Mary Leng
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199280797
- eISBN:
- 9780191723452
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199280797.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Logic/Philosophy of Mathematics, Metaphysics/Epistemology
This chapter presents in detail Kendall L. Walton's account of metaphor as prop‐oriented make‐believe, and discusses how this account can be used to provide an anti‐realist account of the ideal ...
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This chapter presents in detail Kendall L. Walton's account of metaphor as prop‐oriented make‐believe, and discusses how this account can be used to provide an anti‐realist account of the ideal models used in empirical science. It goes on to consider how, specifically, the mathematical assumptions of our scientific theories could be considered to be fictional in the context of a make‐believe, and how such hypotheses can be used to represent, indirectly, how things are taken to be with non‐mathematical ‘props’. It is suggested that, if we take the assumptions of set theory with non‐mathematical urelements as generative assumptions of a fiction, utterances that are fictional against the backdrop of these generative assumptions will have some objective metaphorical content, as claims about the non‐mathematical realm. It is argued that we should view scientific inquiry in the context of mathematically stated scientific theories as inquiry into what is fictional in this game.Less
This chapter presents in detail Kendall L. Walton's account of metaphor as prop‐oriented make‐believe, and discusses how this account can be used to provide an anti‐realist account of the ideal models used in empirical science. It goes on to consider how, specifically, the mathematical assumptions of our scientific theories could be considered to be fictional in the context of a make‐believe, and how such hypotheses can be used to represent, indirectly, how things are taken to be with non‐mathematical ‘props’. It is suggested that, if we take the assumptions of set theory with non‐mathematical urelements as generative assumptions of a fiction, utterances that are fictional against the backdrop of these generative assumptions will have some objective metaphorical content, as claims about the non‐mathematical realm. It is argued that we should view scientific inquiry in the context of mathematically stated scientific theories as inquiry into what is fictional in this game.
Beth L. Glixon and Jonathan E. Glixon
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195154160
- eISBN:
- 9780199868483
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195154160.003.0009
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This chapter takes a comprehensive look at the scenic elements of opera: the sets and the machines. The operas featured numerous set changes, with a system of paired flats as well as backdrops and ...
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This chapter takes a comprehensive look at the scenic elements of opera: the sets and the machines. The operas featured numerous set changes, with a system of paired flats as well as backdrops and lontani, which conveyed deep perspective at the back of the set. In Venice during the mid-17th century, impresarios preferred to commission new scenery every year, rather than fall back on previously used elements (dote). Typically a painter designed and executed the scenery (along with his assistants), and a carpenter built the machines, which could appear from above or beneath the floor. Examining contracts signed by the impresario Marco Faustini with scene painters and machine builders provide invaluable insight into the costs, responsibilities, and time constraints involved in this important element of opera production. Several inventories of scenery enabling a comparison between the finished materials and the scenes described in the librettos are also discussed.Less
This chapter takes a comprehensive look at the scenic elements of opera: the sets and the machines. The operas featured numerous set changes, with a system of paired flats as well as backdrops and lontani, which conveyed deep perspective at the back of the set. In Venice during the mid-17th century, impresarios preferred to commission new scenery every year, rather than fall back on previously used elements (dote). Typically a painter designed and executed the scenery (along with his assistants), and a carpenter built the machines, which could appear from above or beneath the floor. Examining contracts signed by the impresario Marco Faustini with scene painters and machine builders provide invaluable insight into the costs, responsibilities, and time constraints involved in this important element of opera production. Several inventories of scenery enabling a comparison between the finished materials and the scenes described in the librettos are also discussed.
Mary Leng
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199280797
- eISBN:
- 9780191723452
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199280797.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Logic/Philosophy of Mathematics, Metaphysics/Epistemology
This chapter considers the question of how we are to uncover our ontological commitments, on the assumption that even our best scientific theories may include hypotheses adopted for reasons other ...
