941 and 1944–1946 Ya. Rosenstein was a conductor of T. G. Shevchenko Kiev Academic Opera and Ballet Theater of the Ukrainian SSR. According to S. S. Feldman, there he brilliantly showed himself in the ballet performances “Swan Lake” and “Sleeping Beauty” by P. Tchaikovsky, “The Fountain of Bakhchisarai” and “The Prisoner of the Caucasus” by B. Asafiev, “Lilaea” by K. Dankevich and “Raymonda” by A. Glazunov (Feldman, 2009 : 102). In summer of 1941 the War began, and the theater troupe was evacuated to Ufa. In 1942–1944 the United Ukrainian State Opera and Ballet Theater was created on the basis of the Kharkov and Kiev theaters in Irkutsk. More than 650,000 people visited 785 performances conducted by N. D. Pokrovsky, Ya. A. Rosenstein and V. S. Tolba in Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk and other cities! In June 1944, the theater troupe returned to Kyiv, and in 1946 Ya. Rosenstein died. He was buried at Baykove cemetery in Kyiv. Conclusion. The creative personality of Ya. A. Rosenstein, a cello player, conductor, teacher, one of the organizers of the First State Symphony Orchestra in Ukraine and the creators of the Kharkov school of orchestra conducting, deserves more attention on behalf of the scientists, musicians and all non-indifferent people. There is hope that Ya. A. Rosenstein’s memory will not be forgotten, and the name of this talented and noble person will take its rightful place in the annals of Ukraine and Russian musical culture.

Target setting. In the modern musical culture of the Republic of Moldova M. V. Sechkin stands out as one of the key figures. He proved to be a multi skilled musician: piano player, conductor, and pedagogue. The scientific challenge disclosed in the article touches on creation of a coherent reflection of the work conducted by M. Sechkin in musical and artistic institutions of the Republic of Moldova during 1988–2015. Thus, notably contributing to the theoretical perception of the process of musical art development in the Republic of Moldova at the turn of the 21st century while filling up the gap in studying the history of Moldovan musical culture. Review of literature. The activity conducted by M. Sechkin was not reflected in the scientific literature. The present paper is the first attempt to present the creative portrait of the musician by summarizing press articles and a range of interviews. The purpose of this paper is confined to disclosing the contribution made by the famous piano player, conductor, and pedagogue M. Sechkin in the process of musical art development in Moldova at the turn of the 21st century. Research methodology. In the research of creative activity of M. Sechkin, use has been made of a complex of methods applicable in modern study of art: the empirical level of scientific research was established through informal personal conversations with M. Sechkin and other musicians, directly linked with his activity. Applied at the theoretical level were general scientific methods, such as analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, comparison, etc. Statement of basic material. Over the years, M. V. Sechkin, born on March 31, 1943 in the Ukrainian City of Kharkov, has contributed decisively to the development of musical culture in the Republic of Moldova as a pianist, opera and symphony orchestra conductor, professor and public figure. He took his first lessons in music from his mother Maria Sechkin Zakharchenko, the follower of K. N. Igumnov. He attended the profile secondary musical school, class of Regina Gorovitz – the sister to the famous pianist Vladimir Gorovitz. In 1966, M. Sechkin graduated from Kharkov Conservatoire as a pianist on the class of Professor Mikhail Khazanovsky and then selected to remain with the Chair as an assistant. However, his dream of making a carrier of symphony and opera conductor has taken the young musician to a different path. The interest for conducting appeared under the influence of the art of conducting revealed by Leonid Khudoley, disciple of Nikolay Golovanov. Therefore, two years later, after graduation, M. Sechkin has entered the faculty of conductors at Kharkov Institute of Arts. One year later, he moves to Kyiv Conservatoire named after P. I. Tchaikovsky, where he attended the class of Professor Mikhail Kanershtein, disciple of one of the founders of the Soviet school of conducting Nicolay Malko. Next followed probation assistantship, where M. Sechkin attended a training course headed by the outstanding Ukrainian conductor Stephan Turchak. Having accomplished his probation assistantship, M. Sechkin has joined the Symphonic orchestra of Zaporozhye Philharmonics and later on invited to Donetsk Opera Theatre, where he mastered a rather comprehensive theatrical repertoire. The Chisinau (Moldova) period of maestro’s creative biography started beck in 1988, when he accepted the invitation to join the Moldovan State Conservatoire as Professor of the Chair of Special Piano and the Chair of Operatic Training. By then he headed the Students Symphony Orchestra, being one of the first conductors of Opera Studio. The Studio repertoire included the best images of West European and Russian opera classics. Prepared from the scratch were such operas as Carmen by G. Bizet and the Noblewoman Vera Sheloga by N. А. Rimsky Korsakov. The students – alumni of this conservatoire then worked successfully at the National Opera Theatre, performed in prestigious opera scenes around the world; among these one could mention Petru Racovita, Natalia Margarit, Lilya Sholomey, Yuri Gasca, Robert Khvalov, Stephan Curudimov, Mefodie Bujor, and Liliana Lavric. The Opera Studio Orchestra was touring in Italy and Spain. For a number of decades, M. Sechkin acted as one of the key conductors at the National Opera and Ballet Theatre, while from 1990 to 1992 acted as the Principal Conductor and the Art Director. Here he worked on staging the ballets Romeo & Juliette by S. Prokofiev, Spartacus by А. Khachaturian, and operas the Marriage of Figaro by W. Mozart, Don Carlos by G. Verdi, and Iolanta by P. I. Tchaikovsky. In parallel to the theatre plays, M. Sechkin has brightly proven his qualities as a conductor of the Symphony Orchestra of the National Philharmonics named after S. Lunchevici. Under his leadership (2008–2013), the orchestra performed more than twenty show programs, including premiere hits by P. Tchaikovsky (Symphony No. 5, symphony Manfred), A. Scriabin (Symphony No. 2 and No. 3), and S. Rachmaninoff (Symphony No. 3). Many of the musicians are marking high conducting mastery of M. Sechkin in performing orchestral accompaniment and special work with the soloists prior to orchestra performance. Likewise appreciated was the work of maestro with young musicians. The conductor devotes a lot of his time to promoting the oeuvre of Moldovan composers. Since 2000 and until nowadays, within the frameworks of the Days of New Music Festival, jointly with the National Philharmonics Orchestra, the maestro prepared a number of programs compiled from the works of V. Polyakov, V. Zagorsky, V. Rotaru, A. Luxemburg, O. Negruza, B. Dubossarsky, and Z. Tcaci. In 30 years of his activity in Chisinau, M. Sechkin cooperated with all of the known orchestra ensembles. Back in 90th, maestro was successfully touring with the National Opera and Ballet Theatre in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Rumania and Chile. In Rumania, M. Sechkin was working full time as a conductor and then as the principal conductor of the Symphony Orchestra of the city of Botosani (1998–2013), where he managed to stage about 70 show programs. The multifaceted and fruitful activity of the musician was repeatedly marked with Certificates of Honor and Diplomas. In 1996, he was decorated with the award Maestru în Artă (Master of Arts) and in 2018 with the noble award of the People’s Artist of the Republic of Moldova. Conclusions and prospects. While appreciating the contribution made by this outstanding musician into the development of the musical culture in the Republic of Moldova, one could clearly see the determinant trajectory of his life and artistic journey – the stalwart devotion to music, musical education, nurturing young performers and listeners of different age group generations.

Background. The contemporary choral art has accumulated many bright samples, which present various performing directions and genres. Particularly interesting are those that include the traits traditionally not inherent to the choral performance. We will consider some of the requirements for the performance of choral music, put forward by the composers of the twentieth century, in particular, representatives of the new Viennese school and the Italian avant-garde, as well as the performance conditions, which require the tendency to adaptation for the stage of choral works and the improvisational component of musical thinking today. The need for such analysis is connected with vocal-performing training of contemporary choirmasters. The choral collective is a complex musical organism, and its successful work depends not only on the conductor, but also on the performers, therefore, there is a question of improving the complex development of the vocal-technical skills of the choirmaster, taking into account the specifics of his/her future activities. Methods. The scientific and methodological basis of improving the performing skills must be deepened in the issues of the psychology of performance and expanded with the questions of combining the choral performance with theatre. Due to such a methodological basis, it is possible to study extremely complex psychological processes of artistically meaningful vocal intonation, formation, control and implementation of performing skills, peculiarities of the psychological state of the choir performers, etc. The article is based on the analysis of materials on the development of the choral performance in various artistic directions and their synthesis (Kyrylenko, Ya., 2017; Ryzhynsky, A. 2015, 2016; Saponov, M., 1982), as well as the study of psychophysiological regularities of the vocal education in different performance conditions (Lukishko, A. 1984; Morozov, V., 2008, Selezneva, N., 2005). Objectives. The purpose of the article is to consider the performance tasks in the contemporary choral art and to outline the factors that shape the skills for the implementation of these tasks. Results. The analysis of the development of the vocal-choral art proves that vocal-technical means are defined and formed in unity with the performing tasks that characterize certain musical trends, styles or genres. Throughout the 20th century, in the choral art appears the works that became the result of the composers’ search for new versions of the timbre sound. The representatives of the new Viennese school A. Schoenberg and A. Webern were the first to overcome the timbre “conservatism” of the choir. In the choral creative activities by A. Schoenberg, the experiments with the use of timbre can be found. Namely, the use of expressiveness of the unison of the alt and tenor and the falsetto singing of the tenor, which provided for the alignment of the timbre and corrected dynamic misbalance of the artificial ensemble of tenor and soprano. However, the further introduction of falsetto singing was no longer a technical necessity, but became a means of a new expressiveness. The experiments are typical for the choral creativity by A. Webern, where the following two tendencies are clearly distinguished: 1) the jump-like structure of the melody in combination with syllabics; 2) the presence of pauses, which divide the motive into separate intonations. The purpose of the texture transformation was to uncover a fundamentally new sound of the choir, the creation of a new choral timbre. A. Webern achieves the timbre richness through a constant game with various nuances, strokes, and juxtaposition of the singing registers. The Italian composers L. Nono (1924–1990), B. Maderna (1920–1973) and L. Berio (1925–2003) became the followers of Webern’s creative experiments with regard to the organization of sound, the texture of the composition and timbres. In their creative work, they showed the possibility of an organic combination of centuries-old traditions of the vocal art with the latest composition techniques. In the modern choral art, a great interest is paid to theatrical actions during the choral performance. Hence, the new performing tasks rise for both, the conductor and performers of the choir. So, in the dramatized choral performance, a personality of an actor-singer is characterized by a certain complex of skills. The latter include ownership of different types of expressive intonation: vocal intonation, the verbal intonation and the acting intonation or the intonation of the gesture. The choral performer’s instrument is a singing voice. The vocal development of choral singers bases on the objective laws of the singing, the basis for understanding of which is the positions of musical acoustics. The choirmasters need to know, which acoustic patterns influence the formation of the singing voice in the choir, which of its properties develop automatically, and which require special techniques that stimulate an individual development. Another important aspect on which it is necessary to focus attention in the modern vocal education is the improvisational thinking, the ability to creative ingenuity. The tasks of the modern choral art are the preservation, the development, and sometimes the revival of the traditions of improvisational vocal-ensemble music. The solutions of these tasks one should look for in several directions. The first of them is the preservation of the traditions of Western European professional polyphonic (counterpoint) music, which is determined by the highest level of combination of the canonically invariable melody, of the cult or secular, with improvisational melodic decorations. The second is due to the preserving the traditions of collective vocal improvisation in folk singing cultures. The third direction is due to performance tasks, which are provided by the composers’ creativity of contemporary authors. Conclusion. The contemporary choirmaster needs to have a wide range of knowledge in the questions of history and theory of the world music, choral science, vocal pedagogy, acting skills, psychology, without which it is impossible to solve numerous issues that constantly arise in practice. The choirmaster must develop a critical and analytical thinking in him/her, be able to judge right the work of his/her mind and be thoughtful in the actions. The creative approach in work contributes to the flexibility in solving any problems – perhaps, it allows to abandon the usual techniques in work, which at the present moment do not produce the desired results. Practice is the only criterion for the truth of the selected actions.

Background. For the last 25 years videoart in Ukraine had passed a maturation from the elementary experimental video practices of the end of the 80's to the full-identical art form. Like most of the USSR innovative art trends, videoart in Ukraine paved it's way through the formal endorsement's resistance and had been creating owing to the enthusiasm and persistence of individual artists and single artistic formations. Ukrainian videoart had developed according to all the fine art growth's features of socialistic period; however was established and concepted for the first time in Lviv as a phenomenon in the 1990-s what had generated a brand-new pleiad of cultural actors and had influence on the alternative artistic expression mediums of that time. Objectives. The incipience and developnent of Lviv videoart appears to be the main goal, applicating specifics of the new media style in individual artistic identification for single artists and Lviv artistic enviroment in general; reconstitution of the expression of new visual ideas made via video camera among social and historical “perestroika” context. Videoart role definition in the artistic expression of the totalitarian unrest period. Methods. Achieving the goals of the article was implemented via empirical methods: comparison, observation, description of the historical facts, which preceded videoart foundation throughout Ukraine. Theoretical methods were founded for the analysis of videoart, it’s role and position in art studies historiography of Lviv focus. Also deductive chronology playbacking method, what gave an opportunity to represent a whole artistic climate where Lviv videoart was established. Classification method divided artistic formations into groups based on artistic and stylistic criterion. Results. The research results confirmed the idea of independent Lviv videoart existance with it’s own establishing and development history. Research, based on Andrij Boyarov artworks of the end of 80’s, showed up comprehensive data that videoart had not been positioned as additional medium for single artist’s creations diluting; combination of photo and video was and remains the main activity for a certain range of artists thus proving that emergence of videoart genre had not turned into spontaneous way or copied from West European processes but rather appeared to be totally required by socio-political environment, the artist and the viewer to see the video reflections in galleries. Formed chronology showed up a special linkages between the appearance of brand-new art experiments, alternative practices and youth movements, festivals and artistic formations that had established the very first Ukrainian galleries and had placed curator practices unprecedented neither for artists nor for viewers. These were the “Tsenter Europy”, “Try Krapky”, “Dzyga” galleries, where the exhibitions “Thing Theatre or thing ecology”, “Defloration” and “Congress of Ukrainian Physicians Exhibition” took place at the time of turning point of Ukraine’s 90’s. The “Vyvykh” Festival had become a so-called Vesuvius for massive Lviv non-conformism vector, which explored a number of brand-new names of experimental art and videoart: Alfred Maksymenko, Andrij Boyarov, Hanna Kuts, Viktor Dovhaljuk, Ihor Podolchak, Serhiy Petljuk and others. During the consideration it was revealed that Lviv videoart meant to be different from the one in the other Ukrainian videoart centers due to it “pedagogical” aspect, namely it was the only center, where the experience sharing for the young generation truly existed, that had been caused by reservation problem and communication absence between the videoartists and a range of author generations. The originator of the first videoart in Ukraine - Alfred Maksymenko - now works as a pedagogue at Lviv National Academy of Arts, whose Studies generated a number of videoartists, carring on Lviv Classic School traditions and creating original stylistic indications. Conclusions. This social-informational research has shown preconditions for a brand-new art genre establishment - the 90’s Lviv videoart and the fact that it was not born in a way of “playing” or “flirtation” with some kind of new imported technical equipment but had it’s own conceptual way instead; got an opportunity to continue previous visual practices and expand the frontiers of visual influences on viewer. The analysis of Lviv videoart formation concludes the research and brings up the subject for further researches: establishing of high-quality art analysis of single artists working in videoart for already more than 25 years. A totally special stylistic manner of creating video images had emerged during that time period, which echoes with traditional Lviv Classic School painting manner and brand-new mediums born and dictated by alternative angles and technical implementation of videoart.

