Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Embracing Complexity In Performing The Other, Valeska Maria Populoh

Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays

"Embracing Complexity in Performing the Other" is a personal essay by a white, Baltimore-based cultural organizer, puppeteer and educator, reflecting on three scenarios that have catalyzed her thinking about white people performing Black puppets. The author shares her own experience of navigating the complex, and at times highly combustible, issues about representation, appropriation and racial identity in the realm of puppetry, and concludes with a few questions to stimulate further dialogue in the puppetry community about these issues.

Race And Representation: Creating A Puppet Production For The Smithsonian Institution, Brad Brewer

Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays

The Brewery Puppet Troupe was commissioned by the Smithsonian Museum’s Lemelson Center to undertake new creative challenge: a show featuring African American scientist Lewis Latimer, the nineteenth-century inventor instrumental in creating the electric light bulb. Brad Brewer was committed to showing how Latimer’s life was affected by America’s struggle with slavery and racial inequality, issues he considered equally important to Latimer's scientific achievements. Staff historians read and commented on all the drafts of the script, but the production still included comedic elements typical of a Brewery Troupe production. The project allowed the author to explore some of the hard realities …

An Email Interview With Alva Rogers, Paulette Richards

Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays

Actor, writer, and puppeteer Alva Rogers recounts her long-standing interests in theater, and her early performances combining dolls with texts by Zora Neale Hurston and others. Her work as a performance artist led to her role as Eula in the film Daughters of the Dust. She then studied playwriting, musical theater, and history at Brown University, NYU, and Bard College respectively. Rogers’s influences include surrealist painters, magic realism, such writers as Adrienne Kennedy, Ralph Ellison, and Federico Garcia Lorca, and the Gullah/Geechee culture of the Sea Islands of South Carolina and Georgia. She uses both dolls and puppets in …

Servance Dancers, Paulette Richards

Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays

How many African American folk artists have created performing objects outside the purview of formal theater? Master woodcarver George Servance is one such 20th-century artist who used his skills to counter minstrel stereotypes and present African Americans as elegant and accomplished entertainers.

Raceless Racism: Blackface Minstrelsy In American Puppetry, Amber West

Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays

Blackface minstrelsy has long been recognized as one of the major elements of 19th and early 20th-century popular performance in the U.S., but its central role in U.S. puppetry has not been explored. West debunks the idea that puppets are “raceless”, examining the origins of blackface minstrelsy in American puppetry, including traditional Punch and Judy performances, William John Bullock’s 19th-century puppet minstrel shows, the creation of “realistic” Black puppets by white puppeteers in the early 20th century, and contemporary examples of exaggerated Black puppet characters, for example in a music video directed by Black artist Boots Riley. West points out …

Storytelling And Puppetry, Susan Fulcher

Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays

Librarian Susan Fulcher recounts the creation of a storytelling with puppets program she developed with puppeteer Dave Herzog, in which kids create their own puppet characters to be incorporated into existing stories such as Stone Soup.

“It’S Not Easy Bein’ Green”: Greenface And The Jazzy Frog Trope, Paulette Richards

Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays

One element of blackface minstrelsy was the representation of Black people as swamp characters, especially frogs. In her examination of the development of the “jazzy frog” as a transposition of greenface onto blackface, Richards traces the growth of the trope in popular film and cartoons of the early 20th century. She then considers Jim Henson’s creation of the popular puppet character Kermit as a variation on this trope, but with a different purpose: to represent Henson’s “vision of tolerance for difference and creative collaboration.” The “re-humanization” of the jazzy frog includes the 1967 hit song “I’m in Love with a …

Wear The Story Like A Jacket: Akbar Imhotep, Paulette Richards

Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays

This profile of Akbar Imhotep’s work as a puppeteer and storyteller in Atlanta in the late 20th century describes his connections to the Center for Puppetry Arts, the folk-art roots of his approach to puppetry, the unique puppet stage he made from old suitcases, and the process he uses to prepare for performances.

Black: :Body: :Gesture: From Puppetry To Performance & Design, Gabrielle Civil, Kelly Walters

Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays

In this visual document, Gabrielle Civil and Kelly Walters distill and recreate key aspects of their live dialogue on African-American puppetry, black performance art, material and digital design. What are examples of African American living objects in the 21st century? What does it mean to animate objects when, as a people, we were once considered to be living objects ourselves? Drawing on their own practice, these artists engaged these questions, activated audience discussion, and transformed the results into a new source text for further activation.