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This chapter considers the question of how we are to uncover our ontological commitments, on the assumption that even our best scientific theories may include hypotheses adopted for reasons other than their literal truth. Stephen Yablo's use of Kendall L. Walton's notion of the metaphorical content of theoretical hypotheses, adopted as part of a prop oriented make‐believe, is presented as an account of the way that theoretical hypotheses can be descriptively valuable even if not literally true. The question of how to distinguish the metaphorical from the literal amongst our theoretical assumptions is considered, and Yablo's own scepticism about the possibility of drawing such a distinction is rejected as depending on an overly hermeneutic understanding of the requirements of naturalism. An alternative explanatory characterization of the project allows for the possibility of uncovering, through our reflective understanding of our scientific theories, genuine ontological commitments from amongst our various theoretical hypotheses.Less
This chapter considers the question of how we are to uncover our ontological commitments, on the assumption that even our best scientific theories may include hypotheses adopted for reasons other than their literal truth. Stephen Yablo's use of Kendall L. Walton's notion of the metaphorical content of theoretical hypotheses, adopted as part of a prop oriented make‐believe, is presented as an account of the way that theoretical hypotheses can be descriptively valuable even if not literally true. The question of how to distinguish the metaphorical from the literal amongst our theoretical assumptions is considered, and Yablo's own scepticism about the possibility of drawing such a distinction is rejected as depending on an overly hermeneutic understanding of the requirements of naturalism. An alternative explanatory characterization of the project allows for the possibility of uncovering, through our reflective understanding of our scientific theories, genuine ontological commitments from amongst our various theoretical hypotheses.
Emmanuela Bakola
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199569359
- eISBN:
- 9780191722332
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199569359.003.0006
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Chapter 5 explores dramaturgical and stagecraft aspects of Cratinus' comedies. First it discusses the construction and use of dramatic space in Odysseis, Plutoi, Nemesis, and Seriphioi, especially ...
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Chapter 5 explores dramaturgical and stagecraft aspects of Cratinus' comedies. First it discusses the construction and use of dramatic space in Odysseis, Plutoi, Nemesis, and Seriphioi, especially in the opening scenes. It also explores Cratinus' dramatization of the literary topos of the storm, his large stage props, machinery and change of scenes. In Dionysalexandros it discusses the role of costume and disguise, arguing that it constitutes a major aspect of the comedy's enagagement with Dionysiac initiation ritual. Finally, by looking at Pytine and Dionysalexandros it explores how Cratinus' use of imagery and personification was realized in performance and shaped the stage action.Less
Chapter 5 explores dramaturgical and stagecraft aspects of Cratinus' comedies. First it discusses the construction and use of dramatic space in Odysseis, Plutoi, Nemesis, and Seriphioi, especially in the opening scenes. It also explores Cratinus' dramatization of the literary topos of the storm, his large stage props, machinery and change of scenes. In Dionysalexandros it discusses the role of costume and disguise, arguing that it constitutes a major aspect of the comedy's enagagement with Dionysiac initiation ritual. Finally, by looking at Pytine and Dionysalexandros it explores how Cratinus' use of imagery and personification was realized in performance and shaped the stage action.
Kathleen Coulborn Faller
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195311778
- eISBN:
- 9780199865055
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195311778.003.0009
- Subject:
- Social Work, Children and Families, Crime and Justice
A contested issue in interviewing children about sexual abuse is the use of media, props, tools, or aids, as means of communication about abuse. The controversy over media originated with the use of ...
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A contested issue in interviewing children about sexual abuse is the use of media, props, tools, or aids, as means of communication about abuse. The controversy over media originated with the use of anatomical dolls, that is, dolls with private parts. This chapter discusses the research and practice on anatomical dolls, anatomical drawings, and free drawing. Interviewers may employ other media, but other media lack an empirical base. Indeed, most of the research is on the use of anatomical dolls, which have been the subject of more than one hundred written works.Less
A contested issue in interviewing children about sexual abuse is the use of media, props, tools, or aids, as means of communication about abuse. The controversy over media originated with the use of anatomical dolls, that is, dolls with private parts. This chapter discusses the research and practice on anatomical dolls, anatomical drawings, and free drawing. Interviewers may employ other media, but other media lack an empirical base. Indeed, most of the research is on the use of anatomical dolls, which have been the subject of more than one hundred written works.
Siu Wang-Ngai
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9789888208265
- eISBN:
- 9789888268252
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888208265.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
Chinese opera embraces over 360 different styles of theatre that make one of the richest performance arts in the world. It combines music, speech, poetry, mime, acrobatics, stage fighting, vivid ...