Over time, many groups have sought to offer alternatives to the dominant culture of the day; for example, the civil-rights movements, antiwar protests, and environmental activism of the 1960s and 1970s. Not all groupings however can be considered countercultural. Roberts makes a distinction between group culture where cultural patterns only influence part of one’s life, or for a limited period of time; and countercultures that are more wholistic, affecting all of life. An essential element in defining a counterculture is that it has a value-conflict with the dominant society (Yinger), and that it demonstrates viability over time: long enough to pass on the values to the next generation (Roberts). Each society has images of what it means to be a good citizen. These images are driven by ideology and communicated through media channels, educational values and government legislation. Ideologies are not neutral and compete for the “common sense” of citizens; seeking to shape desires and allegiance to a particular way of life. A way of life is expressed in the everyday practices, or routines and choices that make up an ordinary day, the sum of which express the values of individuals and communities. A number of groups or movements have sought to counter the values and practices of dominant cultures only to find themselves absorbed into it. For example, the surfing magazine Tracks was an Australian countercultural text that chronicled the authentic surfing lifestyle of the 1970s. As surfing became big business, the same magazine was transformed into a glossy lifestyle publication. The surfing lifestyle had become part of the expanding field of consumption and Tracks had become one more tool to promote it (Henderson). As the “counter” is absorbed into the dominant consumer culture, new ways to engage the hegemonic culture emerge that offer fresh possibilities of living and engaging in contemporary society. Positioning I hold to a critical postmodern perspective of consumption. That is, while I acknowledge some of the pleasures of consumption, I see a dominant posture of detachment as a result of consumer cultures increased distance from production, producers and the products we buy (Cavanaugh; Sandlin, Kahn, Darts and Tavin). The market is a powerful educator of individuals (Kincheloe; Steinberg), but it is not the only educator. Families, schools, churches and other interest groups also seek to educate, or shape, individuals. These competing influences do not however hold equal power. In many instances the families, schools, churches and interest groups have uncritically adopted the dominant ideology of the market and so reinforce the values of consumerism; such is its hegemonic power. I hold that individuals, and more importantly communities, have some agency to consume in alternative ways that give rise to the formation of different identities. I see critical practices as important in the awareness raising, or awakeness, and shaping of an individual and a community (Freire; Rautins and Ibrahim). Contemporary Cultures Consumption has become the organizing principle of many contemporary cultures (Hoechsmann). The message that to be a good citizen is to be a good consumer is pervasive and promoted as key to economic growth and the remedy to lift countries out of recession. This message of consumption falls on fertile ground with the development of consumerism, or consumer culture. Smart (5) sees this expressed as a way of life that is “perpetually preoccupied with the pursuit, possession, rapid displacement, and replacement of a seemingly inexhaustible supply of things.” These “things” have increasingly become luxury goods and services as opposed to the satisfaction of basic needs and wants (de Geus). Contemporary Alternatives There are examples of contemporary alternatives that open spaces for people to imagine that “another world is possible.” Sandlin, Kahn, Darts and Tavin (102, 103) call upon educators to “critically analyze what it might mean to resist a consumer society predicated on the normalization of overconsumption” and to “celebrate the creative and critical agency of all those who resist and interrogate the hegemony of multinational companies/industries.” A number of examples are worth celebrating and critically analysing to offer input in the engagement with the dominant culture of consumption. The examples of the Adbusters Media Foundation, Bill Talen’s work as a political-theatre activist, and the voluntary simplicity movement will be briefly examined before exploring the contribution of monasticism. The Adbusters Media Foundation produces a glossy bimonthly publication and website that seeks to unmask the destructive power of global corporations. Through the use of cultural resistance techniques such as “culture jamming,” Adbusters remix advertisements to catch the reader by surprise, to make the taken for granted problematic, and to open them to the possibility of an alternative view of reality. These “subvertisements” offer the opportunity for detournement; a turning around or a change in perspective (Darts; Sandlin and Callahan). As people get involved in “culture jamming” they become producers of artifacts and not just consumers of them. The work of Adbusters uses the tools of the media saturated consumer culture to critique that very culture (Rumbo). Advertising performs an ideological function within a consumer culture that addresses people as individual private consumers rather than citizens concerned for the public good (Scatamburlo-D’Annibale). Given the ubiquity of advertising, individuals become ambivalent to its messages but still soak in the dominant narrative. The very form of resistance reinforces the culture of the individualistic citizen as consumer. While it might be seen that the “culture jamming” artifacts of the Adbusters type might not have substantial effect on the broader public, it does provide an accessible means of resistive action for the individual (Haiven). Bill Talen is a political-theatre activist who plays the Southern evangelical preacher Reverend Billy as leader of the Church of Stop Shopping. The Reverend stages “retail interventions” or performances in public spaces and retail stores as an act of “culture jamming”. Reverend Billy uses humour, music, art and theatre in his “services” to create strangeness, discomfort or ambiguity in the lives of the public. In doing so he calls people into transitional spaces where what was normal is disrupted and they are free to imagine differently. This disruption that causes a movement into the unknown is a central pedagogical strategy that seeks to encourage people to question their taken for granted understandings of life (Littler; Sandlin, Learning). Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping offer a fuller bodied experience of “culture jamming” that engages both the body and the emotions. The act of creating culture together is what fosters a sense of community amongst culture jammers (Sandlin, Popular culture). And yet Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping appear not to be focused for their own good in that they have formed a number of coalitions with other organisations to work on campaigns that oppose global corporations and the influence of consumerism’s ideology on everyday life. Reverend Billy not only creates disruption in people’s relationship with consumption, he also provides an alternative place to belong. The voluntary simplicity movement involves a growing number of people who choose to limit their incomes and consumption because of new priorities in life. Those involved call into question the dominant cultures view of the “good life” in favour of a less materialistic lifestyle that is more “personally fulfilling, spiritually enlightening, socially beneficial, and environmentally sustainable” (Johnson 527). Grigsby’s research (qtd. in Johnson) found that participants were involved in forming their own identities through their lifestyle choices. The voluntary simplicity movement, it appears, is a niche for those who understand consumption from a postmodern perspective and participate in alternative lifestyle practices. Sandlin (Complicated) sees the formation of collective identity as crucial to a movement’s ability to effectively engage in external education. A shared vision, or telos, is central to that forming of collective identity. However, the voluntary simplicity movement is focused primarily on individual lifestyle changes, thus making it ineffectual as a collective to challenge dominant ideologies or to engage in external education to that end. Each of the examples above provides some insight into a considered engagement with the dominant culture: the creation of Adbuster like “culture jamming” artifacts provides an accessible means of engagement for the individual; Bill Talen’s interventions show an appreciation of the importance of community in supporting countercultural choices; and the voluntary simplicity movement promotes a “whole of life” approach to countercultural engagement. However, when comparing the above examples with Roberts’s definition of a counterculture they appear to be lacking. Roberts (121) holds that “the term counter-culture might best be reserved for groups which are not just a reaction formation to the dominant society, but which have a supporting ideology that allows them to have a relatively self-sufficient system of action.” The remainder of this article examines monasticism as an example of a counter-culture that offers an alternative model of “the good-life” based on a clear ideology and a fifteen hundred year history. Considering Monasticism As seen above, the work of countering the dominant ideology is not without its difficulties. bell hooks found that offering an education that enhances students’ journey to wholeness went against the anti-intellectualism of the current education system. What enabled her to stand within and resist the oppressive dominant culture, and offer alternatives, was the sustaining power of spirituality in her life, the basis of her hope. Tolliver and Tisdell appreciate that spirituality can be an elusive term, but that amongst the definitions offered there are commonalities. These are that: spirituality is about a connection to what is referred to by various names, such as the Life Force, God, a higher power or purpose, Great Spirit, or Buddha Nature. It is about meaning making and a sense of wholeness, healing and the interconnectedness of all things. […] As many have noted, those who value spirituality generally believe that it is possible for learners to come to a greater understanding of their core essence through transformative learning experiences that help them reclaim their authenticity. (Tolliver and Tisdell 38) There is a growing interest in the age-old traditions of Christian monasticism as a means of addressing the challenges of contemporary life (Adams; Jamison). When the BBC broadcast the television series The Monastery in 2005, millions of viewers tuned in to follow the way five ordinary men were affected by the experience of living in a monastery for forty days and nights. Similarly in Australia in 2007, the ABC broadcast the television series The Abbey that followed the experiences of five ordinary women enclosed for 33 days and nights in the space and routines of the Benedictine nuns at Jamberoo Abbey. It was when watching these television series that I was led to consider monasticism as an example of cultural resistance, and to ponder the contribution it might make to the conversation around counter-cultures. As an observer, I find something compelling about monasticism, however I am aware of the possibility of romanticising it as a way of life. The tensions, difficulties and struggles represented in the television series help to temper that. Benedictine spirituality is the foundation for life at the Worth Abbey (The Monastery) and the Jamberoo Abbey (The Abbey). The essential dynamic that underlies this spirituality is a shaping of life according to the Bible and the guidelines set out in the sixth century Rule of Benedict. Monastic life in a Benedictine abbey is marked by certain routines, or rhythms, that are designed to help the community better love God, self and one another (Benedict, chapter 4). “Listen” is the first word in the Rule of Benedict and is closely linked to silence (Benedict, chapter 6). As a key part of monastic life, silence gives the monastics the freedom and space to listen to God, themselves, one another, and the world around them. As Adams (18) points out, “the journey to knowing God must include the discipline of coming to know yourself, and that risky journey invariably starts in silence.” The rhythm of monastic life therefore includes times in the day for silence and solitude to facilitate listening and self-reflection. For Benedict, distractions in the head are actually noises inside the heart: the result of human desires and preoccupations. Silence, and the reflection that occurs within it, allows the monastic to listen for, and see their own relationship to, competing ideologies. This everyday practice of listening might be explained as paying attention to what is noticed, reflecting on it and the internal response to it. In this way listening is an active engagement with the words read (Irvine), the stories heard, the conversations had, and the objects used. Hoffman (200) observes that this practice of attentive listening is evident in decision making within the monastery. Seen in this way, silence acts as a critical practice counter to the educative agenda of consumerism. Physical work is a basic part of monastic life. All members of the community are expected to share the load so that there is no elitism, no avoiding work. This work is not to be seen as a burden but an outlet for creativity (Benedict, chapter 57). By being involved in the production of goods or the growing of crops for the community and others, monastics embody practices that resist the individual consumer identity that consumerism seeks to create. Monastics also come to appreciate the work involved in the products they create and so become more appreciative of, and place greater value on them. Material things are not privately owned but are to be seen as on loan so that they are treated with a level of gratitude and care (Benedict, chapter 32). This attitude of not taking things for granted actually increases the enjoyment and appreciation of them (De Waal). De Waal likens this attitude to the respect shown towards people and things at the Japanese tea ceremony. She says that “here in the most simple and yet profound ceremony there is time to gaze at things, to enjoy them, and to allow them to reveal themselves as they truly are” (87). Such a listening to what products truly are in the dominant consumer culture might reveal chairs made from the denuded forests that destroy habitats, or shoes made with child labour in unsafe conditions. The monastic involvement in work and their resulting handling of material things is a critical practice counter to the ideology of consumerism and the attitude towards products flooding markets today. Community is central to monastic life (Veilleux). Through vows, the monastic commits to life in a particular place with particular people. The commitment to stability means that when conflict arises or disagreements occur they need to be worked out because there is no running away. Because a commitment to working things out requires attention to what is real, monastic community acts as a counter of all that is not real. The creation of false need, the promise of fulfilment, and the creation of identity around consumption can be viewed through the same commitment to reality. This external stability is a reflection of inner stability marked by a unity and coherence of purpose and life (De Waal). A monastic community is formed around a shared telos that gives it a collective identity. While people are welcomed as guests into the community with Benedictine hospitality, the journey to becoming a member is intentionally difficult (Benedict, chapter 58). The importance of committing to community and the sharing of the collective telos is not a rushed decision. The stability and permanence of monastic commitment to community is a counter to the perpetual chasing and replacing of other goods and experiences that is a part of consumerism. The deliberate attention to practices that form a rhythm of life involving the whole person shows that monastic communities are intentional in their own formation. Prayer and spiritual reading are key parts of monastic life that demonstrate that spirituality is central in the formation of individuals and communities (Benedict, prologue). The formation is aligned to a particular ideology that values humanity as being made in the image of God and therefore the need to focus on the connection with God. A holistic humanity addresses issues and development of the mind, body and spirit. Examining Ideology The television series The Monastery and The Abbey demonstrate that when guests enter a monastic community they are able to experience an alternative model of “the good life”. If, as Roberts suggests, a counter-culture looks to reform society by providing an alternative model, then change is based upon seeing the alternative. The guests in the monastic community are involved in discussions that make explicit the monastic ideology and how it shapes the countercultural values and practices. In doing so, the guests are invited to listen to, or examine the consumerist ideology that permeates their society and shapes their everyday experiences. In evaluating the conflicting ideologies, the guests are free to choose an alternative view, which, as the television series showed are not necessarily that of the monastic community, and may in fact remain that of consumerism. Conclusion While ideologies are not neutral, they are often invisible. The dominant ideology of consumerism reduces citizens to individualistic consumers and naturalises the need for never ending consumption. A number of groups or movements attempt to expose the logic of consumerism and offer alternative ways of consuming. Each has their own strengths and weaknesses; some are absorbed into the very culture they seek to counter while others remain apart. Christian monasticism, based on the Bible and the Rule of Benedict, engages in the social practices of listening, physical work, and commitment to community. The formation of individuals, and the community, is based explicitly on an ideology that values humanity as made in God’s image. This model has stood the test of time and shown itself to be a legitimate counterculture that is in value-conflict with the current dominant culture of consumption. References Adams, Ian. Cave, Refectory, Road. Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2010. Benedict and Patrick Barry. Saint Benedict’s Rule. Mahweh, New Jersey: Hidden Spring, 2004. Cavanaugh, William. Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2008. Darts, David. “Visual Culture Jam: Art, Pedagogy, and Creative Resistance.” Studies in Art Education 45 (2004):313–327. De Geus, Marius. “Sustainable Hedonism: The Pleasures of Living within Environmental Limits.” The Politics and Pleasures of Consuming Differently. Eds. Kate Soper, Martin Ryle, and Lyn Thomas. London: Palgrave MacMillian. 2009. 113–129 De Waal, Esther. Seeking God: The Way of St Benedict. London: Fount, 1996. Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. London: Penguin, 1970. Grigsby, Mary. Buying Time and Getting By: The Voluntary Simplicity Movement. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2004. Haiven, Max. “Privatized Resistance: AdBusters and the Culture of Neoliberalism.” The Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies 29 (2007): 85–110. Henderson, Margaret. “The Big Business of Surfing’s Oceanic Feeling: Thirty Years of Tracks Magazine.” Growing Up Postmodern: Neoliberalism and the War on the Young. Ed. Ronald Strickland. London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002. 141–167 hooks, Bell. Teaching Community. New York: Routledge, 2003. Hoechsmann, Michael. “Rootlessness, Reenchantment, and Educating Desire: A Brief History of the Pedagogy of Consumption.” Critical Pedagogies of Consumption. Eds. Jennifer Sandlin & Peter McLaren. New York: Routledge, 2010. 23–35. Hoffman, Mary. “Ora et Labora (Prayer and Work): Spirituality, Communication and Organizing in Religious Communities”. JCR 30 (2007): 187–212. Irvine, R. D.G. “How to Read: Lectio Divina in an English Benedictine Monastery”. Culture and Religion 11.4 (2010):395–411. Jamison, Christopher. Finding Sanctuary. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006. Johnson, Brett. “Simply Identity Work? The Voluntary Simplicity Movement.” Qualitative Sociology 24.4 (2004): 527–530. Kincheloe, Joe. “Consuming the All-American Corporate Burger: McDonald’s “Does It All for You”. Critical Pedagogies of Consumption. Eds. Jennifer Sandlin & Peter McLaren. New York: Routledge, 2010. 137–147. Littler, Jo. “Beyond the Boycott: Anti-Consumerism, Cultural Change and the Limits of Reflexivity”. Cultural Studies 19.2 (2005): 227–252. Rautins, Cara, and Awad Ibrahim. “Wide-Awakeness: Toward a Critical Pedagogy of Imagination, Humanism, Agency, and Becoming.” International Journal of Critical Pedagogy 3.3 (2011): 24–36.Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir. 2014. 26 Nov. 2014 ‹http://www.revbilly.com›. Roberts, Keith. “Toward a Generic Concept of Counter-Culture.” Sociological Focus 11.2 (1978): 111–126. Rumbo, Joseph. “Consumer Resistance in a World of Advertising Clutter: The Case of Adbusters”. Psychology & Marketing 19.2 (2002): 127–148. Sandlin, Jennifer. “Popular Culture, Cultural Resistance, and Anticonsumption Activism: An Exploration of Culture Jamming as Critical Adult Education.” New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education 115 (2007): 73–82. Sandlin, Jennifer. “Complicated Simplicity: Moral Identity Formation and Social Movement Learning in the Voluntary Simplicity Movement.” Adult Education Quarterly 59.4 (2009): 298–317. Sandlin, Jennifer. “Learning to Survive the ‘Shopocalypse’: Reverend Billy’s Anti-Consumption ‘Pedagogy of the Unknown’.” Critical Studies in Education 51.3 (2010): 295–311. Sandlin, Jennifer, and Jamie Callahan. “Deviance, Dissonance, and Detournement.” Journal of Consumer Culture 9.1 (2009): 79–115. Sandlin, Jennifer, Richard Kahn, David Darts, and Kevin Tavin. “To Find the Cost of Freedom: Theorizing and Practicing a Critical Pedagogy of Consumption.” Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies 7.2 (2009): 98–123. Scatamburlo-D’Annibale, V. “Beyond the Culture Jam.” Critical Pedagogies of Consumption. Eds. Jennifer Sandlin & Peter McLaren. New York: Routledge, 2010. 224–236. Smart, Barry. Consumer Society: Critical Issues and Environmental Consequences. London: Sage, 2010. Steinberg, Shirley. “Barbie: The Bitch Can Buy Anything.” Critical Pedagogies of Consumption. Eds. Jennifer Sandlin & Peter McLaren. New York: Routledge, 2010. 148–156. Tolliver, Derise, and Elizabeth Tisdell. “Engaging Spirituality in the Transformative Higher Education Classroom.” New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education 109 (2006): 37–47. Veilleux, Armand. “Identity with Christ: Modeling our Lives on RB 72.” Cistercian Studies Quarterly 45.1 (2010):13–33. Yinger, Milton. “Contraculture and Subculture.” American Sociological Review 25 (1960): 625–635.