Black And Blackface In The Performing Object: Bullock, Chessé, Paris, The Jubilee Singers, And The Burdens Of … Everything, Ben Fisler

Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays

The representation of Black identity through puppetry ranges from “grotesque exaggeration to near pictorial realism,” and engagement not only with racial stereotyping, but also the possibility of positive racial representation. Fisler details the extensive degree to which puppeteers in the early 20th century depended upon Black and blackface characters for their livelihood, and points out the complexities of such representations involving Black puppeteers of Federal Theater Project puppet companies, and the work of Creole puppet artist Ralph Chessé. Fisler argues that some white puppeteers, including Frank Paris, sought to portray such Black characters as Josephine Baker in a “potentially more …

Tar Baby: The Performance Of Object, Ra Malika Imhotep

Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays

This essay engages the figure of the “Tar Baby” as a guide through the theoretical terrain of Afro-Diasporic storytelling culture. Thinking about the role of gesture and voice in the repertoire of global Black performance, this presentation sets out to offer a nuanced Black feminist analysis of the sticky character and the impact of her diasporic flight. Calling in both theoretical work on Black performance and personal reflections on an engagement with the Tar Baby through storyteller and puppeteer Akbar Imhotep’s rendition of the story performed at the Wren’s Nest in Atlanta Georgia, the essay explores the ways Afro-Diasporic storytelling …

The Appropriation Of Blackness, Nehprii Amenii

Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays

The continuing appropriation of Black culture in the U.S. is closely tied to the trauma and injustice of the African diaspora and the history of slavery. Black people, Amenii argues, need to re-appropriate themselves, through the “excavating and re-articulating of our intellectual heritage and knowledge systems.” Citing Ahmad Azzahir’s description of African modes of thinking as “based on spirituality, symbol, mythos, and harmonium,” she sees her own work as “creative anthropology” that draws on storytelling and image-making to create self-study. Her production Food for the Gods, “a multi-media performance installation created in response to the killings of Black Men by …

African Puppetry And Brazilian Mamulengo: Possible Links Between Symbolic And Material Representations, Izabela Brochado

Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays

Although Brazil’s popular Mamulengo hand-puppet tradition is often considered to have primarily European roots, Brochado argues that “the primary source of the Mamulengo lies with African slaves.” Citing sources including puppeteers and folklorists explaining the origins of Mamulengo in northeast Brazil, Brochado argues for the African roots of the form, citing the relation of Mamulengo performance to Afro-Brazilian cult rituals; the commonality of often-comic sexual content in Mamulengo and in Yoruba puppetry of Nigeria and Benin; as well as the similar mechanics of puppets from both traditions which display work activities. She concludes that “even if African puppets were not …

The Alchemical Vessel, River Soma

MFA Statements

My work comes from a place of deep feeling on a bodily level. Amidst the decorative play, there is a sense of the primitive and primordial, and also a certain humanity and clumsiness through struggle. Through the hermetic tradition I relate the alchemical vessel and its symbolic process of interior development to my artistic practice. Focusing in mixed media sculpture, I discovered a concentrated accumulation of symbolism specific to my practice, but also the full recognition of my practice as a ritualized psychological undertaking.

The Natural Exile: A Study Of Twenty-First Century Cuban-American Narratives Focusing On The Elderly's Plight, Jasmine Parson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Developed from the similarity between exile theory and age studies, the term "exile" is expanded to a natural form of exile because of the shocking temporal shift that reconstructs social interaction, familial dynamics, and the aging body. Using Heidegger's theoretical work Being in Time, Simon de Beauvoir's The Coming of Age, and Jean Améry's On Aging as insight, this literary analysis captures how the elderly protagonists Goyo from Cristina García's King of Cuba, Máximo from Ana Menéndez's "In Cuba I was a German Shepherd," and Soledad from Cecilia Rodríguez Milanés's "Abuela Marielita" experience a natural exile among society, their family …

Death, Disrupted, Tamara Kneese

Media Studies

No abstract provided.

Latteri On Weiss, 'Sefer Yesirah And Its Contexts: Other Jewish Voices', Natalie Latteri

Theology & Religious Studies

Book Review by Natalie Latteri on Tzahi Weiss' Sefer Yesirah and Its Contexts: Other Jewish Voices. This review was originally published in the Journal of Medieval Worlds, Vol. 1, Number 1, pp. 117-120.

Sub Specie Aeternitatis, Dean Rader

English

No abstract provided.

Social Esteem As Moral Recognition, Erica Stonestreet

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Some strands of feminist and social philosophy suggest that the basis for personhood is having an identity—where identity is not defined entirely in individualistic terms of reason and autonomy and is in fact quite relational. When personhood is conceived in these terms, morality becomes a matter of recognizing persons for who they are, which includes recognizing them as members of social groups. In this paper I explore the notion of esteem as a species of recognition for these layers of identity, claiming that esteem deserves to stand on equal footing with respect as a moral attitude.

College Of The Arts 19/20 Season, Department Of Theatre And Dance, John J. Cali School Of Music

2019-2020

No abstract provided.