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Chinese opera embraces over 360 different styles of theatre that make one of the richest performance arts in the world. It combines music, speech, poetry, mime, acrobatics, stage fighting, vivid face-painting and exquisite costumes. First experiences of Chinese opera can be baffling because its vocabulary of stagecraft is familiar only to the seasoned aficionado. Chinese Opera: The Actor's Craft makes the experience more accessible for everyone. This book uses breath-taking images of Chinese opera in performance by Hong Kong photographer Siu Wang-Ngai to illustrate and explain Chinese opera stage technique. The book explores costumes, gestures, mime, acrobatics, props and stage techniques. Each explanation is accompanied by an example of its use in an opera and is illustrated by in-performance photographs. Chinese Opera: The Actor's Craft provides the reader with a basic grammar for understanding uniquely Chinese solutions to staging drama.Less
Chinese opera embraces over 360 different styles of theatre that make one of the richest performance arts in the world. It combines music, speech, poetry, mime, acrobatics, stage fighting, vivid face-painting and exquisite costumes. First experiences of Chinese opera can be baffling because its vocabulary of stagecraft is familiar only to the seasoned aficionado. Chinese Opera: The Actor's Craft makes the experience more accessible for everyone. This book uses breath-taking images of Chinese opera in performance by Hong Kong photographer Siu Wang-Ngai to illustrate and explain Chinese opera stage technique. The book explores costumes, gestures, mime, acrobatics, props and stage techniques. Each explanation is accompanied by an example of its use in an opera and is illustrated by in-performance photographs. Chinese Opera: The Actor's Craft provides the reader with a basic grammar for understanding uniquely Chinese solutions to staging drama.
Melissa Mueller
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226312958
- eISBN:
- 9780226313009
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226313009.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Plays and Playwrights: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Since Aristotle, text has been considered the essence of Athenian tragedy, while theatrical props have been relegated to the category of mere spectacle, external to the text. Objects as Actors argues ...
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Since Aristotle, text has been considered the essence of Athenian tragedy, while theatrical props have been relegated to the category of mere spectacle, external to the text. Objects as Actors argues that far from being inanimate, ancillary “things,” props are fully integrated in tragic text, agents that spark surprising plot turns and unexpected reactions from viewers inside and outside the theatrical frame while furnishing some of the genre’s most purely thrilling moments. Whether it’s the uncanny sword or the diachronic shield of Sophocles’ Ajax, the visually overpowering tapestry of Aeschylus’s Choephoroi, the mythically and politically charged recognition tokens of Euripides’ Ion, the canonical urn of Sophocles’ Electra, or the metatheatrical tablet of Euripides’ Hippolytus, props demand our attention. They bridge—even as they disrupt—time, space, and genre; they manipulate even as they are manipulated. Combining theater studies with cultural poetics, this book proposes a new dimension in the study of how tragic plays communicate with each other: not just intertextually, but also intertheatrically. Through their compelling presence and associative power, props provide the key to a new way of looking at the central tragic texts—and, indeed, at theater as a whole.Less
Since Aristotle, text has been considered the essence of Athenian tragedy, while theatrical props have been relegated to the category of mere spectacle, external to the text. Objects as Actors argues that far from being inanimate, ancillary “things,” props are fully integrated in tragic text, agents that spark surprising plot turns and unexpected reactions from viewers inside and outside the theatrical frame while furnishing some of the genre’s most purely thrilling moments. Whether it’s the uncanny sword or the diachronic shield of Sophocles’ Ajax, the visually overpowering tapestry of Aeschylus’s Choephoroi, the mythically and politically charged recognition tokens of Euripides’ Ion, the canonical urn of Sophocles’ Electra, or the metatheatrical tablet of Euripides’ Hippolytus, props demand our attention. They bridge—even as they disrupt—time, space, and genre; they manipulate even as they are manipulated. Combining theater studies with cultural poetics, this book proposes a new dimension in the study of how tragic plays communicate with each other: not just intertextually, but also intertheatrically. Through their compelling presence and associative power, props provide the key to a new way of looking at the central tragic texts—and, indeed, at theater as a whole.
Melissa Mueller
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226312958
- eISBN:
- 9780226313009
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226313009.003.0004
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Plays and Playwrights: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Chapter 5 offers a new reading of the urn in Sophocles’ Electra, an object that casts Electra unexpectedly into the role of a mourning mother on the model of Niobe. Even before it materializes on ...
