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Mathematics and Make‐Believe

Mary Leng

in Mathematics and Reality

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 ... More

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

SCENERY AND MACHINES

Beth L. Glixon and Jonathan E. Glixon

in Inventing the Business of Opera: The Impresario and His World in Seventeenth-Century Venice

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 ... More

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

Naturalized Ontology

Mary Leng

in Mathematics and Reality

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 ... More

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

Production and Imagination

Emmanuela Bakola

in Cratinus and the Art of Comedy

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 ... More

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

Electra’s Urns: Receptacles and Tragic Reception

Melissa Mueller

in Objects As Actors: Props and the Poetics of Performance in Greek Tragedy

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 ... More

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

Media for Interviewing Children

Kathleen Coulborn Faller

in Interviewing Children about Sexual Abuse: Controversies and Best Practice

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 ... More

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

Improvisation as Technique and Practice for Design

Kristian Kloeckl

in The Urban Improvise: Improvisation-Based Design for Hybrid Cities

This chapter explores the richness of practice-based frameworks and improvisation techniques in the performing arts. It illustrates how these can become a resource for an improvisation-based design ... More

This chapter explores the richness of practice-based frameworks and improvisation techniques in the performing arts. It illustrates how these can become a resource for an improvisation-based design approach by developing a concrete hybrid city application. Participatory design methods use improvisation to develop applications in collaboration with users. They attempt to unlock tacit kinds of knowing and gain firsthand appreciation of existing or future conditions by engaging participants and designers together in a concrete situation. In role-play techniques, for example, cards are handed to each participant that introduce the scene and contain information about rules associated with that specific scene, goals to be achieved, and the roles that participants enact.Less

Nothing Beside Remains

Aaron Jaffe

in The Way Things Go: An Essay on the Matter of Second Modernism

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 ... More

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

Trophies, Relics, and Props: The Life Histories of Objects

Philip Schwyzer

in Shakespeare and the Remains of Richard III

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 ... More

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

Using Props

Siu Wang-Ngai and Peter Lovrick

in Chinese Opera: The Actor's Craft

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.

Aesthetics, Repertoire, Roles, and Playbills

Nancy Yunhwa Rao

in Chinatown Opera Theater in North America

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 ... More

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

The Affluent Years: The Great China Theater, 1926–1928

Nancy Yunhwa Rao

in Chinatown Opera Theater in North America

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 ... More

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

Moving Cloth

George Oppitz-Trotman

in Stages of Loss: The English Comedians and their Reception

Clothes were the most important and expensive properties of an early modern theatre company. The first recorded performances of English professional actors on mainland Europe occurred in the context ... More

Clothes were the most important and expensive properties of an early modern theatre company. The first recorded performances of English professional actors on mainland Europe occurred in the context of a major crisis in the international cloth trade and efforts to form an international Protestant alliance. Known for their extravagant and luxurious clothing, the English Comedians took advantage of existing routes developed for the export and import of cloth. Extant dramatic adaptations of English plays associated with their tradition reflect the vital importance of textile stock to their performances and reception. Their reputation for sartorial extravagance involved the English Comedians in discourses of national loss: in the Holy Roman Empire, as in England, imported fine clothes were linked repeatedly to a diminishment of national treasure. Meanwhile, their comic tradition made extravagant use of the symbolic and physical properties of clothing. Although the formative importance of cloth economies to the early English professional theatre has been widely recognized, this chapter puts that dynamic into an international context for the first time.Less

The Iron Man Becomes a Veep

James K. Libbey

in Alben Barkley: A Life in Politics

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, ... More

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

From Dürer’s Angel to Harlow’s Monkey

Drew Daniel

in The Melancholy Assemblage: Affect and Epistemology in the English Renaissance

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 ... More

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

Overflowing Props: Philip Massinger's The Emperor of the East

Bradley D. Ryner

in Performing Economic Thought: English Drama and Mercantile Writing 1600-1642

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, ... More

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

Fire and Sword: Aphra Behn and the Materials of Authority

Christopher F. Loar

in Political Magic: British Fictions of Savagery and Sovereignty, 1650-1750

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 ... More

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