An Exploration Of The Prairie Through Ceramic Art, Erin Wilaby

Honors Capstone Projects

The prairie is an underappreciated ecosystem. This is evident comparing the amount of US protected land: according to the 2018 Land Areas Report, there are 50 times more acres of National Forest as National Grassland. To change this unappreciation, I endeavor in this project to aid people in seeing the prairie as a complex, beautiful, and interesting ecosystem. My method is to present scientific knowledge about the prairie through the medium of ceramic art. Specifically, the project explores relationships between biotic (living) and abiotic (non-living) factors in the ecosystem. The ceramic works entail a large amount of functional pottery with …

Stonehill Alumni Magazine Winter/Spring 2019, Stonehill College Office Of Communications And Media Relations

Stonehill Alumni Magazine

This issue of the magazine includes the following features:

• Searching for More Good Following her mother’s wise advice, Mary Latham ’09 took a tragic time in her life and turned it into a mission, capturing stories of human kindness. BY LAUREN DALEY 05
• Thirty Years Later... Still Unsolved In her new book, former crime reporter and Associate Communication Professor Maureen Boyle searches for answers to the New Bedford Highway serial killings. BY TRACY PALMER
• Mr. Stonehill Francis X. Dillon ’70, Stonehill’s longest serving vice president, reflects on his 44-year career upon his

Problem-Based Learning And Information Literacy: Revising A Technical Writing Class, Kelly Diamond

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

This chapter discusses the collaboration between a librarian and faculty member to revise an online technical writing course using the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Framework for Information Literacy, problem-based learning, and instructional design principles. The chapter outlines three components of course revision: 1) re-design online course to be more engaging to students as well as easier to navigate; 2) create assignments and activities to mirror actual workplace writing tasks; 3) develop research assignments focused on information literacy skills used in the workplace. Using elements from ADDIE (Analyze; Design; Develop; Implement; Evaluate) and Backward Design, the course …

Touki Bouki, Wvu Humanities Center, Wvu Libraries

2019-2020

Poster for film aired December 4,, 2019 as part of the Local to Global 19-20 Film Series.

Embedding Oer's For The Development Of Information Literacy In The Foreign Language Classroom, Odette Gabaudan, Susanna Nocchi

Books/Book Chapters

Despite a rapid growth of Open Educational Resource (OER) availability, Thoms and Thoms (2014) note that few empirical studies examine the impact of OERs on foreign language learning and teaching. This paper presents an action research study investigating the embedding of selected components of DigiLanguages, an OER for Digital Literacies (DLs) for Foreign Languages (FL) within a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in International Business and Languages at the Technological University Dublin. Digilanguages.ie is an open portal developed collaboratively by six tertiary education institutions in Ireland. Digital literacies for FL learning and teaching is a key strand in this resource. The …

Oru History & Humanities Modern World - Reader I 1600 - 1850, Gary Pranger

Textbooks

This work of historical engagement is unique in a number of ways. First, it unabashedly and unashamedly takes an evangelical-charismatic Christian world-view. We hope to balance out the biases and propaganda of the “City of Man” by not excluding the “City of God” and by admitting that the latter is the most wholistic and realistic of the different world-views as we introduce students to their world. Students are meant to be building their own worldviews as well as their ethical identity and awareness.

Two, it is an adaptive or elastic text that can be added to or subtracted from, improved, …

Rollins After Dark: The Hamilton Holt School's Nontraditional Journeys, Randy Noles

Books about Rollins College and Winter Park

Rollins After Dark is a fascinating history of the eclectic program (and larger-than-life characters) that provided the underpinning of what would become today's Hamilton Holt School - the Rollins College evening program. Although 2019 is the Holt School's 60th anniversary, so-called "adult education" has been offered by the College for more than 80 years. In Rollins After Dark, Randy Noles presents an engaging and entertaining account of the development of the Hamilton Holt School at Rollins College. From a series of popular public spectacles focusing on diverse topics, to a serious academic program for degree-seeking, nontraditional students, the evolution …

"'A Slight Hysterical Tendency’: Performing Diagnosis In Charlotte Perkins Gilman’S ‘The Yellow Wallpaper'", Vivian Delchamps

Faculty Authored Books and Book Contributions

In the beginning of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”(1892), the unnamed female protagonist writes disobediently in her journal: “If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression—a slight hysterical tendency—what is one to do?” 1 Gilman famously wrote this semi-autobiographical short story to criticize her doctor, Silas Weir Mitchell. Mitchell diagnosed Gilman with hysteria and treated her with his famous “rest cure”—a treatment that kept women confined to their beds, restricting their bodily and mental freedoms. Gilman then wrote …

The Swedish Welfare State And Women: Is Sweden The Feminist Society The United States Imagines?, Amanda Schar

Scandinavian Studies Student Award

This paper discusses several aspects of the Swedish welfare state and whether or not they represent a successfully feminist form of government. It compares these aspects of the Swedish government to the United State’s government.

Center For Spiritual And Religious Life End Of Year Report 2018-2019, Lawrence University

Spiritual and Religious Life Annual Reports

No abstract provided.