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Chapter 5 offers a new reading of the urn in Sophocles’ Electra, an object that casts Electra unexpectedly into the role of a mourning mother on the model of Niobe. Even before it materializes on stage, the urn stands for the already canonical tradition of “Electra plays,” inviting spectators to reflect on how Sophocles’ tragedy signals its reception and reshaping of earlier tragic material through props. Receptacles and their everyday function in preserving goods prove highly adaptable to the needs of tragic stagecraft and performance. Equipping both the dramatist and characters with a powerful tool for interrupting the linear flow of time, the urn exemplifies the malleability of the performance medium; its association with an actor named Polus, who reportedly substituted the ashes of his son for the empty stage urn in a 4th century BCE performance of Electra, is emblematic of the close collaboration between tragic props and reception history.Less
Chapter 5 offers a new reading of the urn in Sophocles’ Electra, an object that casts Electra unexpectedly into the role of a mourning mother on the model of Niobe. Even before it materializes on stage, the urn stands for the already canonical tradition of “Electra plays,” inviting spectators to reflect on how Sophocles’ tragedy signals its reception and reshaping of earlier tragic material through props. Receptacles and their everyday function in preserving goods prove highly adaptable to the needs of tragic stagecraft and performance. Equipping both the dramatist and characters with a powerful tool for interrupting the linear flow of time, the urn exemplifies the malleability of the performance medium; its association with an actor named Polus, who reportedly substituted the ashes of his son for the empty stage urn in a 4th century BCE performance of Electra, is emblematic of the close collaboration between tragic props and reception history.
Aaron Jaffe
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816692019
- eISBN:
- 9781452949017
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816692019.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
Buffed to a metallic shine; loose fitting, lopsided, or kludgy; getting in the way or getting lost; collapsing in an explosion of dust caught on the warehouse CCTV. Modern things are going their own ...
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Buffed to a metallic shine; loose fitting, lopsided, or kludgy; getting in the way or getting lost; collapsing in an explosion of dust caught on the warehouse CCTV. Modern things are going their own ways, and this book attempts to follow them. A course of thought about their comings and goings and cascading side effects, this book offers a thesis demonstrated via a century-long countdown of stuff. Modernist critical theory and aesthetic method, it argues, are bound up with the inhuman fate of things as novelty becoming waste. Things are seldom at rest. Far more often they are going their own ways, entering and exiting our zones of attention, interest, and affection. This text is concerned less with a humanist story of such things—offering anthropomorphizing narratives about recouping the items we use—as it is with the seemingly inscrutable, inhuman capacities of things for coarticulation and coherence. The book examines the tension between this inscrutability on the one hand, and the ways things seem ready-made for understanding on the other hand, by means of exposition, thing- and word-play, conceptual art, essayism, autopoesis, and prop comedy. This book delves into books, can openers, roller skates, fat, felt, soap, joy buzzers, hobbyhorses, felt erasers, sleds, magic rabbits, and urinals. But it stands apart from the recent flood of thing-talk, rebuking the romantic tendencies caught up in the pathetic nature of debris defining the conversation. The book demonstrates that literary criticism is the one mode of analysis that can unpack the many things that, at first glance, seem so nonliterary.Less
Buffed to a metallic shine; loose fitting, lopsided, or kludgy; getting in the way or getting lost; collapsing in an explosion of dust caught on the warehouse CCTV. Modern things are going their own ways, and this book attempts to follow them. A course of thought about their comings and goings and cascading side effects, this book offers a thesis demonstrated via a century-long countdown of stuff. Modernist critical theory and aesthetic method, it argues, are bound up with the inhuman fate of things as novelty becoming waste. Things are seldom at rest. Far more often they are going their own ways, entering and exiting our zones of attention, interest, and affection. This text is concerned less with a humanist story of such things—offering anthropomorphizing narratives about recouping the items we use—as it is with the seemingly inscrutable, inhuman capacities of things for coarticulation and coherence. The book examines the tension between this inscrutability on the one hand, and the ways things seem ready-made for understanding on the other hand, by means of exposition, thing- and word-play, conceptual art, essayism, autopoesis, and prop comedy. This book delves into books, can openers, roller skates, fat, felt, soap, joy buzzers, hobbyhorses, felt erasers, sleds, magic rabbits, and urinals. But it stands apart from the recent flood of thing-talk, rebuking the romantic tendencies caught up in the pathetic nature of debris defining the conversation. The book demonstrates that literary criticism is the one mode of analysis that can unpack the many things that, at first glance, seem so nonliterary.
Aaron Jaffe
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816692019
- eISBN:
- 9781452949017
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816692019.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
When a thing gets talked about, it tends to get framed in one of three kinds of deceptive life stories: first, the thing lives insofar as it is subject to human attention; second, it lives an ...