To re-imagine can, at one extreme, be a casual thought (what if I moved all the furniture in the living room?) and, at the other, re-imagining can be a complex process (what if I adapt a classic text into a major film?). There is a long history of working with the ideas of others and of re-working our own ideas. Of taking a concept and re-imagining it into something that is similar to the original and yet offers something new. Such re-imaginations are all around us; from the various interpretations of the Sherlock Holmes stories to the adjustments made, often over generations, to family recipes. Some of these efforts are the result of a creative drive to experiment and push boundaries, some efforts are inspired by changes in society or technology, yet others will be born of a sense of 'this can be done better' or 'done differently'. Essentially, to re-imagine is to ask questions, to interrogate that which is often taken for granted. This issue of M/C Journal seeks to explore the 'why' and the 'how' of re-imagining both the everyday and the extraordinary. In a reflection of the scale and scope of the potential to re-imagine all that is around us, this issue is particularly diverse. The contributions offer explorations into varied disciplines, use a range of methodological lenses, and deploy different writing styles. To this end we present a range of articles—some of which contain quite challenging content—that cover copyright, crime fiction, the stage, the literary brand and film, horror and children’s film, television, military-inspired fashion, and a piece that focuses on events leading up to September 11, 2001. We then present three, quite different, works that explore various aspects of Australian Indigenous culture and history. We begin with our feature article: “‘They’re creepy and they’re kooky’ and They’re Copyrighted: How Copyright Is Used to Dampen the (Re-)Imagination”. In this work Steve Collins explores important issues of copyright in the re-imagining and re-purposing of content. In particular, this article unpacks—using examples from the United States—how copyright legislation can restrict the activities of creative practitioners, across varied fields, and so adds to the debate on copyright reform. In our lead article “The Re-imagining Inherent in Crime Fiction Translation”, by Alistair Rolls, ideas of re-imagination, language, and the world’s most popular genre—crime fiction—are critically appraised. Rolls looks at a suite of issues around imagining original and re-imagining, through translation, crime fiction texts. These two forms of creativity are essential to the genre's development for, as Rolls notes, this type of fiction was born, “simultaneously in France and America but also in the translation zone between the two.” Amy Antonio re-imagines the femme fatale. Antonio acknowledges the centrality of the femme fatale to the noir tradition and re-imagines this iconic figure by positioning her on the Renaissance stage, explaining how the historical factors that precipitated the emergence of the noir femme fatale in the years following World War II, similarly existed in the sixteenth century and, as a result, the femme fatale can be re-imagined in a series of Elizabethan and Jacobean plays. The articles in this issue turn from fiction, to theatre, and then to film with Leonie Rutherford embarking on a “Re-imagining the Brand” exercise. Through two, very informative, case studies—Adventures of Tin Tin and Silver, Return to Treasure Island—Rutherford engages with issues of re-imagining classic literary texts as big-screen blockbusters. This article addresses some of the complexities associated with the updating “of classic texts [that] require interpretation and the negotiation of subtle changes in values that have occurred since the creation of the ‘original’.” Erin Hawley also looks at film, through a lens of horror, in “Re-imagining the Horror Genre in Children’s Animated Film”. Hawley explores how animated films have always been an ambiguous space “in terms of age, pleasure, and viewership.” Hawley goes on to challenge common assumptions that “animation itself is often a signifier of safety, fun, nostalgia, and childishness; it is a means of addressing families and young audiences” and outlines how animation complements horror where, “the fantastic and transformative aspects of animation can be powerful tools for telling stories that are dark, surprising, or somehow subversive.” Issues of the small screen, and social media, are reviewed by Karin van Es, Daniela van Geenen, and Thomas Boeschoten in their work of “Re-imagining Television Audience Research on Twitter”. In particular, this work highlights issues with how audience research is undertaken and argues for new ways forward that adapt to the changing viewing landscape: one that features social media as an increasingly important tool for people to engage with more traditional types of entertainment. Fashion, too, features within this special issue with the work Emerald L. King and Denise N. Rall, “Re-imagining the Empire of Japan through Japanese Schoolboy Uniforms”. King and Rall present their research into the significant re-imagining of Japanese cultural and national identities, which are explored in this work through the cataclysmic impact of Western ideologies on Japanese cultural traditions. The idea of re-imagining is challenged by Meg Stalcup through her article “What If? Re-imagined Scenarios and the Re-virtualisation of History” which looks at several events that took place in the lead up to September 11, 2001. Several of the men who would become 9/11 hijackers were stopped for minor traffic violations. Police officers in the United States replayed these incidents of contact, yet their questioning “what if?” asked not only if those moments could have revealed the plot of that traumatic day, but also places alternate scenarios into play. John C. Ryan, Danielle Brady, and Christopher Kueh guide us through a geographical re-imagining of one of Australia’s capital cities in “Where Fanny Balbuk Walked: Re-imagining Perth’s Wetlands through Digital Modelling”. This re-imagining of a major city’s natural environment calls “attention to past indiscretions while invigorating future possibilities.” Moreover, this work highlights the value of re-imagining a city anew as well as re-imagining the original after a process of considerable change. Rachel Franks traces the history of an effort to communicate the concept of equality under the law, to the Indigenous peoples of Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania), in “A True Crime Tale: Re-imagining Governor Arthur’s Proclamation Board for the Tasmanian Aborigines”. This article provides an overview of some of the various re-imaginings of this Board—including the re-imagining of the Board’s history—and also offers a new re-imagination of this curious, colonial object; positing that the Board serves as an early “pamphlet” on justice and punishment. Brooke Collins-Gearing, Vivien Cadungog, Sophie Camilleri, Erin Comensoli, Elissa Duncan, Leitesha Green, Adam Phillips, and Rebecca Stone take a very different, and rather creative, approach to re-imagining with “Listenin’ Up: Re-Imagining Ourselves through Stories of and from Country” a work that explores Western discourses of education; and looks at ways to engage with Aboriginal knowledge through the pedagogical and personal act of listening. These authors attempt to re-imagine “the institutionalised space of our classroom through a dialogic pedagogy.” These articles are, necessarily, brief. Yet, each work does provide insight into various aspects of the re-imagining process while offering new perspectives on how re-imagining takes place—in material culture, learning practices, or in all important media re-interpretations of the world around us. We extend our thanks to our contributors. We thank, too, all those who engaged in the blind peer review process. We sincerely appreciate the efforts of those who offered their expertise and their time as well as offering valuable comments on a wide range of contributions. Rachel Franks, Simon Dwyer, and Denise N. RallEditors

This paper explores South African hip-hop activist Emile YX?'s work to suggest that he presents an alternative take on mainstream US and South African hip-hop. While it is arguable that a great deal of mainstream hip-hop is commercially co-opted, it is clear that a significant amount of US hip-hop (by Angel Haze or Talib Kweli, for example) and hip-hop beyond the US (by Positive Black Soul, Godessa, Black Noise or Prophets of da City, for example) present alternatives to its co-option. Emile YX? pushes for an alternative to mainstream hip-hop's aesthetics and politics. Foregoing what Prophets of da City call “mindless topics” (Prophets of da City “Cape Crusader”), he employs hip-hop to engage audiences critically about social and political issues, including language and racial identity politics. Significantly, he embraces AfriKaaps, which is a challenge to the hegemonic speech variety of Afrikaans. From Emile's perspective, AfriKaaps preceded Afrikaans because it was spoken by slaves during the Cape colonial era and was later culturally appropriated by Afrikaner Nationalists in the apartheid era to construct white, Afrikaner identity as pure and bounded. AfriKaaps in hip-hop therefore presents an alternative to mainstream US-centric hip-hop in South Africa (via AKA or Cassper Nyovest, for example) as well as Afrikaner Nationalist representations of Afrikaans and race by promoting multilingual hip-hop aesthetics, which was initially advanced by Prophets of da City in the early '90s.Pursuing Alternative TrajectoriesEmile YX?, a former school teacher, started out with the Black Consciousness-aligned hip-hop crew, Black Noise, as a b-boy in the late 1980s before becoming an MC. Black Noise went through a number of iterations, eventually being led by YX? (aka Emile Jansen) after he persuaded the crew not to pursue a mainstream record deal in favour of plotting a career path as independent artists. The crew’s strategy has been to fund the production and distribution of their albums independently and to combine their work as recording and performing artists with their activism. They therefore arranged community workshops at schools and, initially, their local library in the township, Grassy Park, before touring nationally and internationally. By the late 1990s, Jansen established an NGO, Heal the Hood, in order to facilitate collaborative projects with European and South African partners. These partnerships, not only allowed Black Noise crew members to continue working as hip-hip activists, but also created a network through which they could distribute their music and secure further bookings for performances locally and internationally.Jansen’s solo work continued along this trajectory and he has gone on to work on collaborative projects, such as the hip-hop theatre show Afrikaaps, which looks critically at the history of Afrikaans and identity politics, and Mixed Mense, a b-boy show that celebrates African dance traditions and performed at One Mic Festival at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC in 2014 (48 Hours). This artist’s decision not to pursue a mainstream record deal in the early 1990s probably saved Black Noise from being a short-lived pop sensation in favour of pursuing a route that ensured that Cape hip-hop retained its alternative, Black Consciousness-inspired subcultural edge.The activism of Black Noise and Heal the Hood is an example of activists’ efforts to employ hip-hop as a means of engaging youth critically about social and political issues (Haupt, Stealing Empire 158-165). Hence, despite arguments that the seeds for subcultures’ commercial co-option lie in the fact that they speak through commodities (Hebdige 95; Haupt, Stealing Empire 144–45), there is evidence of agency despite the global reach of US cultural imperialism. H. Samy Alim’s concept of translocal style communities is useful in this regard. The concept focuses on the “transportability of mobile matrices – sets of styles, aesthetics, knowledges, and ideologies that travel across localities and cross-cut modalities” (Alim 104-105). Alim makes the case for agency when he contends, “Although global style communities may indeed grow out of particular sociohistoric originating moments, or moments in which cultural agents take on the project of creating ‘an origin’ (in this case, Afrodiasporic youth in the United States in the 1970s), it is important to note that a global style community is far from a threatening, homogenizing force” (Alim 107).Drawing on Arjun Appadurai’s concepts of ethnoscapes, financescapes, ideoscapes and mediascapes, Alim argues that the “persistent dialectical interplay between the local and the global gives rise to the creative linguistic styles that are central to the formation of translocal style communities, and leads into theorizing about glocal stylizations and style as glocal distinctiveness” (Appadurai; Alim 107). His view of globalisation thus accommodates considerations of the extent to which subjects on both the local and global levels are able to exercise agency to produce new or alternative meanings and stylistic practices.Hip-Hop's Translanguaging Challenge to HegemonyJansen’s “Mix en Meng It Op” [“Mix and Blend It / Mix It Up”] offers an example of translocal style by employing translanguaging, code mixing and codeswitching practices. The song’s first verse speaks to the politics of race and language by challenging apartheid-era thinking about purity and mixing:In South Africa is ek coloured and African means black raceFace it, all mense kom van Africa in the first placeErase all trace of race and our tribal divisionEk’s siek en sat van all our land’s racist decisionsMy mission’s om te expose onse behoort aan een rasHou vas, ras is las, watch hoe ons die bubble barsPlus the mixture that mixed here is not fixed, sirStir daai potjie want ons wietie wattie mixtures wereThis illusion of race and tribe is rotten to the coreWhat’s more the lie of purity shouldn’t exist anymoreLook at Shaka Zulu, who mixed all those tribes togetherMixed conquered tribes now Amazulu foreverHave you ever considered all this mixture before?Xhosa comes from Khoe khoe, do you wanna know more?Xhosa means angry looking man in Khoe KhoeSoe hulle moet gemix het om daai clicks to employ(Emile YX? “Mix en Meng It Op”; my emphasis)[In South Africa I am coloured and African means black raceFace it, all people come from Africa in the first placeErase all trace of race and our tribal divisionI’m sick and tired of all our land’s racist decisionsMy mission’s to expose the fact that we belong top one raceHold on, race is a burden, watch as we burst the bubble Plus the mixture that mixed here is not fixed, sirStir that pot because we don’t know what the mixtures wereThis illusion of race and tribe is rotten to the coreWhat’s more the lie of purity shouldn’t exist anymoreLook at Shaka Zulu, who mixed all those tribes togetherMixed conquered tribes now Amazulu foreverHave you ever considered all this mixture before?Xhosa comes from Khoe khoe, do you wanna know more?Xhosa means angry looking man in Khoe KhoeSo they must have mixed to employ those clicks]The MC does more than codeswitch or code mix in this verse. The syntax switches from that of English to Afrikaans interchangeably and he is doing more than merely borrowing words and phrases from one language and incorporating it into the other language. In certain instances, he opts to pronounce certain English words and phrases as if they were Afrikaans (for example, “My” and “land’s”). Suresh Canagarajah explains that codeswitching was traditionally “distinguished from code mixing” because it was assumed that codeswitching required “bilingual competence” in order to “switch between [the languages] in fairly contextually appropriate ways with rhetorical and social significance”, while code mixing merely involved “borrowings which are appropriated into one’s language so that using them doesn't require bilingual competence” (Canagarajah, Translingual Practice 10). However, he argues that both of these translingual practices do not require “full or perfect competence” in the languages being mixed and that “these models of hybridity can be socially and rhetorically significant” (Canagarajah, Translingual Practice 10). However, the artist is clearly competent in both English and Afrikaans; in fact, he is also departing from the hegemonic speech varieties of English and Afrikaans in attempts to affirm black modes of speech, which have been negated during apartheid (cf. Haupt “Black Thing”).What the artist seems to be doing is closer to translanguaging, which Canagarajah defines as “the ability of multilingual speakers to shuttle between languages, treating the diverse languages that form their repertoire as an integrated system” (Canagarajah, “Codemeshing in Academic Writing” 401). The mix or blend of English and Afrikaans syntax become integrated, thereby performing the very point that Jansen makes about what he calls “the lie of purity” by asserting that the “mixture that mixed here is not fixed, sir” (Emile XY? “Mix en Meng It Op”). This approach is significant because Canagarajah points out that while research shows that translanguaging is “a naturally occurring phenomenon”, it “occurs surreptitiously behind the backs of the teachers in classes that proscribe language mixing” (Canagarajah, “Codemeshing in Academic Writing” 401). Jansen’s performance of translanguaging and challenge to notions of linguistic and racial purity should be read in relation to South Africa’s history of racial segregation during apartheid. Remixing Race/ism and Notions of PurityLegislated apartheid relied on biologically essentialist understandings of race as bounded and fixed and, hence, the categories black and white were treated as polar opposites with those classified as coloured being seen as racially mixed and, therefore, defiled – marked with the shame of miscegenation (Erasmus 16; Haupt, “Black Thing” 176-178). Apart from the negative political and economic consequences of being classified as either black or coloured by the apartheid state (Salo 363; McDonald 11), the internalisation of processes of racial interpellation was arguably damaging to the psyche of black subjects (in the broad inclusive sense) (cf. Fanon; Du Bois). The work of early hip-hop artists like Black Noise and Prophets of da City (POC) was therefore crucial to pointing to alternative modes of speech and self-conception for young people of colour – regardless of whether they self-identified as black or coloured. In the early 1990s, POC lead the way by embracing black modes of speech that employed codeswitching, code mixing and translanguaging as a precursor to the emergence of music genres, such as kwaito, which mixed urban black speech varieties with elements of house music and hip-hop. POC called their performances of Cape Flats speech varieties of English and Afrikaans gamtaal [gam language], which is an appropriation of the term gam, a reference to the curse of Ham and justifications for slavery (Adhikari 95; Haupt Stealing Empire 237). POC’s appropriation of the term gam in celebration of Cape Flats speech varieties challenge the shame attached to coloured identity and the linguistic practices of subjects classified as coloured. On a track called “Gamtaal” off Phunk Phlow, the crew samples an assortment of recordings from Cape Flats speech communities and capture ordinary people speaking in public and domestic spaces (Prophets of da City “Gamtaal”). In one audio snippet we hear an older woman saying apologetically, “Onse praatie suiwer Afrikaan nie. Onse praat kombius Afrikaans” (Prophets of da City “Gamtaal”).It is this shame for black modes of speech that POC challenges on this celebratory track and Jansen takes this further by both making an argument against notions of racial and linguistic purity and performing an example of translanguaging. This is important in light of research that suggests that dominant research on the creole history of Afrikaans – specifically, the Cape Muslim contribution to Afrikaans – has been overlooked (Davids 15). This oversight effectively amounted to cultural appropriation as the construction of Afrikaans as a ‘pure’ language with Dutch origins served the Afrikaner Nationalist project when the National Party came into power in 1948 and began to justify its plans to implement legislated apartheid. POC’s act of appropriating the denigrated term gamtaal in service of a Black Consciousness-inspired affirmation of colouredness, which they position as part of the black experience, thus points to alternative ways in which people of colour cand both express and define themselves in defiance of apartheid.Jansen’s work with the hip-hop theater project Afrikaaps reconceptualised gamtaal as Afrikaaps, a combination of the term Afrikaans and Kaaps. Kaaps means from the Cape – as in Cape Town (the city) or the Cape Flats, which is where many people classified as coloured were forcibly relocated under the Group Areas Act under apartheid (cf. McDonald; Salo; Alim and Haupt). Taking its cue from POC and Brasse vannie Kaap’s Mr FAT, who asserted that “gamtaal is legal” (Haupt, “Black Thing” 176), the Afrikaaps cast sang, “Afrikaaps is legal” (Afrikaaps). Conclusion: Agency and the Transportability of Mobile MatricesJansen pursues this line of thought by contending that the construction of Shaka Zulu’s kingdom involved mixing many tribes (Emile YX? “Mix en Meng It Op”), thereby alluding to arguments that narratives about Shaka Zulu were developed in service of Zulu nationalism to construct Zulu identity as bounded and fixed (Harries 105). Such constructions were essential to the apartheid state's justifications for establishing Bantustans, separate homelands established along the lines of clearly defined and differentiated ethnic identities (Harries 105). Writing about the use of myths and symbols during apartheid, Patrick Harries argues that in Kwazulu, “the governing Inkatha Freedom Party ... created a vivid and sophisticated vision of the Zulu past” (Harries 105). Likewise, Emile YX? contends that isiXhosa’s clicks come from the Khoi (Emile YX? “Mix en Meng It Op”; Afrikaaps). Hence, the idea of the Khoi San’s lineage and history as being separate from that of other African communities in Southern Africa is challenged. He thus challenges the idea of pure Zulu or Xhosa identities and drives the point home by sampling traditional Zulu music, as opposed to conventional hip-hop beats.Effectively, colonial strategies of tribalisation as a divide and rule strategy through the reification of linguistic and cultural practices are challenged, thereby reminding us of the “transportability of mobile matrices” and “fluidity of identities” (Alim 104, 105). In short, identities as well as cultural and linguistic practices were never bounded and static, but always-already hybrid, being constantly made and remade in a series of negotiations. This perspective is in line with research that demonstrates that race is socially and politically constructed and discredits biologically essentialist understandings of race (Yudell 13-14; Tattersall and De Salle 3). This is not to ignore the asymmetrical relations of power that enable cultural appropriation and racism (Hart 138), be it in the context of legislated apartheid, colonialism or in the age of corporate globalisation or Empire (cf. Haupt, Static; Hardt & Negri). But, even here, as Alim suggests, one should not underestimate the agency of subjects on the local level to produce alternative forms of expression and self-representation.ReferencesAdhikari, Mohamed. "The Sons of Ham: Slavery and the Making of Coloured Identity." South African Historical Journal 27.1 (1992): 95-112.Alim, H. Samy “Translocal Style Communities: Hip Hop Youth as Cultural Theorists of Style, Language and Globalization”. Pragmatics 19.1 (2009):103-127. Alim, H. Samy, and Adam Haupt. “Reviving Soul(s): Hip Hop as Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy in the U.S. & South Africa”. Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies: Teaching and Learning for Educational Justice. Ed. Django Paris and H. Samy Alim. New York: Teachers College Press, Columbia University, 2017 (forthcoming). Appadurai, Arjun. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Modernity. London: University of Minnesota Press, 1996.Canagarajah, Suresh. Translingual Practice: Global Englishes and Cosmopolitan Relations. London & New York: Routledge, 2013.Canagarajah, Suresh. “Codemeshing in Academic Writing: Identifying Teachable Strategies of Translanguaging”. The Modern Language Journal 95.3 (2011): 401-417.Creese, Angela, and Adrian Blackledge. “Translanguaging in the Bilingual Classroom: A Pedagogy for Learning and Teaching?” The Modern Language Journal 94.1 (2010): 103-115. Davids, Achmat. The Afrikaans of the Cape Muslims. Pretoria: Protea Book House, 2011.Du Bois, W.E.B. The Souls of Black Folk. Journal of Pan African Studies, 1963, 2009 (eBook).Erasmus, Zimitri. “Introduction.” Coloured by History, Shaped by Place. Ed. Zimitri Erasmus. Cape Town: Kwela Books & SA History Online, 2001.Fanon, Frantz. “The Fact of Blackness”. Black Skins, White Masks. London: Pluto Press: London, 1986. 48 Hours. “Black Noise to Perform at Kennedy Center in the USA”. 11 Mar. 2014. <http://48hours.co.za/2014/03/11/black-noise-to-perform-at-kennedy-center-in-the-usa/>. Haupt, Adam. Static: Race & Representation in Post-Apartheid Music, Media & Film. Cape Town: HSRC Press, 2012.———. Stealing Empire: P2P, Intellectual Property and Hip-Hop Subversion. Cape Town: HSRC Press, 2008. ———. “Black Thing: Hip-Hop Nationalism, ‘Race’ and Gender in Prophets of da City and Brasse vannie Kaap.” Coloured by History, Shaped by Place. Ed. Zimitri Erasmus. Cape Town: Kwela Books & SA History Online, 2001.Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri. Empire. London & Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2000.Hart, J. “Translating and Resisting Empire: Cultural Appropriation and Postcolonial Studies”. Borrowed Power: Essays on Cultural Appropriation. Eds. B. Ziff and P.V. Roa. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1997.Harries, Patrick. “Imagery, Symbolism and Tradition in a South African Bantustan: Mangosuthu Buthelezi, Inkatha, and Zulu History”. History and Theory 32.4, Beiheft 32: History Making in Africa (1993): 105-125. Hebdige, Dick. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London: Routledge, 1979.MacDonald, Michael. Why Race Matters in South Africa. University of Kwazulu-Natal Press: Scottsville, 2006.Salo, Elaine. “Negotiating Gender and Personhood in the New South Africa: Adolescent Women and Gangsters in Manenberg Township on the Cape Flats.” Journal of European Cultural Studies 6.3 (2003): 345–65.Tattersall, Ian, and Rob De Salle. Race? Debunking a Scientific Myth. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2011.TheatreAfrikaaps. Afrikaaps. The Glasshouse, 2011.FilmsValley, Dylan, dir. Afrikaaps. Plexus Films, 2010. MusicProphets of da City. “Gamtaal.” Phunk Phlow. South Africa: Ku Shu Shu, 1995.Prophets of da City. “Cape Crusader.” Ghetto Code. South Africa: Ku Shu Shu & Ghetto Ruff, 1997.YX?, Emile. “Mix En Meng It Op.” Take Our Power Back. Cape Town: Cape Flats Uprising Records, 2015.