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When a thing gets talked about, it tends to get framed in one of three kinds of deceptive life stories: first, the thing lives insofar as it is subject to human attention; second, it lives an all-too-human life as a human proxy; and third, the thing assumes the form of the gadget, becoming the lead character in a fable of production. The book in general then strays from a narrative approach in its analysis of things, including essayism and poiesis; conceptual art and prop comedy; or thing-play and word-play. It is not interested in the story of stuff, arguing that stories about stuff are insufficient as critical practice for the ways things go. Instead, it stresses the critical and aesthetic necessity for the continued exposition of these stories’ side effects.Less
When a thing gets talked about, it tends to get framed in one of three kinds of deceptive life stories: first, the thing lives insofar as it is subject to human attention; second, it lives an all-too-human life as a human proxy; and third, the thing assumes the form of the gadget, becoming the lead character in a fable of production. The book in general then strays from a narrative approach in its analysis of things, including essayism and poiesis; conceptual art and prop comedy; or thing-play and word-play. It is not interested in the story of stuff, arguing that stories about stuff are insufficient as critical practice for the ways things go. Instead, it stresses the critical and aesthetic necessity for the continued exposition of these stories’ side effects.
Philip Schwyzer
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199676101
- eISBN:
- 9780191762840
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199676101.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter charts the early modern afterlives of a range of objects associated with the reign and person of Richard III. While some of these things survived because they remained useful in the ...
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This chapter charts the early modern afterlives of a range of objects associated with the reign and person of Richard III. While some of these things survived because they remained useful in the present, others were preserved as witnesses to the lost past (trophies) or as vital links between the past and the present (relics). Strikingly, a number of these objects—including Richard’s dagger, his prayer book, his crown, and his bed—re-emerge as significant theatrical properties in Shakespeare’s Richard III. In its treatment of objects, Richard III invites us to consider how much and how little separates the dramatic property from the genuine article, and in doing so to gauge both the proximity and the distance between Shakespeare’s time and the late medieval world of Richard III.Less
This chapter charts the early modern afterlives of a range of objects associated with the reign and person of Richard III. While some of these things survived because they remained useful in the present, others were preserved as witnesses to the lost past (trophies) or as vital links between the past and the present (relics). Strikingly, a number of these objects—including Richard’s dagger, his prayer book, his crown, and his bed—re-emerge as significant theatrical properties in Shakespeare’s Richard III. In its treatment of objects, Richard III invites us to consider how much and how little separates the dramatic property from the genuine article, and in doing so to gauge both the proximity and the distance between Shakespeare’s time and the late medieval world of Richard III.
Siu Wang-Ngai and Peter Lovrick
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9789888208265
- eISBN:
- 9789888268252
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888208265.003.0003
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
This chapter demonstrates how props common to Chinese stage craft are used. It includes the horsewhip which represents an entire horse, paddles which represent boats, the fan and furniture.
This chapter demonstrates how props common to Chinese stage craft are used. It includes the horsewhip which represents an entire horse, paddles which represent boats, the fan and furniture.
Nancy Yunhwa Rao
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252040566
- eISBN:
- 9780252099007
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252040566.003.0005
- Subject:
- Music, Opera
This chapter provides a survey of Cantonese opera, its connection to other genres of Chinese opera, its music, repertoire, vocal style, accompanying instruments, etc. Because the performance practice ...
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This chapter provides a survey of Cantonese opera, its connection to other genres of Chinese opera, its music, repertoire, vocal style, accompanying instruments, etc. Because the performance practice changed over time, this chapter draws from a wealth of primary and secondary documents to offer a working knowledge of Cantonese opera as it was practiced in North American during the 1920s. Over 1000 Chinese playbills from San Francisco, New York City, Vancouver, Seattle and Havana between 1917 and 1929 provide the foundation for understanding the popular repertoire during the time. In addition, commentaries in Chinese newspapers, as well as memoirs and oral histories from veteran performers reveal much about the historical performance practice. Taken together, these resources form the basis of an understanding of the Cantonese opera in this period ranging from the increased usage of stage backdrops and stage props, a gradual shift of popular role types and vocal styles, and popular novel repertoire types. A reflection on the significance of daily opera playbill closes the chapter.Less
This chapter provides a survey of Cantonese opera, its connection to other genres of Chinese opera, its music, repertoire, vocal style, accompanying instruments, etc. Because the performance practice changed over time, this chapter draws from a wealth of primary and secondary documents to offer a working knowledge of Cantonese opera as it was practiced in North American during the 1920s. Over 1000 Chinese playbills from San Francisco, New York City, Vancouver, Seattle and Havana between 1917 and 1929 provide the foundation for understanding the popular repertoire during the time. In addition, commentaries in Chinese newspapers, as well as memoirs and oral histories from veteran performers reveal much about the historical performance practice. Taken together, these resources form the basis of an understanding of the Cantonese opera in this period ranging from the increased usage of stage backdrops and stage props, a gradual shift of popular role types and vocal styles, and popular novel repertoire types. A reflection on the significance of daily opera playbill closes the chapter.
Nancy Yunhwa Rao
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252040566
- eISBN:
- 9780252099007
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252040566.003.0009
- Subject:
- Music, Opera
By 1926, the Great China Theater in Seattle boasted a cast of performers from the top tier of the Cantonese opera profession, and performed different operas daily all year long without breaks. A ...
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By 1926, the Great China Theater in Seattle boasted a cast of performers from the top tier of the Cantonese opera profession, and performed different operas daily all year long without breaks. A roster of key professionals, such as playwrights, musicians, and scene painters, took up residence at the theater. The stage designs and theatrical spectacle grew bolder and grander, showing influences from other entertainment; a record label of Cantonese opera was started. The opera culture also bore fruit in the younger generation, as seen in the increased participation of native-born Chinese Americans. This chapter describes the ways in which the Great China Theater played an important role in that community until the end of the decade, when motion pictures and other forms of entertainment eroded opera’s popular appeal.Less
By 1926, the Great China Theater in Seattle boasted a cast of performers from the top tier of the Cantonese opera profession, and performed different operas daily all year long without breaks. A roster of key professionals, such as playwrights, musicians, and scene painters, took up residence at the theater. The stage designs and theatrical spectacle grew bolder and grander, showing influences from other entertainment; a record label of Cantonese opera was started. The opera culture also bore fruit in the younger generation, as seen in the increased participation of native-born Chinese Americans. This chapter describes the ways in which the Great China Theater played an important role in that community until the end of the decade, when motion pictures and other forms of entertainment eroded opera’s popular appeal.
James K. Libbey
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780813167138
- eISBN:
- 9780813167831
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813167138.003.0015
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
After World War II, Barkley chaired the Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack. His committee’s recommendations were later fulfilled by passage of the National Security Act, ...
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After World War II, Barkley chaired the Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack. His committee’s recommendations were later fulfilled by passage of the National Security Act, which created the Central Intelligence Agency and what was ultimately called the Department of Defense. After GOP victories in 1946, Barkley could express his gratification for bipartisan support for foreign affairs during the Cold War by approval of Greek-Turkish aid and Marshall Plan. At the 1948 Democratic national convention, Barkley was named the party’s vice presidential nominee on a ticket headed by Truman. Truman went on a whistle-stop campaign, but Barkley flew on the first prop-stop campaign. The pair won in one of the most incredible upsets in American politics. The Veep became the first working vice president in American history. He supported Truman via speeches made across the United States and served as the administration’s point man in the Senate.Less
After World War II, Barkley chaired the Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack. His committee’s recommendations were later fulfilled by passage of the National Security Act, which created the Central Intelligence Agency and what was ultimately called the Department of Defense. After GOP victories in 1946, Barkley could express his gratification for bipartisan support for foreign affairs during the Cold War by approval of Greek-Turkish aid and Marshall Plan. At the 1948 Democratic national convention, Barkley was named the party’s vice presidential nominee on a ticket headed by Truman. Truman went on a whistle-stop campaign, but Barkley flew on the first prop-stop campaign. The pair won in one of the most incredible upsets in American politics. The Veep became the first working vice president in American history. He supported Truman via speeches made across the United States and served as the administration’s point man in the Senate.
Drew Daniel
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780823251278
- eISBN:
- 9780823252701
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823251278.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
Melancholy is a product of the composition and recomposition of bodies, with the smooth spectrum of bodily affect territorialized into a striated repertoire of characteristic zones that are ...