06–475Al-Ali, Mohammed N. (Jordan U of Science and Technology, Irbid, Jordan), Genre-pragmatic strategies in English letter-of-application writing of Jordanian Arabic–English bilinguals. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism (Multilingual Matters) 9.1 (2006), 119–139.06–476Anderson, Bill (Massey U College of Education, New Zealand; w.g.anderson@massey.ac.nz), Writing power into online discussion. Computers and Composition (Elsevier) 23.1 (2006), 108–124.06–477Blaır, Kristine & Cheryl Hoy (Bowling Green State U, USA; kblair@bgnet.bgsu.edu), Paying attention to adult learners online: The pedagogy and politics of community. Computers and Composition (Elsevier) 23.1 (2006), 32–48.06–478Blakelock, Jane & Tracy E. Smith (Wright State U, USA; jane.blakelock@wright.edu) Distance learning: From multiple snapshots, a composite portrait. Computers and Composition (Elsevier) 23.1 (2006), 139–161.06–479Bulley, Míchael, Wasthatnecessary?English Today (Cambridge University Press) 22.2 (2006), 47–49.06–480Chi-Fen, Emily Chen (National Kaohsiung First U of Science and Technology, Taiwan; emchen@ccms.nkfust.edu.tw), The development of email literacy: From writing to peers to writing to authority figures.Language Learning & Technology (http://llt.msu.edu) 10.2 (2006), 35–55.06–481Chikamatsu, Nobuko (DePaul U, Chicago, USA; nchikama@condor.depaul.edu), Developmental word recognition: A study of L1 English readers of L2 Japanese. The Modern Language Journal (Blackwell) 90.1 (2006), 67–85.06–482DePew, Kevin Eric (Old Dominion U, USA; Kdepew@odu.edu), T. A. Fishman, Julia E. Romberger & Bridget Fahey Ruetenik, Designing efficiencies: The parallel narratives of distance education and composition studies. Computers and Composition (Elsevier) 23.1 (2006), 49–67.06–483Dix, Stephanie (Hamilton, New Zealand; stephd@waikato.ac.nz), ‘What did I change and why did I do it?’ Young writers' revision practices. Literacy (Blackwell) 40.1 (2006), 3–10.06–484Donohue, James P. (London, UK; jdonohue@hillcroft.ac.uk), How to support a one-handed economist: The role of modalisation in economic forecasting. English for Specific Purposes (Elsevier) 25.2 (2006), 200–216.06–485Eisenhart, Christopher (U Massachusetts at Dartmouth, USA), The Humanist scholar as public expert. Written Communication (Sage) 23.2 (2006), 150–172.06–486Foy, Judith G. & Virginia Mann (Loyola Marymount U, USA; jfoy@lmu.edu), Changes in letter sound knowledge are associated with development of phonological awareness in pre-school children. Journal of Research in Reading (Blackwell) 29.2 (2006), 143–161.06–487Gruba, Paul (U Melbourne, Australia), Playing the videotext: A media literacy perspective on video-mediated L2 listening. Language Learning & Technology (http://llt.msu.edu) 10.2 (2006), 77–92.06–488Halliday, Lorna F. (MRC Institute of Hearing Research, Nottingham, UK) & Dorothy V. M. Bishop, Auditory frequency discrimination in children with dyslexia. Journal of Research in Reading (Blackwell) 29.2 (2006), 213–228.06–489Hayes, John R. (Carnegie Mellon U, USA) & N. Ann Chenoweth, Is working memory involved in the transcribing and editing of texts?Written Communication (Sage) 23.2 (2006), 135–149.06–490Hewett, Beth L. (Forest Hill, MD, USA; beth.hewett@comcast.net), Synchronous online conference-based instruction: A study of whiteboard interactions and student writing. Computers and Composition (Elsevier) 23.1 (2006), 4–31.06–491Hilton, Mary (U Cambridge, UK; mhiltonhom@aol.com), Damaging confusions in England's KS2 reading tests: A response to Anne Kispal. Literacy (Blackwell) 40.1 (2006), 36–41.06–492Hock Seng, Goh (U Pendikikan Sultan Idris, Malaysia) & Fatimah Hashim, Use of L1 in L2 reading comprehension among tertiary ESL learners. Reading in a Foreign Language (http://www.nflrc.hawaii.edu) 18.1 (2006), 26 pp.06–493Khuwaileh, Abdullah A. (Abu Dhabi, Al-ain, United Arab Emirates), Medical rhetoric: A contrastive study of Arabic and English in the UAE. English Today (Cambridge University Press) 22.2 (2006), 38–44.06–494Kondo-Brown, Kimi (U Hawaii at Manoa, USA), Affective variables and Japanese L2 reading ability. Reading in a Foreign Language (http://www.nflrc.hawaii.edu) 18.1 (2006), 17 pp.06–495Lee, Jin Sook (U California, USA), Exploring the relationship between electronic literacy and heritage language maintenance. Language Learning & Technology (http://llt.msu.edu) 10.2 (2006), 93–113.06–496Macaruso, Paul (Community College of Rhode Island, USA; pmacaruso@ccri.edu), Pamela E. Hook & Robert McCabe, The efficacy of computer-based supplementary phonics programs for advancing reading skills in at-risk elementary students. Journal of Research in Reading (Blackwell) 29.2 (2006), 162–172.06–497Magnet, Anne (U Burgundy, France; anne.magnet@u-bourgogne.fr) & Didier Carnet, Letters to the editor: Still vigorous after all these years? A presentation of the discursive and linguistic features of the genre. English for Specific Purposes (Elsevier) 25.2 (2006), 173–199.06–498Miller-Cochran, Susan K. & Rochelle L. Rodrigo (Mesa Community College, USA; susan.miller@mail.mc.maricopa.edu), Determining effective distance learning designs through usability testing. Computers and Composition (Elsevier) 23.1 (2006), 91–107.06–499Nelson, Mark Evan (U California, USA; menelson@berkeley.edu), Mode, meaning, and synaestesia in multimedia L2 writing. Language Learning & Technology (http://llt.msu.edu) 10.2 (2006), 55–76.06–500Nikolov, Marianne (U Pécs, Hungary; nikolov@nostromo.pte.hu), Test-taking strategies of 12- and 13-year-old Hungarian learners of EFL: Why whales have migraines. Language Learning (Blackwell) 56.1 (2006), 1–51.06–501Parks, Susan, Diane Huot, Josiane Hamers & France H.-Lemonnier (U Laval, Canada; susan.parks@lli.ulaval.ca), ‘History of theatre’ web sites: A brief history of the writing process in a high school ESL language arts class. Journal of Second Language Writing (Elsevier) 14.4 (2005), 233–258.06–502Pigada, Maria & Norbert Schmitt (U Nottingham, UK), Vocabulary acquisition from extensive reading: a case study. Reading in a Foreign Language (http://www.nflrc.hawaii.edu) 18.1 (2006), 28 pp.06–503Powell, Daisy (Institute of Education, U London, UK; d.powell@ioe.ac.uk), David Plaut & Elaine Funnell, Does the PMSP connectionist model of single word reading learn to read in the same way as a child?Journal of Research in Reading (Blackwell) 29.2 (2006), 229–250.06–504Reichelt, Melinda (U Toledo, USA; melinda.reichelt@utoledo.edu), English-language writing instruction in Poland. Journal of Second Language Writing (Elsevier) 14.4 (2005), 215–232.06–505Reilly, Colleen A. & Joseph John Williams (U North Carolina, USA; reillyc@uncw.edu), The price of free software: Labor, ethics, and context in distance education. Computers and Composition (Elsevier) 23.1 (2006), 68–90.06–506Reimer, Jason F. (California State U, USA; jreimer@csusb.edu), Developmental changes in the allocation of semantic feedback during visual word recognition. Journal of Research in Reading (Blackwell) 29.2 (2006), 194–212.06–507Richter, Tobias (U Cologne, Germany), What is wrong with ANOVA and Multiple Regression? Analyzing sentence reading times with hierarchical linear models. Discourse Processes (Erlbaum) 41.3 (2006), 221–250.06–508Roca De Larios, Julio (U of Murcia, Spain; jrl@um.es), Rosa M. Manchón & Liz Murphy, Generating text in native and foreign language writing: a temporal analysis of problem-solving formulation processes. The Modern Language Journal (Blackwell) 90.1 (2006), 100–114.06–509Spencer, Ken (U Hull, UK; k.a.spencer@hull.ac.uk), Phonics self-teaching materials for foundation literacy. Literacy (Blackwell) 40.1 (2006), 42–50.06–510Spooner, Alice L. R. (U Central Lancashire, UK; aspooner@uclan.ac.uk), Susan E. Gathercole & Alan D. Baddeley, Does weak reading comprehension reflect an integration deficit?Journal of Research in Reading (Blackwell) 29.2 (2006), 173–193.06–511Swarts, Jason (North Carolina State U, USA), Coherent fragments: The problem of mobility and genred information. Written Communication (Sage) 23.2 (2006), 173–201.06–512Walsh, Maureen, The ‘textual shift’: examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy (Australian Literacy Educators' Association) 29.1 (2006), 24–37.06–513Wilson, Andrew (Lancaster U, UK; eiaaw@exchange.lancs.ac.uk), Development and application of a content analysis dictionary for body boundary research. Literary and Linguistic Computing (Oxford University Press) 21.1 (2006), 105–110.06–514Yusun Kang, Jennifer (Harvard U Graduate School of Education, USA; jennifer_kang@post.harvard.edu), Written narratives as an index of L2 competence in Korean EFL learners. Journal of Second Language Writing (Elsevier) 14.4 (2005), 259–279.

“What's the brief?” is an everyday question within the graphic design process. Moreover, the concept and importance of a design brief is overtly understood well beyond design practice itself—especially among stakeholders who work with designers and clients who commission design services. Indeed, a design brief is often an assumed and expected physical or metaphoric artefact for guiding the creative process. When a brief is lacking, incomplete or unclear, it can render an already ambiguous graphic design process and discipline even more fraught with misinterpretation. Nevertheless, even in wider design discourse, there appears to be little research on design briefs and the briefing process (Jones and Askland; Paton and Dorst). It seems astonishing that, even in Peter Phillips’s 2014 edition of Creating the Perfect Design Brief, he feels compelled to comment that “there are still no books available about design briefs” and that the topic is only “vaguely” covered within design education (21). While Phillips’s assertion is debatable if one draws purely from online vernacular sources or professional guides, it is supported by the lack of scholarly attention paid to the design brief. Graphic design briefs are often mentioned within design books, journals, and online sources. However, this article argues that the format, function and use of such briefs are largely assumed and rarely identified and studied. Even within the broader field of design research, the tendency appears to be to default to “the design brief” as an assumed shorthand, supporting Phillips’s argument about the nebulous nature of the topic. As this article contextualises, this is further problematised by insufficient attention cast on graphic design itself as a specific discipline. This article emerges from a wider, multi-stage creative practice study into graphic design practice, that used experimental performative design research methods to investigate graphic designers’ professional relationships with stakeholders (Meron, Strangely). The article engages with specific outcomes from that study that relate to the design brief. The article also explores existing literature and research and argues for academics, the design industry, and educationalists, to focus closer attention on the design brief. It concludes by suggesting that experimental and collaborative design methods offers potential for future research into the design brief. Contextualising the Design Brief It is critical to differentiate the graphic design brief from the operational briefs of architectural design (Blyth and Worthington; Khan) or those used in technical practices such as software development or IT systems design, which have extensive industry-formalised briefing practices and models such as the waterfall system (Petersen et al.) or more modern processes such as Agile (Martin). Software development and other technical design briefs are necessarily more formulaically structured than graphic design briefs. Their requirements are generally empirically and mechanistically located, and often mission-critical. In contrast, the conceptual nature of creative briefs in graphic design creates the potential for them to be arbitrarily interpreted. Even in wider design discourse, there appears to be little consistency about the form that a brief takes. Some sources indicate that a brief only requires one page (Elebute; Nov and Jones) or even a single line of text (Jones and Askland). At other times briefs are described as complex, high-level documents embedded within processes which designers respond to with the aim of producing end products to satisfy clients’ requirements (Ambrose; Patterson and Saville). Ashby and Johnson (40) refer to the design brief as a “solution neutral” statement, the aim being to avoid preconceptions or the narrowing of the creative possibilities of a project. Others describe a consultative (Walsh), collaborative and stakeholder-inclusive process (Phillips). The Scholarly Brief Within scholarly design research, briefs inevitably manifest as an assumed artefact or process within each project; but the reason for their use or antecedents for chosen formats are rarely addressed. For example, in “Creativity in the Design Process” (Dorst and Cross) some elements of the design brief are described. The authors also describe at what stage of the investigation the brief is introduced and present a partial example of the brief. However, there is no explanation of the form of the brief or the reasons behind it. They simply describe it as being typical for the design medium, adding that its use was considered a critical part of addressing the design problem. In a separate study within advertising (Johar et al.), researchers even admit that the omission of crucial elements from the brief—normally present in professional practice—had a detrimental effect on their results. Such examples indicate the importance of briefs for the design process, yet further illustrating the omission of direct engagement with the brief within the research design, methodology, and methods. One exception comes from a study amongst business students (Sadowska and Laffy) that used the design brief as a pedagogical tool and indicates that interaction with, and changes to, elements of a design brief impact the overall learning process of participants, with the brief functioning as a trigger for that process. Such acknowledgement of the agency of a design brief affirms its importance for professional designers (Koslow et al.; Phillips). This use of a brief as a research device informed my use of it as a reflective and motivational conduit when studying graphic designers’ perceptions of stakeholders, and this will be discussed shortly. The Professional Brief Professionally, the brief is a key method of communication between designers and stakeholders, serving numerous functions including: outlining creative requirements, audience, and project scope; confirming project requirements; and assigning and documenting roles, procedures, methods, and approval processes. The format of design briefs varies from complex multi-page procedural documents (Patterson and Saville; Ambrose) produced by marketing departments and sent to graphic design agencies, to simple statements (Jones and Askland; Elebute) from small to medium-sized businesses. These can be described as the initial proposition of the design brief, with the following interactions comprising the ongoing briefing process. However, research points to many concerns about the lack of adequate briefing information (Koslow, Sasser and Riordan). It has been noted (Murray) that, despite its centrality to graphic design, the briefing process rarely lives up to designers’ expectations or requirements, with the approach itself often haphazard. This reinforces the necessarily adaptive, flexible, and compromise-requiring nature of professional graphic design practice, referred to by design researchers (Cross; Paton and Dorst). However, rather than lauding these adaptive and flexible designer abilities as design attributes, such traits are often perceived by professional practitioners as unequal (Benson and Dresdow), having evolved by the imposition by stakeholders, rather than being embraced by graphic designers as positive designer skill-sets. The Indeterminate Brief With insufficient attention cast on graphic design as a specific scholarly discipline (Walker; Jacobs; Heller, Education), there is even less research on the briefing process within graphic design practice (Cumming). Literature from professional practice on the creation and function of graphic design briefs is often formulaic (Phillips) and fractured. It spans professional design bodies, to templates from mass-market printers (Kwik Kopy), to marketing-driven and brand-development approaches, in-house style guides, and instructional YouTube videos (David). A particularly clear summary comes from Britain’s Design Council. This example describes the importance of a good design brief, its requirements, and carries a broad checklist that includes the company background, project aims, and target audience. It even includes stylistic tips such as “don’t be afraid to use emotive language in a brief if you think it will generate a shared passion about the project” (Design Council). From a subjective perspective, these sources appear to contain sensible professional advice. However, with little scholarly research on the topic, how can we know that, for example, using emotive language best informs the design process? Why might this be helpful and desirable (or otherwise) for designers? These varied approaches highlight the indeterminate treatment of the design brief. Nevertheless, the very existence of such diverse methods communicates a pattern of acknowledgement of the criticality of the brief, as well as the desire, by professional bodies, commentators, and suppliers, to ensure that both designers and stakeholders engage effectively with the briefing process. Thus, with such a pedagogic gap in graphic design discourse, scholarly research into the design brief has the potential to inform vernacular and formal educational resources. Researching the Design Brief The research study from which this article emerges (Meron, Strangely) yielded outcomes from face-to-face interviews with eleven (deidentified) graphic designers about their perceptions of design practice, with particular regard to their professional relationships with other creative stakeholders. The study also surveyed online discussions from graphic design forums and blog posts. This first stage of research uncovered feelings of lacking organisational gravitas, creative ownership, professional confidence, and design legitimacy among the designers in relation to stakeholders. A significant causal factor pointed to practitioners’ perceptions of lacking direct access to and involvement with key sources of creative inspiration and information; one specific area being the design brief. It was a discovery that was reproduced thematically during the second stage of the