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Melancholy is a product of the composition and recomposition of bodies, with the smooth spectrum of bodily affect territorialized into a striated repertoire of characteristic zones that are classified into emotions. It is impossible to imagine a body experiencing an emotional state without knowing what an emotion looks like in the first place. This chapter explores melancholy representation to determine what sort of consistency bodily posture might provide for a melancholy assemblage. Drawing on Albrecht Dürer’s engraving Melencolia I (1514), Isaac Oliver’s oil painting Edward Herbert, First Baron Herbert of Cherbury (1614), and Bas Jan Ader’s silent short film I’m Too Sad to Tell You (1970), the chapter examines the extent to which the pictorial convention of melancholy posture produces the viewer’s experience of affective recognition in each image. It also considers what sort of self-relation is transmitted by the posture of propping and how the visual register is complicated by the haptic circuit of self-support and self-touch implicit in propping.Less
Melancholy is a product of the composition and recomposition of bodies, with the smooth spectrum of bodily affect territorialized into a striated repertoire of characteristic zones that are classified into emotions. It is impossible to imagine a body experiencing an emotional state without knowing what an emotion looks like in the first place. This chapter explores melancholy representation to determine what sort of consistency bodily posture might provide for a melancholy assemblage. Drawing on Albrecht Dürer’s engraving Melencolia I (1514), Isaac Oliver’s oil painting Edward Herbert, First Baron Herbert of Cherbury (1614), and Bas Jan Ader’s silent short film I’m Too Sad to Tell You (1970), the chapter examines the extent to which the pictorial convention of melancholy posture produces the viewer’s experience of affective recognition in each image. It also considers what sort of self-relation is transmitted by the posture of propping and how the visual register is complicated by the haptic circuit of self-support and self-touch implicit in propping.
Bradley D. Ryner
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780748684656
- eISBN:
- 9780748697113
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748684656.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
This chapter argues that the physical presence of stage props in Renaissance playhouses encouraged a different way of thinking about economic circulation than did mercantile treatises. Specifically, ...
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This chapter argues that the physical presence of stage props in Renaissance playhouses encouraged a different way of thinking about economic circulation than did mercantile treatises. Specifically, the chapter reads attempts to frame royal finance in mercantile treatises against the staging of court economics in Philip Massinger's The Emperor of the East. Massinger's play works through questions about royal finance similar to those of treatises by Thomas Milles, Gerard Malynes, Thomas Mun, and Edward Misselden. Rather than championing one particular model of royal finance, however, The Emperor of the East continually draws attention to activities that are not accounted for in a succession of models. In the first three acts, characters voice competing descriptions of the transactions that take place in the court. The limits of each of these models are revealed in the last two acts with the introduction of an apple that circulates among the play's main characters, with each one understanding it according to a different frame. The tension between the materiality of the prop apple in the playhouse and the narratives by which it is described onstage suggests the reciprocal relationship between discourse and systems of exchange -- between ‘economics’ and ‘economies.’Less
This chapter argues that the physical presence of stage props in Renaissance playhouses encouraged a different way of thinking about economic circulation than did mercantile treatises. Specifically, the chapter reads attempts to frame royal finance in mercantile treatises against the staging of court economics in Philip Massinger's The Emperor of the East. Massinger's play works through questions about royal finance similar to those of treatises by Thomas Milles, Gerard Malynes, Thomas Mun, and Edward Misselden. Rather than championing one particular model of royal finance, however, The Emperor of the East continually draws attention to activities that are not accounted for in a succession of models. In the first three acts, characters voice competing descriptions of the transactions that take place in the court. The limits of each of these models are revealed in the last two acts with the introduction of an apple that circulates among the play's main characters, with each one understanding it according to a different frame. The tension between the materiality of the prop apple in the playhouse and the narratives by which it is described onstage suggests the reciprocal relationship between discourse and systems of exchange -- between ‘economics’ and ‘economies.’
Christopher F. Loar
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780823256914
- eISBN:
- 9780823261437
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823256914.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
This chapter examines the role of sacral objects or fetishes in the production of sovereignty. Examining Behn’s Oroonoko in conjunction with two of her dramatic works (The Widow Ranter and The ...
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This chapter examines the role of sacral objects or fetishes in the production of sovereignty. Examining Behn’s Oroonoko in conjunction with two of her dramatic works (The Widow Ranter and The Roundheads), it explores the use of “magical” objects or devices to produce sovereignty and civility. In Behn’s fictionalized colony, savages are civilized by a performance with a burning glass; in her drama, this object is supplanted by others that mark either the sacred object’s embodiment of value or the prop’s utility in performances of power. The chapter concludes that Behn’s texts mourn the collapse of the world of divine right, chivalric virtue, and enchanted objects, envisioning a world of extreme violence and massacre that takes its place, in which maimed corpses take the place of magical objects. Her props gesture toward techniques for operating in this disenchanted regime of pragmatism and popular sovereignty.Less
This chapter examines the role of sacral objects or fetishes in the production of sovereignty. Examining Behn’s Oroonoko in conjunction with two of her dramatic works (The Widow Ranter and The Roundheads), it explores the use of “magical” objects or devices to produce sovereignty and civility. In Behn’s fictionalized colony, savages are civilized by a performance with a burning glass; in her drama, this object is supplanted by others that mark either the sacred object’s embodiment of value or the prop’s utility in performances of power. The chapter concludes that Behn’s texts mourn the collapse of the world of divine right, chivalric virtue, and enchanted objects, envisioning a world of extreme violence and massacre that takes its place, in which maimed corpses take the place of magical objects. Her props gesture toward techniques for operating in this disenchanted regime of pragmatism and popular sovereignty.