research. This stage repurposed performative design research methods to intervene in graphic designers’ resistance to research (Roberts, et al), with the goal of bypassing practitioners’ tendency to portray their everyday practices using formulaic professionalised answers (Dorland, View). In aiming to understand graphic designers’ underlying motivations, this method replaced the graphic designer participants with trained actors, who re-performed narratives from the online discussions and designer interviews during a series of performance workshops. Performative methodologies were used as design thinking methods to defamiliarise the graphic design process, thereby enabling previously unacknowledged aspects of the design process to be unveiled, identified and analysed. Such defamiliarisation repurposes methods used in creative practice, including design thinking (Bell, Blythe, and Sengers), with performative elements drawing on ethnography (Eisner) and experimental design (Seago and Dunne). Binding these two stages of research study together was a Performative Design Brief—a physical document combining narratives from the online discussions and the designer interviews. For the second stage, this brief was given to a professional theatre director to use as material for a “script” to motivate the actors. In addition to identifying unequal access to the creative process as a potential point of friction, this study yielded outcomes suggesting that designers were especially frustrated when the design brief was unclear, insufficiently detailed, or even missing completely. The performative methodology enabled a refractive approach, using performative metaphor and theatre to defamiliarise graphic design practice, portraying the process through a third-party theatrical prism. This intervened in graphic designers’ habitual communication patterns (Dorland, The View). Thus, combining traditional design research methods with experimental interdisciplinary ones, enabled outcomes that might not otherwise have emerged. It is an example of engaging with the fluid, hybrid (Heller, Teaching), and often elusive practices (van der Waarde) of graphic design. Format, Function, and Use A study (Paton and Dorst) among professional graphic designers attempts to dissect practitioners’ perceptions of different aspects of briefing as a process of ‘framing’. Building on the broader theories of design researchers such as Nigel Cross, Bryan Lawson, and Donald Schön, Paton and Dorst suggest that most of the designers preferred a collaborative briefing process where both they and client stakeholders were directly involved, without intermediaries. This concurs with the desire, from many graphic designers that I interviewed, for unobstructed engagement with the brief. Moreover, narratives from the online discussions that I investigated suggest that the lack of clear frameworks for graphic design briefs is a hotly debated topic, as are perceptions of stakeholder belligerence or misunderstanding. For example, in a discussion from Graphic Design Forums designer experiences range from only ever receiving informal verbal instructions—“basically, we’ve been handed design work and they tell us ‘We need this by EOD’” (VFernandes)—to feeling obliged to pressure stakeholders to provide a brief—“put the burden on them to flesh out the details of a real brief and provide comprehensive material input” (HotButton) —to resignation to an apparent futility of gaining adequate design briefs from stakeholders because— “they will most likely never change” (KitchWitch). Such negative assumptions support Koslow et al.’s assertion that the absence of a comprehensive brief is the most “terrifying” thing for practitioners (9). Thus, practitioners’ frustrations with stakeholders can become unproductive when there is an inadequate design brief, or if the creative requirements of a brief are otherwise removed from the direct orbit of graphic designers. This further informs a narrative of graphic designers perceiving some stakeholders as gatekeepers of the design brief. For example, one interviewed designer believed that stakeholders ‘don’t really understand the process’ (Patricia). Another interviewee suggested that disorganised briefs could be avoided by involving designers early in the process, ensuring that practitioners had direct access to the client as a creative source, rather than having to circumnavigate stakeholders (Marcus). Such perceptions appeared to reinforce beliefs among these practitioners that they lack design capital within the creative process. These perceptions of gatekeeping of the design brief support suggestions of designers responding negatively when stakeholders approach the design process from a different perspective (Wall and Callister), if stakeholders assume a managerial position (Jacobs) and, in particular, if stakeholders are inexperienced in working with designers (Banks et al.; Holzmann and Golan). With such little clarity in the design briefing process, future research may consider comparisons with industries with more formalised briefing processes, established professional statuses, or more linear histories. Indeed, the uneven historical development of graphic design (Frascara; Julier and Narotzky) may influence the inconsistency of its briefing process. Inconsistency as Research Opportunity The inconsistent state of the graphic design brief is reflective of the broader profession that it resides within. Graphic design as a profession remains fluid and inconsistent (Dorland, Tell Me; Jacobs), with even its own practitioners unable to agree on its parameters or even what to call the practice (Meron, Terminology). Pedagogically, graphic design is still emerging as an independent discipline (Cabianca; Davis), struggling to gain capital outside of existing and broader creative practices (Poynor; Triggs). The inherent interdisciplinarity (Harland) and intangibility of graphic design also impact the difficulty of engaging with the briefing process. Indeed, graphic design’s practices have been described as “somewhere between science and superstition (or fact and anecdote)” (Heller, Teaching par. 3). With such obstacles rendering the discipline fractured (Ambrose et al.), it is understandable that stakeholders might find engaging productively with graphic design briefs challenging. This can become problematic, with inadequate stakeholder affinity or understanding of design issues potentially leading to creative discord (Banks et al.; Holzmann and Golan). Identifying potentially problematic and haphazard aspects of the design brief and process also presents opportunities to add value to research into broader relationships between graphic designers and stakeholders. It suggests a practical area of study with which scholarly research on collaborative design approaches might intersect with professional graphic design practice. Indeed, recent research suggests that collaborative approaches offer both process and educational advantages, particularly in the area of persona development, having the ability to discover the “real” brief (Taffe 394). Thus, framing the brief as a collaborative, educative, and negotiative process may allow creative professionals to elucidate and manage the disparate parts of a design process, such as timeframes, stakeholders, and task responsibilities, as well as the cost implications of stakeholder actions such as unscheduled amendments. It can encourage the formalisation of incomplete vernacular briefs, as well as allow for the influence of diverse briefing methods, such as the one-page creative brief of advertising agencies, or more formal project management practices while allowing for some of the fluidity of more agile approaches: acknowledging that changes may be required while keeping all parties informed and involved. In turn, collaborative approaches may contribute towards enabling the value of contributions from both graphic designers and stakeholders and it seems beneficial to look towards design research methodologies that promote collaborative pathways. Mark Steen, for example, argues for co-design as a form of design thinking for enabling stakeholders to combine knowledge with negotiation to implement change (27). Collaborative design methods have also been advocated for use between designers and users, with stakeholders on shared projects, and with external collaborators (Binder and Brandt). Others have argued that co-design methods facilitate stakeholder collaboration “across and within institutional structures” while challenging existing power relations, albeit leaving structural changes largely unaffected (Farr 637). The challenge for collaborative design research is to seek opportunities and methodologies to conduct design brief research within a graphic design process that often appears amorphous, while also manifesting complex designer–stakeholder dynamics. Doubly so, when the research focus—the graphic design brief—often appears as nebulous an entity as the practice it emerges from. Conclusion The research discussed in this article suggests that graphic designers distrust a creative process that itself symbolises an inconsistent, reactive, and often accidental historical development of their profession and pedagogy. Reflecting this, the graphic design brief emerges almost as a metaphor for this process. The lack of overt discussion about the format, scope, and process of the brief feeds into the wider framework of graphic design’s struggle to become an independent scholarly discipline. This, in turn, potentially undermines the professional authority of graphic design practice that some of its practitioners believe is deficient. Ultimately, the brief and its processes must become research-informed parts of graphic design pedagogy. Embracing the brief as a pedagogical, generative, and inseparable part of the design process can inform the discourse within education, adding scholarly value to practice and potentially resulting in increased agency for practitioners. The chameleon-like nature of graphic design’s constant adaptation to ever-changing industry requirements makes research into the role and influences of its briefing process challenging. Thus, it also follows that the graphic design brief is unlikely to quickly become as formalised a document or process as those from other disciplines. But these are challenges that scholars and professionals must surely embrace if pedagogy is to gain the research evidence to influence practice. As this article argues, the often obfuscated practices and inherent interdisciplinarity of graphic design benefit from experimental research methods, while graphic designers appear responsive to inclusive approaches. Thus, performative methods appear effective as tools of discovery and collaborative methodologies offer hope for organisational intervention. References Ambrose, Gavin. Design Thinking for Visual Communication. Fairchild, 2015. Ambrose, Gavin, Paul Harris, and Nigel Ball. The Fundamentals of Graphic Design. Bloomsbury, 2020. Ashby, M.F., and Kara Johnson. Materials and Design: The Art and Science of Material Selection in Product Design. Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann, 2010. Banks, Mark, et al. "Where the Art Is: Defining and Managing Creativity in New Media SME’s." Creativity and Innovation Management 11.4 (2002): 255-64. Bell, Genevieve, Mark Blythe, and Phoebe Sengers. "Making by Making Strange: Defamiliarization and the Design of Domestic Technologies." ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction 12.2 (2005): 149-73. Benson, Joy, and Sally Dresdow. "Design Thinking: A Fresh Approach for Transformative Assessment Practice." Journal of Management Education 38.3 (2014): 436-61. Binder, Thomas, and Eva Brandt. "The Design:Lab as Platform in Participatory Design Research." CoDesign 4.2 (2008). Blyth, Alastair, and John Worthington. Managing the Brief for Better Design. Routledge, 2010. Cabianca, David. "A Case for the Sublime Uselessness of Graphic Design." Design and Culture 8.1 (2016): 103-22. Cross, Nigel. Design Thinking: Understanding How Designers Think and Work. Berg, 2011. Cumming, Deborah. "An Investigation into the Communication Exchange between Small Business Client and Graphic Designer." Robert Gordon U, 2007. David, Gareth. "The Graphic Design Brief." 5 June 2021 <https://youtu.be/EMG6qJp_sPY 2017>. Davis, Meredith. "Tenure and Design Research: A Disappointingly Familiar Discussion." Design and Culture 8.1 (2016): 123-31. De Michelis, G., C. Simone and K. Schmidt, eds. An Ethnographic Study of Graphic Designers. Third European Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work. 1993. U of Surrey, UK. Design Council. "How to Commission a Designer: Step 4: Brief Your Designer." Design Council. 3 June 2021 <https://www.designcouncil.org.uk/news-opinion/how-commissiondesigner-step-4-brief-your-designer>. Dorland, AnneMarie. Tell Me Why You Did That: Learning “Ethnography” from the Design Studio. Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference, 2016. ———. "The View from the Studio: Design Ethnography and Organizational Cultures."Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference Proceedings 2017. Vol. 1. 2017. 232-46. Dorst, Kees, and Nigel Cross. "Creativity in the Design Process: Co-Evolution of Problem–Solution." Design Studies 22 (2001): 425–37. Eisner, Elliot. Concerns and Aspirations for Qualitative Research in the New Millennium. Issues in Art and Design Teaching. RoutledgeFalmer, 2003. Elebute, Ayo. "Influence of Layout and Design on Strategy and Tactic for Communicating Advertising Messages." Global Journal of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences 4.6 (2016): 34-47. Farr, Michelle. "Power Dynamics and Collaborative Mechanisms in Co-Production and Co-Design Processes." Critical Social Policy 38.4 (2017): 623–644. DOI: 10.1177/0261018317747444. Frascara, Jorge. "Graphic Design: Fine Art or Social Science?" Design Issues 5.1 (1988): 18-29. DOI: 10.2307/1511556. Harland, Robert G. "Seeking to Build Graphic Design Theory from Graphic Design Research." Routledge Companion to Design Research. Eds. Paul Rodgers and Joyce Yee. Routledge, 2015. 87-97. Heller, Steven. The Education of a Graphic Designer. Allworth P, 2015. ———. "Teaching Tools." Teaching Graphic Design History. Allworth, 2019. 312. Holzmann, Vered, and Joseph Golan. "Leadership to Creativity and Management of Innovation? The Case of the 'Innovation Club' in a Production Company." American Journal of Industrial and Business Management 6 (2016): 60-71. HotButton. "Kind of a Design Brief?" 2016. 28 July 2018 <https://web.archive.org/web/20160310013457/http://www.graphicdesignforum.com/forum/forum/graphic-design/general/1619626-kind-of-a-designbrief?p=1619683#post1619683>. Jacobs, Jessica. "Managing the Creative Process within Graphic Design Firms: Literature Review." Dialectic 1.2 (2017): 155-78. Johar, Gita Venkataramani, Morris B. Holbrook, and Barbara B. Stern. "The Role of Myth in Creative Advertising Design: Theory, Process and Outcome." Journal of Advertising 30.2 (2001): 1-25. Jones, Wyn M., and Hedda Haugen Askland. "Design Briefs: Is There a Standard?" International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education. 2012. Khan, Ayub. Better by Design: An Introduction to Planning and Designing a New Library Building. Facet, 2009. KitchWitch. "Kind of a Design Brief?" 2016. 28 July 2018 <https://web.archive.org/web/20160310013457/http://www.graphicdesignforum.com/forum/graphic-design/general/1619626-kind-of-a-design-brief?p=1619687#post1619687>. Kwik Kopy. "Design Brief." 2018. 5 June 2021 <https://www.kwikkopy.com.au/blog/graphic-designbrief-template>. Koslow, Scott, Sheila Sasser, and Edward Riordan. "What Is Creative to Whom and Why? Perceptions in Advertising Agencies." Journal of Advertising Research 43.1 (2003). “Marcus”. Interview by the author. 2013. Martin, Robert Cecil. Agile Software Development: Principles, Patterns, and Practices. Prentice Hall PTR, 2003. Meron, Yaron. "Strangely Familiar: Revisiting Graphic Designers’ Perceptions of Their Relationships with Stakeholders." RMIT University, 2019. ———. "Terminology and Design Capital: Examining the Pedagogic Status of Graphic Design through Its Practitioners’ Perceptions of Their Job Titles." International Journal of Art & Design Education 40.2 (2021): 374-88. “Patricia”. Interview by the author. 2013. Paton, Bec, and Kees Dorst. "Briefing and Reframing: A Situated Practice." Design Studies 32.6 (2011): 573-87. Patterson, Jacinta, and Joanne Saville. Viscomm: A Guide to Visual Communication Design VCE Units, 2012.1-4. Petersen, Kai, Claes Wohlin, and Dejan Baca. "The Waterfall Model in Large-Scale Development." . Proceedings of Product-Focused Software Process Improvement: 10th International Conference, Profes 2009, Oulu, Finland, June 15-17, 2009. Eds. Frank Bomarius et al. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing. Springer, 2009. 386-400. Phillips, Peter L. Creating the Perfect Design Brief: How to Manage Design for Strategic Advantage. Allworth P, 2014. Poynor, Rick. "Does Graphic Design History Have a Future?" Print 65.4 (2011): 30-32. Roberts, Lucienne, Rebecca Wright, and Jessie Price. Graphic Designers Surveyed. Ed. Lucienne Roberts. London, UK: GraphicDesign&, 2015. Sadowska, Noemi, and Dominic Laffy. "The Design Brief: Inquiry into the Starting Point in a Learning Journey." Design Journal 20, Sup. 1 (2017): S1380-S89. Seago, Alex, and Anthony Dunne. "New Methodologies in Art and Design Research: The Object as Discourse." Design Issues 15.2 (1999): 11-17. Steen, Marc. "Co-Design as a Process of Joint Inquiry and Imagination." Design Issues 29.2 (2013): 16-28. DOI: 10.1162/DESI_a_00207. Taffe, Simone. "Who’s in Charge? End-Users Challenge Graphic Designers’ Intuition through Visual Verbal Co-Design." The Design Journal 20, Sup. 1 (2017): S390-S400. Triggs, Teal. "Graphic Design History: Past, Present, and Future." Design Issues 27.1 (2011): 3-6. Van der Waarde, Karel. "Graphic Design as Visual Arguments: Does This Make a Reliable Appraisal Possible?" Perspective on Design: Research, Education and Practice. Eds. Raposo, Daniel, João Neves, and José Silva. Springer Series in Design and Innovation. Springer, 2020. 89-101. VFernandes. "Kind of a Design Brief?" 2016. 28 July 2018 < https://web.archive.org/web/20160310013457/http://www.graphicdesignforum.com/forum/graphic-design/general/1619626-kind-of-a-design-brief#post1619626>. Walker, Sue. "Research in Graphic Design." Design Journal 20.5 (2017): 549-59. Wall, James A., Jr., and Ronda Roberts Callister. "Conflict and Its Management." Journal of Management 21.3 (1995). Walsh, Vivien. "Design, Innovation and the Boundaries of the Firm." Research Policy 25 (1996): 509-29.

Since September 11, Muslims in Australia have experienced a heightened level of religiously and racially motivated vilification (Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission). These fears were poignantly expressed in a letter to the Editor of The West Australian newspaper from a Muslim woman shortly after the London terror attacks: All I want to say is that for those out there who might have kamikaze ideas of doing such an act here in Australia, please think of others (us) in your own community. The ones who will get hurt are your own, especially we the women who are an obvious target in the public and have to succumb to verbal abuse most of the time. Dealing with abuse and hatred from some due to 9/11 and Bali is not something I want to go through again. (21) The atmosfear of terror finds many expressions among the Muslim communities in Australia: the fear of backlash from some sectors of the wider community; the fear of subversion of Islamic identity in meeting the requirements of a politically defined “moderate” Islam; the fear of being identified as a potential terrorist or “person of interest” and the fear of potentially losing the rights bestowed on all other citizens. This fear or fears are grounded in the political and the media response to terrorism that perpetuates a popular belief that Muslims, as a culturally and religiously incompatible “other”, pose a threat to the Australian collective identity and, ostensibly, to Australia’s security. At the time of publication, for example, there was mob violence involving 5,000 young people converging on Sydney’s Cronulla beach draped in Australian flags singing Waltzing Matilda and Advance Australia Fair as well as chanting “kill the Lebs”, “no more Lebs” (Lebanese). The mob was itself brought together by a series of SMS messages, appealing to participants to “help support Leb and Wog bashing day” and to “show solidarity” against a government-identified “threat to Aussie identity” (The West Australian). Since September 11 and the ensuing war on terror, a new discourse of terrorism has emerged as a way of expressing how the world has changed and defining a state of constant alert (Altheide). “The war on terror” refers as much to a perpetual state of alertness as it does to a range of strategic operations, border control policies, internal security measures and public awareness campaigns such as “be alert, not alarmed”. According to a poll published in The Sydney Morning Herald in April 2004, 68 per cent of Australians believed that Australia was at threat of an imminent terrorist attack (Michaelsen). In a major survey in Australia immediately after the September 11 attacks Dunn & Mahtani found that more than any other cultural or ethnic group, Muslims and people from the Middle East were thought to be unable to fit into Australia. Two thirds of those surveyed believed that humanity could be sorted into natural categories of race, with the majority feeling that Australia was weakened by people of different ethnic origins. Fifty-four per cent of those surveyed, mainly women, said they would be concerned if a relative of theirs married a Muslim. The majority of the Muslim population, not surprisingly, has gone into a “siege mentality” (Hanna). The atmosfear of terror in the Western world is a product of the media and political construction of the West as perpetually at threat of a terrorist attack from a foreign, alien, politically defined “other”, where “insecurity…is the new normal” (Massumi 31). Framed in a rhetoric that portrays it as a battle for the Western values of democracy and freedom, the “war on terror” becomes not just an event in space and time but a metonym for a new world order, drawing on distinctions between “us” and “them” and “the West” and “others” (Osuri and Banerjee) and motivating collective identity based on a construction of “us” as victims and “them” as the objects of fear, concern and suspicion. The political response to the war on terror has inculcated an atmosfear of terror where Australian Muslims are identified as the objects of this fear. The fear of terrorism is being modulated through government and the popular media to perpetuate a state of anxiety that finds expression in the heightened levels of concern and suspicion over a perceived threat. In the case of the war on terror, this threat is typically denoted as radical Islam and, by inference, Australian Muslims. In his exposition of political fear, Corey Robin notes that a central element of political fear is that it is often not read as such – rendering it alien to analysis, critical debate and understanding. Nowhere is this more salient than in the rhetoric on the war on terror characterised by the familiar invocation of terms like democracy and freedom to make distinctions between “the West and the rest” and to legitimise references to civilised and uncivilised worlds. In his speech delivered at the United Nations Security Council Ministerial Session on Terrorism on 20 January 2003, Colin Powell invoked the rhetoric of a clash of civilisations and urged, “we must rid the civilised world of this cancer … We must rise to the challenge with actions that will ride the globe of terrorism and create a world in which all God’s children can live without fear”. It is this construction of the war on terror as a global battle between “the West and the rest” that enables and facilitates the affective response to political fear – a reaffirmation of identity and membership of a collective. As Robin states: Understanding the objects of our fear as less than political allows us to treat them as intractable foes. Nothing can be done to accommodate them: they can only be killed or contained. Understanding the objects of our fear as not political also renews us as a collective. Afraid, we are like the audience in a crowded theatre confronting a man falsely shouting fire: united, not because we share similar beliefs of aspiration but because we are equally threatened. (6) This response has found expression in the perception of Muslims as an alien, culturally incompatible and utterly threatening other, creating a state of social tension where the public’s anxiety has been and continues to be directed at Australian Muslims who visibly represent the objects of the fear of terror. The Australian Government’s response to the war on terror exemplifies what Brian Massumi terms “affective modulation” whereby the human response to the fear of terror, that of a reinforcement and renewal of collective identity, has been modulated and transformed from an affective response to an affective state of anxiety – what the authors term the atmosfear of terror. Affect for Massumi can be inscribed in the flesh as “traces of experience” – an accumulation of affects. It is in this way that Massumi views affect as “autonomous” (Megan Watkins also makes this argument, and has further translated Massumi's notions into the idea of pedagogic affect/effect). In the Australian context, after more than four years of collected traces of experiences of images of threat, responses to terrorism have become almost reflexive – even automated. Affective modulation in the Australian context relies on the regenerative capacity of fear, in Massumi’s terms its “ontogenetic powers” (45) to create an ever-present threat and maintain fear as a way of life. The introduction of a range of counter-terrorism strategies, internal-security measures, legislative amendments and policies, often without public consultation and timed to coincide with “new” terror alerts is testimony to the affective machinations of the Australian government in its response to the war on terror. Virilio and Lotringer called “pure war” the psychological state that happens when people know that they live in a world where the potential for sudden and absolute destruction exists. It is not the capacity for destruction so much as the continual threat of sudden destruction that creates this psychology. Keith Spence has stated that in times of crisis the reasoned negotiation of risk is marginalised. The counter-terrorism legislation introduced in response to the war on terror is, arguably, the most drastic anti-libertarian measures Australia has witnessed and constitutes a disproportionate response to Australia’s overall risk profile (Michaelsen). Some of these measures would once have seemed an unthinkable assault on civil liberties and unreasonably authoritarian. Yet in the war on terror, notes Jessica Stern, framed as a global war of good versus evil, policies and strategies that once seemed impossible suddenly become constructed as rationale, if not prudent. Since September 11, the Australian government has progressively introduced a range of counter-terrorism measures including over 30 legislative amendments and, more recently, increased powers for the police to detain persons of interest suspected of sedition. In the wake of the London bombings, the Prime Minister called a summit with Muslim representatives from around the nation. In the two hours that they met, the summit developed a Statement of Principles committing members of Muslim communities to combat radicalisation and pursue “moderate” Islam. As an affective machination, the summit presents as a useful political tool for modulating the existing anxieties in the Australian populace. The very need for a summit of this nature and for the development of a Statement of Principles (later endorsed by the Council of Australian Governments or COAG) sends a lucid message to the Australian public. Not only are Australian Muslims responsible for terrorism but they also have the capacity to prevent or minimise the threat of an attack in Australia. Already the focus of at least a decade of negative stereotyping in the popular Australia media (Brasted), Australian Muslims all too quickly and easily became agents in the Government’s affective tactics. The policy response to the war on terror has given little consideration to the social implications of sustaining a fear of terrorism, placing much emphasis on security- focused counter-terrorism measures rather than education and dialogue. What governments and communities need to address is the affective aspects of the atmosfear of terror. Policy makers can begin by becoming self-reflexive and developing an understanding of the real impact of fear and the affective modulation of this fear. Communities can start by developing an understanding of how policy induced fear is affecting them. To begin this process of reflection, governments and communities need to recognise fear of terrorism as a political tool. Psychological explanations for fear or trauma are important, especially if we are to plan policy responses to them. However, if we are to fight against policy-induced fear, we need to better understand and recognise affective modulation as a process that is not reducible to individual psychology. Viewed from the perspective of affect, the atmosfear of terror reveals an attempt to modulate public anxiety and sustain a sense of Australia as perpetually at threat from a culturally incompatible and irreconcilable “other”. References Altheide, David. L. “Consuming Terrorism.” Symbolic Interaction 27.3 (2004): 289–308. Brasted, Howard, V. “Contested Representations in Historical Perspective: Images of Islam and the Australian Press 1950-2000”. In A. Saeed & S. Akbarzadeh, Muslim Communities in Australia. Sydney: U of NSW P, 2001. Dunn, K.M., and M. Mahtani. “Media Representations of Ethnic Minorities.” Progress in Planning 55.3 (2001): 63–72. Dunn, K.M. “The Cultural Geographies of Citizenship in Australia.” Geography Bulletin 33.1 (2001): 4–8. “Genesis of Cronulla’s Ugly Sunday Began Years Ago.” The West Australian 2005: 11. Green, Lelia. “Did the World Really Change on 9/11?” Australian Journal of Communication 29.2 (2002): 1–14. Hanna, D. 2003. “Siege Mentality: Current Australian Response.” Salam July-Aug. (2003): 12–4. Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. Ismaa – Listen: National Consultations on Eliminating Prejudice against Arab and Muslim Australians. Sydney: Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 2004. Kerbaj, Richard. “Clerics Still Preaching Hatred of West.” The Australian 3 Nov. 2005. Kinnvall, Catarina. “Globalization and Religious Nationalism: Self, Identity, and the Search for Ontological Security.” Political Psychology 25.5 (2004): 741. “Letters to the Editor.” The West Australian 25 July 2005: 21. Massumi, Brian. “Fear (The Spectrum Said).” Positions 13.1 (2005): 31–48. Massumi, Brian. “The Autonomy of Affect.” In P. Patton, ed., Deleuze: A Critical Reader. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1996. “Meeting with Islamic Community Leaders, Statement of Principles.” 23 Aug. 2005. http://www.pm.gov.au/news/media_releases/media_Release1524.html> Michaelsen, Christopher. “Antiterrorism Legislation in Australia: A Proportionate Response to the Terrorist Threat?” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 28.4 (2005): 321–40. Osuri, Goldie, and Subhabrata Bobby Banerjee. “White Diasporas: Media Representations of September 11 and the Unbearable Whiteness of Being in Australia.” Social Semiotics 14.2 (2004): 151–71. Powell, Colin. “Ridding the World of Global Terrorism: No Countries or Citizens are Safe.” Vital Speeches of the Day 69.8 (2003): 230–3. Robin, Corey. Fear: The History of a Political Idea. New York: Oxford UP, 2004. Spence, Keith. “World Risk Society and War against Terror.” Political Studies 53.2 (2005): 284–304. Stern, Jessica. “Fearing Evil.” Social Research 71.4 (2004): 1111–7. “Terrorism Chronology.” Parliament of Australia Parliamentary Library. http://www.aph.gov.au/library/intguide/law/terrorism.htm> Tomkins, Silvan. Affect, Imagery and Consciousness. New York: Springer Publishing, 1962. Virilio, Paul, and Sylvere Lotringer. Pure War. New York: Semio-text(e), 1997. Watkins, Megan. “Pedagogic Affect/Effect: Teaching Writing in the Primary Years of School.” Presented at Redesigning Pedagogy: Research, Policy, Practice Conference. Singapore: National Institute of Education, 31 May 2005. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Aly, Anne, and Mark Balnaves. "The Atmosfear of Terror: Affective Modulation and the War on Terror." M/C Journal 8.6 (2005). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0512/04-alybalnaves.php>. APA Style Aly, A., and M. Balnaves. (Dec. 2005) "The Atmosfear of Terror: Affective Modulation and the War on Terror," M/C Journal, 8(6). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0512/04-alybalnaves.php>.

“Why would I go to the library if I can get all I need from the web?” This question should sound familiar to anyone teaching media studies in a tertiary institution today, and it is becoming an increasingly common question. It is also a question that typifies what has been called the Net Generation, and at the same time raises important questions about the way we teach this generation, particularly when it comes to media education. No longer can we assume that students will actually take the time to read the required readings that we have so painstakingly put together, because it is simply not their way of approaching or engaging with information. The concept of scanning sums it up beautifully: they scan for information, rather than search for specific texts to be engaged with in depth. As Diana and James Oblinger note, “individuals raised with the computer deal with information differently compared to previous cohorts: they develop hypertext minds, they leap around. A linear thought process is much less common than bricolage, or the ability to piece information together from multiple sources” (2.4-2.5). In short, they develop scanning minds. At the risk of sounding ‘old school’, let’s stop and reflect on this for a moment. Firstly, there is the problematic notion of the Net Generation, and in particular its ‘generation’ component. Similar to previous generational constructs like Gen X, Y, Dot.Com Gen, etcetera, it implies that the Net Generation’s characteristics are specifically age related. It can be argued, however, that they are driven by technology (in its social and cultural context…naturally): in other words, regardless of your age, if you engage with a wide variety of media across different platforms in a sustained manner, you are just as likely to develop a scanning mind as any first year student, since the brain is a muscle which is remarkably adept at adapting. Secondly, if we accept that the scanning mind is here to stay, which will take a considerable shift, judging from the frequent rumbles in institutional corridors about the lack of student engagement in classrooms (and I’m certainly not exempt from this myself), then that raises a number of very important, and potentially uncomfortable, questions about our practice in classrooms. For example, if a scanning mind is the equipment that students bring to our lecture theatres, is it appropriate to expect them to listen to us in a sustained manner for two hours, like we have done since time immemorial? Similarly, is the general tutorial format of ‘required reading—discussion about the required reading’ the best way to engage students if the majority consistently fail to make it to the end of that reading? If we can identify what the characteristics of the Net Generation are, should we redesign our teaching practice to suit those characteristics? What are the implications of that for the various types of skills (including generic skills) we imagine to be worthy outcomes of a university degree (or ‘graduate capabilities’ in management speak)? Diana and James Oblinger (2.6-2.7) identify the following characteristics in the Net Generation: ability to read visual images (more comfortable in image-rich environments than with text) visual-spatial skills (developed through playing games) experiential (they learn better through discovery than by being told) ability to shift their attention rapidly from one task to another digitally literate connected/social (peer-to-peer approach) The ability to read visual images sits well with the often heard claim that this generation is ‘media savvy’, but there is a big difference between being able to read (and scan) images and being able to critically engage with those images. The latter poses a challenge to educators, because it is in this realm that traditional academic skills become important. In 1996, an influential paper in the Harvard Educational Review by the so-called New London Group, developed what they called a ‘pedagogy of multiliteracies’, in which they argued for a re-think of what we traditionally understand by literacy (i.e. text-based), to account for “the bourgeoning variety of text forms associated with information and multimedia technologies” (1-2). They implicitly suggest that we need to teach students multiliteracies, but this raises the question of what we understand by multiliteracies. According to Kalantzis and Cope, “meaning is made in ways that are increasingly multimodal—in which written linguistic modes of meaning interface with visual, audio, gestural, and spatial patterns of meaning” (9). This is only sporadically acknowledged in current teaching, and if incorporated at all, its application is generally left to the discretion of individual course coordinators, rather than integrated across the curriculum. At the same time, however, the characteristics of the Net Generation, as outlined above, suggest that there are many skills associated with a multimedia environment that we may not need to teach students. For example, when it comes to visual-spatial skills, developed through game playing, they can probably teach us more than what we can teach them. What the above list of characteristics allows us to do however, is to shift our focus to creatively incorporate the skills that students come equipped with in ways that would teach them the critical skills we want them to develop. This is precisely what MIT’s Comparative Media Studies Program has been concerned with in recent years: collaborating with a variety of partners, ranging from Microsoft to the Royal Shakespeare Company, they have developed gaming scenarios that “cut across different game genres, different academic fields, different pedagogical models, and different strategies for integrating games into the classroom” (Squire and Jenkins 10). There is recognition in their educational game designs that the Net Generation is more comfortable in image-rich environments, that they are experiential learners, that they have the ability to shift their attention rapidly from one task to another, and that they prefer a peer-to-peer approach. The games are designed for different disciplines, from science to history and literary studies, and some are multiplayer games while others are single player games. Students experience the games “not simply as readers or spectators but as players, directors, and authors” (Squire and Jenkins 21). Built into the game designs are mechanisms that stimulate critical thinking (and indeed the acquisition of knowledge); in order to win the game, students need to collaborate (social peer-to-peer interaction), find information, and reflect on their practice. Squire and Jenkins’ examples include a game which allows students to analyse a Shakespeare play (The Taming of the Shrew) by occupying the director’s chair, and an American history game where players fill the shoes of decision makers in history and thus have the ability to ‘virtually’ re-write history, as long as they take responsibility for their decisions. With some creative thinking, these examples could very well be applied to the study of films, television programs, media companies, or even games themselves. The MIT Program is still in its early stages, and there are many issues to be considered, both logistical and philosophical, and many pilot programs to scan, before radically changing age old practices. Furthermore, there is a need to be very clear on pedagogical objectives and projected outcomes, in order to not throw the baby out with the bathwater. In an increasingly competitive higher education context, the temptation to ‘please’ students/clients and peddle to their perceived needs looms large. However, initiatives like the MIT Program show promising ways to harness the Net Generation’s ‘natural’ abilities, rather than condemning them as ‘only interested in instant gratification’. The scanning mind can be seen as a dangerous mind if it never delves below the surface, but if we instead choose to see the scanning mind as a potentially suspicious or sceptical mind, then we have taken the first step in harnessing this scepticism and transforming it into a critical mind. Postscript Despite my initial resolve to make this piece highly scannable, by keeping my sentences short and sharp, I realise I have failed miserably in this regard, which I attribute to my membership of various pre-net generations… References Kalantzis, Mary, and Bill Cope. “Introduction.” Transformations in Language and Learning: Perspectives on Multiliteracies. Ed. Mary Kalantzis and Bill Cope. Melbourne: Common Ground, 2001. 9-18. The New London Group. “A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures.” Harvard Educational Review 66.1 (Spring 1996): 60-92. Oblinger, Diana G., and James L. Oblinger. “Is It Age or IT: First Steps toward Understanding the Net Generation.” Educating the Net Generation. Ed. Diana G. Oblinger and James L. Oblinger. Boulder: Educause, 2005. 2.1-2.20. Squire, Kurt, and Henry Jenkins. “Harnessing the Power of Games in Education.” InSight 3 (2003): 5-33. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Huijser, Henk. "Are Scanning Minds Dangerous Minds, or Merely Suspicious Minds?: Harnessing the Net Generation’s Ability to Scan." M/C Journal 8.4 (2005). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0508/09-huijser.php>. APA Style Huijser, H. (Aug. 2005) "Are Scanning Minds Dangerous Minds, or Merely Suspicious Minds?: Harnessing the Net Generation’s Ability to Scan," M/C Journal, 8(4). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0508/09-huijser.php>.