Tony Keen
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781474412599
- eISBN:
- 9781474449526
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474412599.003.0006
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Television
This chapter discusses the aesthetics of the BBC’s 1979 production of Frederick Raphael and Kenneth McLeish’s The Serpent Son, an adaptation of Aeschylus’ Oresteia trilogy, which critics at the time ...
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This chapter discusses the aesthetics of the BBC’s 1979 production of Frederick Raphael and Kenneth McLeish’s The Serpent Son, an adaptation of Aeschylus’ Oresteia trilogy, which critics at the time associated with science fiction. Certainly, the design of costumes, sets, props and lighting, together with the direction and camerawork, gave this trilogy a non-realist studio-bound visual style familiar to contemporary British television science fiction series, such as Doctor Who, Blake’s Seven and TheTomorrow People. By examining elements of the mise-en-scène, this chapter assesses whether this was a deliberate choice. It argues that, whilst the similarities are there, the aesthetic is as much the result of production methods employed at the time by the BBC, and general non-mimetic approaches to the production of Greek drama on screen, as it is any deliberate attempt to recall the science fiction genre. But the choice of a non-realist aesthetic for Greek tragedy is also a clear statement about the producers’ view of the connection between the modern audience and ancient Greek texts. This is the dominant visual aesthetic of productions of Greek tragedy on British television around this time, many of which employed similar distancing effects.Less
This chapter discusses the aesthetics of the BBC’s 1979 production of Frederick Raphael and Kenneth McLeish’s The Serpent Son, an adaptation of Aeschylus’ Oresteia trilogy, which critics at the time associated with science fiction. Certainly, the design of costumes, sets, props and lighting, together with the direction and camerawork, gave this trilogy a non-realist studio-bound visual style familiar to contemporary British television science fiction series, such as Doctor Who, Blake’s Seven and TheTomorrow People. By examining elements of the mise-en-scène, this chapter assesses whether this was a deliberate choice. It argues that, whilst the similarities are there, the aesthetic is as much the result of production methods employed at the time by the BBC, and general non-mimetic approaches to the production of Greek drama on screen, as it is any deliberate attempt to recall the science fiction genre. But the choice of a non-realist aesthetic for Greek tragedy is also a clear statement about the producers’ view of the connection between the modern audience and ancient Greek texts. This is the dominant visual aesthetic of productions of Greek tragedy on British television around this time, many of which employed similar distancing effects.
Laurel Kendall
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824833435
- eISBN:
- 9780824870577
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824833435.003.0006
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Asian Cultural Anthropology
This chapter explores as contradictory impulses the desire for and the moral disdain of new wealth and what it can buy. Shamans, gods, and ancestors enact this contemporary paradox through the medium ...
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This chapter explores as contradictory impulses the desire for and the moral disdain of new wealth and what it can buy. Shamans, gods, and ancestors enact this contemporary paradox through the medium of material goods. Through the aperture of offerings, and offerings turned into props, new marketplace commodities (e.g. exotic fruit, foreign whisky, chocolates) enter ritual space. As static offerings, such goods index changing tastes and the ability to finance them. When taken up as props, these same objects provoke mime and commentary about and around the things themselves, no less than does the more traditional kut fare of pigs' heads and tubs of rice cake. More generally, a focus on props enriches interpretations of shamanic and mediumistic rituals as emergent, situation-contingent performances, a theme that runs through this entire study.Less
This chapter explores as contradictory impulses the desire for and the moral disdain of new wealth and what it can buy. Shamans, gods, and ancestors enact this contemporary paradox through the medium of material goods. Through the aperture of offerings, and offerings turned into props, new marketplace commodities (e.g. exotic fruit, foreign whisky, chocolates) enter ritual space. As static offerings, such goods index changing tastes and the ability to finance them. When taken up as props, these same objects provoke mime and commentary about and around the things themselves, no less than does the more traditional kut fare of pigs' heads and tubs of rice cake. More generally, a focus on props enriches interpretations of shamanic and mediumistic rituals as emergent, situation-contingent performances, a theme that runs through this entire study.