IntroductionClowns can be seen as enacting catastrophe with a small “c.” They are experts in “failing better” who perhaps live on the cusp of turning catastrophe into a metaphorical whirlwind while ameliorating the devastation that lies therein. They also have the propensity to succumb to the devastation, masking their own sense of the void with the gestures of play. In this paper, knowledge about clowns emerges from my experience, working with circus clowns in Circus Knie (Switzerland) and Circo Tihany (South America), observing performances and films about clowns, and reading, primarily in European fiction, of clowns in multiple guises. The exposure to a diverse range of texts, visual media and performance, has led me to the possibility that clowning is not only a conceptual discipline but also a state of being that is yet to be fully recognised.Diminutive CatastropheI have an idea (probably a long held obsession) of the clown as a diminutive figure of catastrophe, of catastrophe with a very small “c.” In the context of this incisive academic dialogue on relationships between catastrophe and creativity where writers are challenged with the horrendous tragedies that nature and humans unleash on the planet, this inept character appears to be utterly insignificant and, moreover, unworthy of any claim to creativity. A clown does not solve problems in the grand scheme of society: if anything he/she simply highlights problems, arguably in a fatalistic manner where innovation may be an alien concept. Invariably, as Eric Weitz observes, when clowns depart from their moment on the stage, laughter evaporates and the world settles back into the relentless shades of oppression and injustice. In response to the natural forces of destruction—earthquakes, tsunamis, cyclones, and volcanic eruptions—as much as to the forces of rage in war and ethnic cleansing that humans inflict on one another, a clown makes but a tiny gesture. Curiously, though, those fingers brushing dust off a threadbare jacket may speak volumes.Paradox is the crux of this exploration. Clowns, the best of them, project the fragility of human value on a screen beyond measure and across many layers and scales of metaphorical understanding (Big Apple Circus; Stradda). Why do odd tramps and ordinary inept people seem to pivot against the immense flows of loss and outrage which tend to pervade our understanding of the global condition today? Can Samuel Beckett’s call to arms of "failing better” in the vein of Charles Chaplin, Oleg Popov, or James Thiérrée offer a creative avenue to pursue (Bala; Coover; Salisbury)? Do they reflect other ways of knowing in the face of big “C” Catastrophes? Creation and CatastropheTo wrestle with these questions, I wish to begin by proposing a big picture view of earth-life wherein, across inconceivable aeons, huge physical catastrophes have wrought unimaginable damage on the ecological “completeness” of the time. I am not a palaeontologist or an evolutionary scientist but I suspect that, if human life is taken out of the equation, the planet since time immemorial has been battered by “disaster” which changed but ultimately did not destroy the earth. Evolution is replete with narratives of species wiped out by ice-ages, volcanoes, earthquakes, and meteors and yet the organism of this planet has survived and even regenerated. In metaphorical territory, the Sanskrit philosophers have a wise take on this process. Indian concepts are always multiple, crowded with possibilities, but I find there is something intriguing in the premise (even if it is impossible to tie down) of Shiva’s dance:Shiva Nataraja destroys creation by his Tandava Dance, or the Dance of Eternity. As he dances, everything disintegrates, apparently into nothingness. Then, out of the thin vapours, matter and life are recreated again. Shiva also dances in the hearts of his devotees as the Great Soul. As he dances, one’s egotism is consumed and one is rendered pure in soul and without any spiritual blemish. (Ghosh 109–10)For a dancer, the central location of dance in life’s creation forces is a powerful idea but I am also interested in how this metaphysical perspective aligns with current scientific views. How could these ancient thinkers predict evolutionary processes? Somehow, in the mix of experiential observation and speculation, they foresaw the complexity of time and, moreover, appreciated the necessary interdependence of creation and destruction (creativity and catastrophe). In comparison to western thought which privileges progression—and here evolution is a prime example—Hindu conceptualisation appears to prefer fatalism or a cyclical system of understanding that negates the potential of change to make things better. However, delving more closely into scientific narratives on evolution, the progression of life forms to the human species has involved the decimation of an uncountable number of other living possibilities. Contrariwise, Shiva’s Dance of Eternity is premised on endless diachronic change crossed vertically by reincarnation, through which progression and regression are equally expressed. I offer this simplistic view of both accounts of creation merely to point out that the interdependency of destruction and creation is deeply embodied in human knowledge.To introduce the clown figure into this idea, I have to turn to the minutiae of destruction and creation; to examples in the everyday nature of regeneration through catastrophe. I have memories of touring in the Northern Territory of Australia amidst strident green shoots bursting out of a fire-tortured landscape or, earlier in Paris, of the snow-crusted earth being torn asunder by spring’s awakening. We all have countless memories of such small-scale transformations of pain and destruction into startling glimpses of beauty. It is at this scale of creative wrestling that I see the clown playing his/her role.In the tension between fatalism and, from a human point of view, projections of the right to progression, a clown occupying the stage vacated by Shiva might stamp out a slight rhythm of his/her own with little or no meaning in the action. The brush on the sleeve might be hard to detect in an evolutionary or Hindu time scale but zoom down to the here and now of performance exchange and the scene may be quite different?Turning the Lens onto the Small-ScaleSmall-scale, clowns tend to be tiny bundles or, sometimes, gangly unbundles of ineptitude, careering through the simplest tasks with preposterous incompetence or, alternatively, imbibing complexity with the virtuosic delicacy—take Charles Chaplin’s shoe-lace spaghetti twirling and nibbling on nail-bones as an example. Clowns disrupt normalcy in small eddies of activity which often wreak paths of destruction within the tightly ordered rage of social formations. The momentum is chaotic and, not dissimilar to storms, clownish enactment bears down not so much to threaten human life but to disrupt what we humans desire and formulate as the natural order of decorum and success. Instead of the terror driven to consciousness by cyclones and hurricanes, the clown’s chaos is superficially benign. When Chaplin’s generous but unrealistic gesture to save the tightrope-act is thwarted by an escaped monkey, or when Thiérrée conducts a spirited debate with the wall of his abode in the midst of an identity crisis (Raoul), life is not threatened. Such incongruous and chaotic trajectories generate laughter and, sometimes, sadness. Moreover, as Weitz observes, “the clown-like imagination, unfettered by earthly logic, urges us to entertain unlikely avenues of thought and action” (87). While it may seem insensitive, I suggest that similar responses of laughter, sadness and unlikely avenues of thought and action emerge in the aftermath of cataclysmic events.Fear, unquestionably, saturates big states of catastrophe. Slide down the scale and intriguing parallels between fear and laughter emerge, one being a clown’s encapsulation of vulnerability and his/her stoic determination to continue, to persevere no matter what. There are many ways to express this continuity: Beckett’s characters are forever waiting, fearful that nothing will arrive, yet occupy themselves with variations of cruelty and amusement through the interminable passage of time. A reverse action occurs in Grock’s insistence that he can play his tiny violin, in spite of his ever-collapsing chair. It never occurs to him to find another chair or play standing up: that, in an incongruous way, would admit defeat because this chair and his playing constitute Grock’s compulsion to succeed. Fear of failure generates multiple innovations in his relationship with the chair and in his playing skills. Storm-like, the pursuit of a singular idea in both instances triggers chaotic consequences. Physical destruction may be slight in such ephemeral storms but the act, the being in the world, does leave its mark on those who witness its passage.I would like to offer a mark left in me by a slight gesture on the part of a clown. I choose this one among many because the singular idea played out in Circus Knie (Switzerland) back in the early 1970s does not conform to the usual parameters. This Knie season featured Dimitri, an Italian-Swiss clown, as the principal attraction. Following clown conventions, Dimitri appeared across the production as active glue between the various circus acts, his persona operating as an odd-jobs man to fix and clean. For instance, he intervened in the elephant act as a cleaner, scrubbing and polishing the elephant’s skin with little effect and tuned, with much difficulty, a tiny fiddle for the grand orchestration to come. But Dimitri was also given moments of his own and this is the one that has lodged in my memory.Dimitri enters the brightly lit and empty circus ring with a broom in hand. The audience at this point have accepted the signal that Dimitri’s interludes prepare the ring for the next attraction—to sweep, as it were, the sawdust back to neutrality. He surveys the circle for a moment and then takes a position on the periphery to begin what appears to be a regular clean-up. The initial brushes over the sawdust, however, produce an unexpected result—the light rather than the sawdust responds to his broom stokes. Bafflement swiftly passes as an idea takes hold: the diminutive figure trots off to the other side of the ring and, after a deep breath and a quick glance to see if anyone is looking (we all are), nudges the next edge of light. Triumphantly, the pattern is pursued with increasing nimbleness, until the figure with the broom stands before a pin-spot of light at the ring’s centre. He hesitates, checks again about unwanted surveillance, and then, in a single strike (poof), sweeps light and the world into darkness.This particular clown gesture contradicts usual commentaries of ineptitude and failure associated with clown figures but the incongruity of sweeping light and the narrative of the little man who scores a win lie thoroughly in the characteristic grounds of clownish behaviour. Moreover, the enactment of this simple idea illustrates for me today, as much as it did on its initial viewing, how powerful a slight clown gesture can be. This catastrophe with a very small “c:” the little man with nothing but a broom and an idea destroyed, like the great god Shiva, the world of light.Jesse McKnight’s discussion of the peculiar attraction of two little men of the 20th century, James Joyce’s Bloom and Charles Chaplin, could also apply to Dimitri:They are at sixes and sevens here on earth but in tune with the stars, buffoons of time, and heroes of eternity. In the petty cogs of the causal, they appear foolish; in the grand swirl of the universe, they are wise, outmaneuvering their assailants and winning the race or the girl against all odds or merely retaining their skins and their dignity by nightfall. (496) Clowning as a State of Mind/ConsciousnessAnother perspective on a clown’s relationship to ideas of catastrophe which I would like to examine is embedded in the discussion above but, at the same time, deviates by way of a harsh tangent from the beatitude and almost sacred qualities attributed by McKnight’s and my own visions of the rhythmic gestures of these diminutive figures. Beckett’s advice in Worstward Ho (1983) is a fruitful starting place wherein the directive is “to keep on trying even if the hope of success is dashed again and again by failure: ‘Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better’” (Le Feuvre 13). True to the masterful wordsmith, these apparently simple words are not transparent; rather, they deflect a range of contradictory interpretations. Yes, failure can facilitate open, flexible and alternative thought which guards against fanatical and ultra-orthodox certitude: “Failure […] is free to honour other ways of knowing, other construals of power” (Werry & O’Gorman 107). On the other hand, failure can mask a horrifying realisation of the utter meaninglessness of human existence. It is as if catastrophe is etched lightly in external clown behaviour and scarred pitilessly deep in the psyches that drive the comic behaviour. Pupils of the pre-eminent clown teacher Jacques Lecoq suggest that theatrical clowning pivots on “finding that basic state of vulnerability and allowing the audience to exist in that state with you” (Butler 64). Butler argues that this “state of clowning” is “a state of anti-intellectualism, a kind of pure emotion” (ibid). From my perspective, there is also an emotional stratum in which the state or condition involves an adult anxiety desiring to protect the child’s view of the world with a fierceness equal to that of a mother hen protecting her brood. A clown knows the catastrophe of him/herself but refuses to let that knowledge (of failure) become an end. An obstinate resilience, even a frank acknowledgement of hopelessness, makes a clown not so much pure emotion or childlike but a kind of knowledgeable avenger of states of loss. Here I need to admit that I attribute the clowning state or consciousness to an intricate lineage inclusive of the named clowns, Grock, Chaplin, Popov, Dimitri, and Thiérrée, which extends to a whole host of others who never entered a circus or performance ring: Mikhail Dostoyevsky’s Mushkin (the holy Russian fool), Henry Miller’s Auguste, Salman Rushdie’s Saleem, Jacques Tati, Joan Miro, Marc Chagall, Jean Cocteau, Eric Satie’s sonic whimsy, and Pina Bausch’s choreography. In the following observation, the overlay of catastrophe and play is a crucial indication of this intricate lineage:Heiner Müller compared Pina Bausch's universe to the world of fairy tales. “History invades it like trouble, like summer flies [...] The territory is an unknown planet, an emerging island product of an ignored (forgotten or future) catastrophe [...] The whole is nothing but children's play”. (Biro 68)Bausch clearly recognises and is interested in the catastrophic moments or psychological wiring of life and her works are not exempt from comic (clownish) modulations in the play of violence and despair that often takes centre stage. In fact, Bausch probably plays on ambivalence between despair and play more explicitly than most artists. From one angle, this ambivalence is generational, as her adult performers bear the weight of oppression within the structures (and remembering of) childhood games. An artistic masterstroke in this regard is the tripling reproduction over many years of her work exploring gender negotiations at a social dance gathering: Kontakhof. Initially, the work was performed by Bausch’s regular company of mature, if diverse, dancers (Bausch 1977), then by an elderly ensemble, some of whom had appeared in the original production (Kontakhof), and, finally, by a group of adolescents in 2010. The latter version became the subject of a documentary film, Dancing Dreams (2010), which revealed the fidelity of the re-enactment, subtly transformed by the brashness and uncertainty of the teenage protagonists playing predetermined roles and moves. Viewing the three productions side-by-side reveals socialised relations of power and desire, resonant of Michel Foucault’s seminal observations (1997), and the catastrophe of gender relations subtly caught in generational change. The debility of each age group becomes apparent. None are able to engage in communication and free-play (dream) without negotiating an unyielding sexual terrain and, more often than not, the misinterpretation of one human to another within social conventions. Bausch’s affinity to the juxtaposition of childhood aspiration and adult despair places her in clown territory.Becoming “Inhuman” or SacrificialA variation on this condition of a relentless pursuit of failure is raised by Joshua Delpech-Ramey in an argument for the “inhuman” rights of clowns. His premise matches a “grotesque attachment to the world of things” to a clown’s existence that is “victimized by an excessive drive to exist in spite of all limitation. The clown is, in some sense, condemned to immortality” (133). In Delpech-Ramey’s terms:Chaplin is human not because his are the anxieties and frustrations of a man unable to realize his destiny, but because Chaplin—nearly starving, nearly homeless, a ghost in the machine—cannot not resist “the temptation to exist,” the giddiness of making something out of nothing, pancakes out of sawdust. In some sense the clown can survive every accident because s/he is an undead immortal, demiurge of a world without history. (ibid.)The play on a clown’s “undead” propensity, on his/her capacity to survive at all costs, provides a counterpoint to a tragic lens which has not been able, in human rights terms, to transcend "man’s inhumanity to man.” It might also be argued that this capacity to survive resists nature’s blindness to the plight of humankind (and visa versa). While I admire the skilful argument to place clowns as centrepieces in the formulation of alternative and possibly more potent human rights legislations, I’m not absolutely convinced that the clown condition, as I see it, provides a less mysterious and tragic state from which justice can be administered. Lear and his fool almost become interchangeable at the end of Shakespeare’s tragedy: both grapple with but cannot resolve the problem of justice.There is a little book written by Henry Miller, The Smile at the Foot of the Ladder (1948), which bears upon this aspect of a clown’s condition. In a postscript, Miller, more notorious for his sexually explicit fiction, states his belief in the unique status of clowns:Joy is like a river: it flows ceaselessly. It seems to me this is the message which the clown is trying to convey to us, that we should participate through ceaseless flow and movement, that we should not stop to reflect, compare, analyse, possess, but flow on and through, endlessly, like music. This is the gift of surrender, and the clown makes it symbolically. It is for us to make it real. (47)Miller’s fictional Auguste’s “special privilege [was] to re-enact the errors, the foibles, the stupidities, all the misunderstandings which plague human kind. To be ineptitude itself” (29). With overtones of a Christian resurrection, Auguste surrenders himself and, thereby, flows on through death, his eyes “wide open, gazing with a candour unbelievable at the thin sliver of a moon which had just become visible in the heavens” (40). It may be difficult to reconcile ineptitude with a Christ figure but those clowns who have made some sort of mark on human imagination tend to wander across territories designated as sacred and profane with a certain insouciance and privilege. They are individuals who become question marks: puzzles not meant to be solved. Maybe similar glimpses of the ineffable occur in tiny, miniscule shifts of consciousness, like the mark given to me by Dimitri and Chaplin and...—the unending list of clowns and clown conditions that have gifted their diminutive catastrophes to the problem of creativity, of rebirth after and in the face of destruction.With McKnight, I dedicate the last word to Chaplin, who speaks with final authority on the subject: “Be brave enough to face the veil and lift it, and see and know the void it hides, and stand before that void and know that within yourself is your world” (505).Thus poised, the diminutive clown figure may not carry the ferment of Shiva’s message of destruction and rebirth, he/she may not bear the strength to creatively reconstruct or re-birth normality after catastrophic devastation. But a clown, and all the humanity given to the collisions of laughter and tears, may provide an inept response to the powerlessness which, as humans, we face in catastrophe and death. Does this mean that creativity is inimical with catastrophe or that existing with catastrophe implies creativity? As noted at the beginning, these ruminations concern small “c” catastrophes. They are known otherwise as clowns.ReferencesBala, Michael. “The Clown.” Jung Journal: Culture & Psyche 4.1 (2010): 50–71.Bausch, Pina. Kontakthof. Wuppertal Dance Theatre, 1977.Big Apple Circus. Circopedia. 27 Feb. 2013 ‹http://www.circopedia.org/index.php/Main_Page›.Biro, Yvette. “Heartbreaking Fragments, Magnificent Whole: Pina Bausch’s New Minimyths.” PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 20.2 (1998): 68–72.Butler, Lauren. “Everything Seemed New: Clown as Embodied Critical Pedagogy.” Theatre Topics 22.1 (2012): 63–72.Coover, Robert. “Tears of a Clown.” Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 42.1 (2000): 81–83.Dancing Dreams. Dirs. Anne Linsel and Rainer Hoffmann. First Run Features, 2010.Delpech-Ramey, Joshua. “Sublime Comedy: On the Inhuman Rights of Clowns.” SubStance 39.2 (2010): 131–41.Foucault, Michel. “The Ethics of the Concern for Self as Practice of Freedom.” Michel Foucault: Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth. Ed. Paul Rabinow. New York: The New Press, 1997. 281–302. Ghosh, Oroon. The Dance of Shiva and Other Tales from India. New York: New American Library, 1965.Kontakthof with Ladies and Gentlemen over ’65. Dir. Pina Bausch. Paris: L’Arche Editeur, 2007.Le Feuvre, Lisa. “Introduction.” Failure: Documents of Contemporary Art. Ed. Lisa Le Feuvre. London: Whitechapel Gallery, 2010. 12–21.McKnight, Jesse H. “Chaplin and Joyce: A Mutual Understanding of Gesture.” James Joyce Quarterly 45.3–4 (2008): 493–506.Miller, Henry. The Smile at the Foot of the Ladder. New York: New Directions Books, 1974.Raoul. Dir. James Thiérrée. Regal Theatre, Perth, 2012.Salisbury, Laura. “Beside Oneself Beckett, Comic Tremor and Solicitude.” Parallax 11.4 (2005): 81–92.Stradda. Stradda: Le Magazine de la Creation hors les Murs. 27 Feb. 2013 ‹http://www.horslesmurs.fr/-Decouvrez-le-magazine-.html›.Weitz, Eric. “Failure as Success: On Clowns and Laughing Bodies.” Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts 17.1 (2012): 79–87.Werry, Margaret, and Róisín O'Gorman. “The Anatomy of Failure: An Inventory.” Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts 17.1 (2012): 105–10.

Introduction: Shock WavesAs I carefully unfold the delicate piece of crisp white paper, three rogue words wildly jump up off the page before sinking deeply into my skin: “Cold and condescending.” A charge of anger surges up my spine, as these words begin to now expand and affectively resonate: “I found the instructor to be cold and condescending.” Somehow, these words impact me both emotionally and physiologically (Brennan 3): my heart beats faster, my body temperature rises, my stomach aches. Yet, despite how awful I feel, I keep on reading, as if compelled by some inexplicable force. It is not long before I devour the entire evaluation—or perhaps it devours me?—reading every last jarring word over and over and over again. And pretty soon, before I can even think about it, I begin to come undone ...How is it possible that an ordinary, everyday object can pull at us, unravel us even? And, how do such objects linger, register intensities, and contribute to our harm or good? In this paper, we draw upon our collective teaching experiences at college and high school level in order to explore how teacher evaluations actively work/ed to orient our bodies in molar and molecular ways (Deleuze and Guattari 3), thereby diminishing or enhancing our capacity to act. We argue that these textual objects are anything but dead and lifeless, and are vitally invested with “thing-power,” which is the “ability of inanimate things to animate, to act, to produce effects dramatic and subtle” (Bennett 6).Rather than producing a linear critique that refuses “affective associations” (Felski para. 6) and the “bodily entanglements of language” (MacLure, Qualitative 1000), we offer up a mobile conversation that pulls readers into an assemblage of (shape)shifting moments they can connect with (Rajchman 4) and question. While we attend to our own affective experiences with teacher evaluations, we wish to disrupt the idea that the self is both autonomous and affectively contained (Brennan 2). Instead, we imagine a self that extends into other bodies, spaces, and things, and highlight how teacher evaluations, as a particular thing, curiously animate (Chen 30) and affect our social worlds—altering our life course for a minute, a day, or perhaps, indefinitely (Stewart 12).* * *“The autobiographical is not the personal. […] Publics presume intimacy” (Berlant, The Female vii). Following Berlant, we propose that our individual narratives are always tangled up in other social bodies and are, therefore, not quite our own. Although we do use the word “I” to recount our specific experiences of teacher evaluations, we by no means wish to suggest that we are self-contained subjects confessing some singular life history or detached truth. Rather, together we examine the tensions, commonalities, possibilities, and threats that encounters with teacher evaluations produce within and around collective bodies (Stewart). We consider the ways in which these material objects seep deeply into our skin, re/animate moving forces (e.g. neoliberalism, patriarchy), and even trigger us emotionally by transporting us back to different times and places (S. Jones 525). And, we write to experiment (Deleuze and Guattari 1; Stewart 1) with the kind of “unpredictable intimacy” that Berlant (Intimacy 281; Structures 191) speaks of. We resist (as best we can) telos-driven tales that do not account for messiness, disorientation, surprise, or wonder (MacLure, Classification 180), as we invite readers to move right along beside (Sedgwick 8) us in this journey to embrace the complexities and implications (Nelson 111; Talburt 93) of teacher evaluations as corporeal matters. The “self” is no match for such affective entanglements (Stewart 58).Getting Un/Stuck “Cold and condescending.” I cannot help but get caught up in these words—no matter how hard I try. A million thoughts begin to bubble up: Am I a good teacher? A bad person? Uncaring? Arrogant? And, just like that, the ordinary turns on me (Stewart 106), triggering intense sensations that refuse to stay buried. What began as my reaction to a teacher evaluation soon becomes something else, somewhere else. Childhood wounds unexpectedly well up—leaking into the present, spreading uncontrollably, causing my body to get stuck in long ago and far away.In a virtual flash (Deleuze and Guattari 94), I am somehow in my grandmother’s kitchen once more, which even now smells of avgolemono soup, warm bread rising, home. Something sparks, as distant memories come flooding back to change my course and set me straight (or so I think). When I was a little girl and could not let something go, my yiayia (grandmother) Vasiliki would tell me, quite simply, to get “unstuck” (ξεκολλά). The Greeks, it seems, know something about the stickiness of affective attachments. Even though it has been over twenty years since my grandmother’s passing, her words, still alive, affectively ring in my ear. Out of some kind of charged habit (Stewart 16), her words now escape my mouth: “ξεκολλά,” I command, “ξεκολλά!” I repeat this phrase so many times that it becomes a mantra, but its magic has sadly lost all effect. No matter what I say or what I do, my body, stuck in repetition, “closes in on itself, unable to transmit its intensities differently” (Grosz 171). In an act of desperation (or perhaps survival), I rip the evaluation to shreds and throw the tattered remains down the trash chute. Yet, my actions prove futile. The evaluation lives on in a kind of afterlife, with its haunting ability to affect where my thoughts will go and what my body can do. And so, my agency—my ability to act, think, become (Deleuze and Guattari 361)—is inextricably twisted up in this evaluation, with its affective capacity to connect many “bodies” at once (both material and semiotic, human and non-human, living and dead).A View from Nowhere?At both college and school-level, formal teacher evaluations promise anonymity. Why is it, though, that students get to be voices without bodies: a voice that does not emerge from a complex, contradictory, and messy body, but rather “from above, from nowhere” (Haraway 589)? Once disembodied, students become god-like (Haraway 589), able to “objectively” dissect, judge, and even criticise teachers, while they themselves receive “panoptic immunity” (MacLure, Classification 168).This immunity has its consequences. Within formal and informal evaluations, students write of and about bodies in ways that often feel violating. Teachers’ bodies become spectacle, and anything goes:“Professor is kinda hot—not bad to look at!”“She dresses like a bag lady. [...] Her hair and clothing need an update.”“There's absolutely nothing redeeming about her as a person [...] but she has nice shoes.”(PrawfsBlog)Amid these affective violations, voices without bodies re/assemble into “voices without organs” (Mazzei 732)—a voice that emanates from an assemblage of bodies, not a singular subject. In this process, patriarchal discourses, as bodies of thought, dangerously spring up and swirl about. The voyeuristic gaze of patriarchy (see de Beauvoir; Mulvey) becomes habitual, shaping our stories, encounters, and sense of self.Female teachers, in particular, cannot deny its pull. The potential to create and/or transmit knowledge turns us into “risky subjects” in need of constant surveillance (Falter 29). Teacher evaluations do their part. As a metaphoric panopticon (see Foucault), they transform female teachers into passive spectacles—objects of the gaze—and students into active spectators who have “all the power to determine our teaching success” (Falter 30). The effects linger, do real damage (Stewart), and cause our pedagogical performances to fail every now and then. After all, a “good” female teacher is also a “good female subject” who is called upon to impart knowledge in ways that do not betray her otherwise feminine or motherly “nature” (Falter 28). This pressure to be both knowledgeable and nurturing, while displaying a “visible fragility [...] a kind of conventional feminine vulnerability” (McRobbie 79), pervades the social and is intense. Although it is not easy to navigate, the fact that unrecognisable bodies are subject to punishment (Butler, Performative 528) helps keep power dynamics firmly in place. These forces permeate my body, as well, making me “cold” and “unfair” in one evaluation and “kind” and “sweet” in another—but rarely smart or intelligent. Like clockwork, this bodily visibility and regulation brings with it never-ending self-critique and self-discipline (Harris 9). Absorbing these swarming intensities, I begin to question my capacity to effectively teach and form relationships with my students. Days later, weeks later, years later, I continue to wonder: if even one student leaves my class feeling “bad,” do I have any business being a teacher? Ugh, the docile, good girl (Harris 19) rears her ugly (or is it pretty?) head once again. TranscorporealityEven though the summer sun invites me in, I spend the whole day at home, in bed, unable to move. At one point, a friend arrives, forcing me to get up and get out. We grab a bite to eat, and it is not long before I confess my deepest fear: that my students are right about me, that these evaluations somehow mark me as a horrible teacher and person. She seems surprised that I would let a few comments defeat me and asks me what this is really all about. I shrug my shoulders, unwilling to go there.Later that night, I find myself re-reading my spring evaluations online. The positive ones electrify the screen, filling me with joy, as the constructive ones get me brainstorming about ways I might do things differently. And while I treasure these comments, I do not focus too much on them. Instead, I spend most of the evening replaying a series of negative tapes over and over in my head. Somewhat defeated, I slip slowly back into my bed and find that it surprisingly offers me a kind of comfort that my friend does not. I wonder, “What body am I now in the arms of” (Chen 202)? The bed and I become “interporous” (Chen 203), intimate even. There is much solace in the darkness of those lively, billowy blue covers: a peculiar solace made possible by these evaluations—a thing which compels me to find comfort somewhere, anywhere, beyond the human body.The GhostAs a high school teacher, I was accustomed to being reviewed. Some reviews were posted onto the website ratemyteacher.com, a platform of anonymously submitted reviews of kindergarten through 12th-grade teachers on easiness, helpfulness, clarity, knowledge, textbook use, and exam difficulty. Others were less official; irate commentary posted on social media platforms or baldly concise characterisations of our teaching styles that circulated among students and bounded back to us as hearsay and whispered asides. In these reviews, our teacher-selves were constructed: One became the easy teacher, the mean teacher, the fun teacher, or the hard-but-good teacher. The teacher who could not control her class; the teacher who controlled her class excessively.Sometimes, we googled ourselves because it was tempting to do so (and near-impossible not to). One day, I searched various forms of my name followed by the name of the school. One of my students, a girl with hot pink streaks in her hair and pointy studs shooting out of her belt and necklaces, had written a complaint on Facebook about a submission of a final writing portfolio. The student wrote on the publicly visible wall of another student in my class, noting how much she still had left to do on the assignment. Dotting the observation with expletives, she bemoaned the portfolio as requiring too much work. Then, she observed that I had an oily complexion and wrote that I was a “dyke.” After I read the comment, I closed my laptop and an icy wave passed through me. That night, I went to dinner with friends. I ruminated aloud over the comments: How could this student—with whom I had thought I had a good relationship—write about me in such a derisive manner? And what, in particular, about my appearance conveyed that I was lesbian? My friends laughed; they found the student’s comments funny and indicative of the blunt astuteness of teenagers. As I thought about the comments, I realised the pain lay in the comments’ specificity. They demonstrated the ability of the student to perceive and observe a bodily attribute about which I was particularly insecure. It made me wonder about the countless other eyes and glances directed at me each day, taking in, noticing, and dissecting my bodily self (McRobbie 63).The next morning, before school, I stared at myself in the bathroom mirror and dabbed toner on my skin. Today, I thought, today will be a day in which both my skin texture and my lesson plans will be in good order. After this day, I could no longer bring myself to look this student directly in the eye. I was officious in our interactions. I read her poetry and essays with guarded ambivalence. I decided that I would no longer google myself. I would no longer click on links that were pointedly reviews of me as a teacher.The reviewed-self is a ghost-self. It is a shadow, an underbelly. The comments—perhaps posted in a moment of anger or frustration—linger. Years later, though I have left full-time classroom teaching, I still think about them. I have not recovered from the comments though I should, apparently, have already recuperated from their sharp effects. I wonder if the reviews will ceaselessly follow me, if they will shape the impressions of those who google me, if my reviewed-self will become the first and most formidable impression of those who might come to know me, if my reviewed-self will be the lasting and most formidable way I see myself.Trigger Happy In 2014, a teacher at a California public high school posts a comment on Twitter about wishing to pour coffee on her students. Some of her students this year, she writes, make her “trigger finger itchy” (see Oakley). She already “wants to stab” them a mere two weeks into the school year. “Is that bad?” she asks. One of her colleagues screen-captures her tweets and sends them to the school principal and to a local newspaper. They go viral, resulting in widespread condemnation on the Internet. She is named the “worst teacher ever” by one online media outlet (Parker). The media swarm the school. The reporters interview parents in minivans who are picking up their children from school. One parent, from behind the steering wheel, expresses her disapproval of the teacher. She says, “As a teacher, I think she should be held to a higher accountability than other people” (Louie). In the comments section of an article, a commenter declares that the “mutant should be fired” (Oakley). Others are more forgiving. They cite their boyfriends and sisters who are teachers and who also air grievances, though somewhat less violently and in the privacy of their homes (A. Jones). All teachers have these thoughts, some of the commenters argue, they just are not stupid enough to tweet them.In her own defence, the teacher tells a local paper that she “never expected anyone would take me seriously” (Oakley). As a teacher, she is often “forced to cultivate a ‘third-person consciousness,’ to be an ‘objectified subject’” (Chen 33) on display, so can we really blame her? If she had thought people would take her seriously, “you'd better believe I would have been much more careful with what I've said” (Oakley). The students are the least offended party because, as their teacher had hoped, they do not take her tweets seriously. In fact, they are “laughing it off,” according to a local news channel (Newark Teacher). In a news interview, one female student says she finds the teacher’s tweets humorous. They are fond of this teacher and believe she cares about her students. Seemingly, they do not mind that their teacher—jokingly, of course—harbours homicidal thoughts about them or that she wishes to splash hot coffee in their faces.There is a certain wisdom in the teacher’s observational, if foolhardy, tweeting. In a tweet tagged #secretlyhateyou, the teacher explains that while students may have their own negative feelings towards their teachers, teachers also have such feelings for their students. But, she tweets, “We are just not allowed to show it” (Oakley). At parties and social gatherings, we perform the cheerful educator by leaving our bodies at the door and giving into “the politics of emotion, the unwritten rules that feelings are to be ‘privatised’ and ‘pathologised’ rather than aired” (Thiel 39). At times, we are allowed a certain level of dissatisfaction, an eye roll or shrug of the shoulders, a whimsical, breathy sigh: “Oh you know! Kids today! Instagram! Sexting!” But we cannot express dislike for our own students.One evening, I was on the train with a friend who does not work as a teacher. We observed a pack of teenagers, screaming and grabbing at each other’s cell phones. The friend said, “Aren’t they so fascinating, teenagers?” Grumpily, I disagreed. On that day, no, I was not fascinated by teenagers. My friend responded, shocked, “But don’t you work as a teacher…?” It is an unspoken requirement of the job. We maintain relentless expressions of joy, an earnest wonderment towards those whom we teach. And we are, too, appalled by those who do not exhibit a constant stream of cheerfulness. The teachers’ lunchroom is the repository for “bad” feelings about students, a site of negative feelings that can somehow stick (Ahmed, Happy 29) to those who choose to eat their lunch within this space. Only the most jaded battle-axes would opt to eat in the lunchroom. Good teachers—happy and caring ones—would never choose to eat lunch in this room. Instead, they eat lunch in their classrooms, alone, prepare dutifully for the afternoon’s classes, and try to contain all of their murderous inclinations. But (as the media love to remind us), whether intended or not, our corporeal bodies with all their “unwanted affects” (Brennan 3, 11) have a funny way of “surfacing” (Ahmed, Communities 14).Conclusion: Surging BodiesAffects surge within everyday conversations of teacher evaluations. In fact, it is almost impossible to talk about evaluations without sparking some sort of heated response. Recent New York Times articles echo the more popular sentiments: from the idea that evaluations are gendered and raced (Pratt), to the prevailing notion that students are informed consumers entitled to “the best return out of their educational investments” (Stankiewicz). Evidently, education is big business. So, we take our cues from neoliberal ideologies, as we struggle to make sense of all the fissures and leaks. Teachers’ bodies now become commodified objects within a market model that promises customer satisfaction—and the customer is always right.“Develop a thicker skin,” they say, as if a thicker skin could contain my affects or prevent other affects from seeping in; “my body is and is not mine” (Butler, Precarious 26). Leaky bodies, with their permeable borders (Renold and Mellor 33), affectively flow into all kinds of “things.” Likewise, teacher evaluations, as objects, extend into human bodies, sending eruptive charges that both register within the body and transmit outward into the environment. These charges emerge as upset, judgment, wonder, sadness, confusion, annoyance, pleasure, and everything in between. They embody an intensity that animates our social worlds, working to enhance energies and/or diminish them. Affects, then, do not just come from, and stay within, bodies (Brennan 10). A body, as an assemblage (Deleuze and Guattari 4), is neither self-contained nor disconnected from other bodies, spaces, and things.As a collection of sticky, “material, physiological things” (Brennan 6), teacher evaluations are very much alive: vibrantly shifting and transforming teachers’ affective capacities and life trajectories. Attending to them as such offers a way in which to push back against our own bodily erasure or “the screaming absence in [American] education of any attention to the inner life of teachers” (Taubman 3). While affect itself has become a recent hot-topic across American university campuses (e.g. see “trigger warnings” debates, Halberstam), conversations tend to exclude teachers’ bodies. So, for example, we can talk of creating “safe [classroom] spaces” in order to safeguard students’ feelings. We can even warn learners if material might offend, as well as watch what we say and do in an effort to protect students from any potential trauma. But we cannot, it would seem, matter, too. Instead, we must (if good and caring) be on affective autopilot, where we can only have “good” thoughts about students. We are not really allowed to feel what we feel, express raw emotion, have a body—unless, of course, that body transmits feel-good intensities.And, feeling bad about teacher evaluations ... well, for the most part, that needs to remain a dirty little secret, because, how can you possibly let yourself get so hot and bothered over a thing—a mere object? Yet, teacher evaluations can and do impact our lives, often in ways that are harmful: by inflicting pain, triggering trauma, encouraging sexism and objectification. But maybe, just maybe, they even offer up some good. After all, if teacher evaluations teach us anything, it is this: you are not simply a body, but rather, an “array of bodies” (Bennett 112, emphasis added)—and your body, my body, our bodies “must be heard” (Cixous 880).ReferencesAhmed, Sara. “Happy Objects.” The Affect Theory Reader. Eds. Melissa Gregg and Gregory J. Seigworth. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2010. 29–51.———. “Communities That Feel: Intensity, Difference and Attachment.” Conference Proceedings for Affective Encounters: Rethinking Embodiment in Feminist Media Studies. Eds. Anu Koivunen and Susanna Paasonen. 10-24. 1 Jan. 2016 <http://www.utu.fi/hum/mediatutkimus/affective/proceedings.pdf>.Bennett, Jane. Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2010.Berlant, Lauren. “Intimacy: A Special Issue.” Critical Inquiry 24.2 (1998): 281-88.———. The Female Complaint: The Unfinished Business of Sentimentality in American Culture. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2008.———. “Structures of Unfeeling: Mysterious Skin.” International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society 28 (2015): 191-213.Brennan, Teresa. The Transmission of Affect. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 2004.Butler, Judith. “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory.” Theatre Journal 40.4 (1988): 519-31.———. Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence. New York: Verso, 2004.Chen, Mel. Animacies: Biopolitics, Racial Mattering and Queer Affect. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2012.Cixous, Hélène, Keith Cohen, and Paula Cohen (trans.). "The Laugh of the Medusa." Signs 1.4 (1976): 875-93.De Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex. London: Jonathan Cape, 1953.Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis, MN: U of Minnesota P., 1987.Falter, Michelle M. “Threatening the Patriarchy: Teaching as Performance.” Gender and Education 28.1 (2016): 20-36.Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of a Prison. New York: Random House, 1977.Grosz, Elizabeth. Volatile Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Feminism. St. Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 1994.Halberstam, Jack. “You Are Triggering Me! The Neo-Liberal Rhetoric of Harm, Danger, and Trauma.” Bully Bloggers, 5 Jul. 2014. 26 Dec. 2015 <https://bullybloggers.wordpress.com/2014/07/05/you-are-triggering-me-the-neo-liberal-rhetoric-of-harm-danger-and-trauma/>.Haraway, Donna. “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective.” Feminist Studies 14.3 (1988): 575-99.Harris, Anita. Future Girl: Young Women in the Twenty-First Century. New York: Routledge, 2004.Jones, Allie. “Racist Teacher Tweets ‘Wanna Stab Some Kids,’ Keeps Job.” Gawker, 28 Aug. 2014. 1 Jan. 2016 <http://gawker.com/racist-teacher-tweets-wanna-stab-some-kids-keeps-job-1627914242>.Jones, Stephanie. “Literacies in the Body.” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 56.7 (2013): 525-29.Louie, D. “High School Teacher Insults Students, Wishes Them Bodily Harm in Tweets.” ABC Action News 6. 28 Aug. 2014. 1 Jan. 2016 <http://6abc.com/education/teacher-insults-students-wishes-them-bodily-harm-in-tweets/285792/>.MacLure, Maggie. “Qualitative Inquiry: Where Are the Ruins?” Qualitative Inquiry 17.10 (2011): 997-1005.———. “Classification or Wonder? Coding as an Analytic Practice in Qualitative Research.” Deleuze and Research Methodologies. Eds. Rebecca Coleman and Jessica Ringrose. Edinburgh, Scotland: Edinburgh UP, 2013. 164-83. Mazzei, Lisa. “A Voice without Organs: Interviewing in Posthumanist Research.” International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 26.6 (2013): 732-40.McRobbie, Angela. The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture, and Social Change. London: Sage, 2009.Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings. Eds. Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen. New York: Oxford UP, 1999. 833-44.Nelson, Cynthia D. “Transnational/Queer: Narratives from the Contact Zone.” Journal of Curriculum Theorizing 21.2 (2005): 109-17.“Newark Teacher Still on the Job after Threatening Tweets.” CBS Local. CBS. 5KPLX, San Francisco, n.d. <http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/video/2939355-newark-teacher-still-on-the-job-after-threatening-tweets/>. Oakley, Doug. “Newark Teacher Who Wrote Nasty, Threatening Tweets Given Reprimand.” San Jose Mercury News, 27 Aug. 2014. 1 Jan. 2016 <http://www.mercurynews.com/education/ci_26419917/newark-teacher-who-wrote-nasty-threatening-tweets-given>.“Offensive Student Evaluations.” PrawfsBlog, 19 Nov. 2010. 1 Jan 2016 <http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/2010/11/offensive-student-evaluations.html>.Parker, Jameson. “Worst Teacher Ever Constantly Tweets about Killing Students, But Is Keeping Her Job.” Addicting Info, 28 Aug. 2014. 1 Jan. 2016 <http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/08/28/worst-teacher-ever-constantly-tweets-about-killing-students-but-is-keeping-her-job/>.Pratt, Carol D. “Teacher Evaluations Could Be Hurting Faculty Diversity at Universities.” The New York Times, 16 Dec. 2015. 17 Dec. 2015 <http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/12/16/is-it-fair-to-rate-professors-online/teacher-evaluations-could-be-hurting-faculty-diversity-at-universities>.Rajchman, John. The Deleuze Connections. Cambridge, MA: MIT P, 2000.Rate My Teachers.com. 1 Jan. 2016 <http://www.ratemyteachers.com>. Renold, Emma, and David Mellor. “Deleuze and Guattari in the Nursery: Towards an Ethnographic Multisensory Mapping of Gendered Bodies and Becomings.” Deleuze and Research Methodologies. Eds. Rebecca Coleman and Jessica Ringrose. Edinburgh, Scotland: Edinburgh UP, 2013. 23-41.Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. Touching Feeling: Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2003.Stankiewicz, Kevin. “Ratings of Professors Help College Students Make Good Decisions.” The New York Times, 16 Dec. 2015. 7 Dec. 2015 <http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/12/16/is-it-fair-to-rate-professors-online/ratings-of-professors-help-college-students-make-good-decisions>.Stewart, Kathleen. Ordinary Affects. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2007.Talburt, Susan. “Ethnographic Responsibility without the ‘Real.’” The Journal of Higher Education 57.1 (2004): 80-103.Taubman, Peter. Teaching by Numbers: Deconstructing the Discourse of Standards and Accountability in Education. New York: Routledge, 2009.Thiel, Jaye Johnson. “Allowing Our Wounds to Breathe: Emotions and Critical Pedagogy.” Writing and Teaching to Change the World. Ed. Stephanie Jones. New York: Teachers College P, 2014. 36-48.