Spring 2007
March 26, 2007
Hannah Fox, Assistant Professor of Dance and Theatre just returned from teaching a week-long course at Queens University in Belfast, N. Ireland. The course, titled "The Articulate Body: Embodying Personal Narrative" was a collaboration between Queens University's Department of Drama Studies and the UK Playback Theatre School. The dance theatre practitioners in her workshop came from Ireland, Britain, Scotland, Norway, and Lithuania.
Hannah Fox, recently had a chapter entitled, “Playback Theatre,” published in the anthology Interactive & Improvisational Drama: Varieties of Applied Theatre & Performance, edited by Adam Blatner, with Daniel J. Wiener, with a forward by David Shepherd. In the book, thirty-two innovators share their approaches to interactive and improvisational drama, applied theatre and performance, addressing issues such as community-building, education, personal empowerment, social action, therapy, and recreation. The book emphasizes improvisation and interactivity with audiences, rather than the traditional modes of script, rehearsal, and production. A copy of the book is available in the Manhattanville Library.
March 22, 2007
David Lugowski, Associate Professor of English and Director of Communication Studies, recently had an essay appear in a refereed anthology, Film and Sexual Politics, edited by Kylo-Patrick Hart and published by Cambridge Scholars Press. The essay, “Queering 'Citizen Kane,'” analyzes Orson Welles' famous first feature as director in terms of gender and sexuality within the context of late Depression-era culture in the U.S. Beginning with the minor character of the "mannish" female librarian as a recognizable lesbian stereotype of the era, Lugowski produces a “queer” reading of the entire film. He considers Kane's failed relationships with women, his homo-social bonding with other men, his anal retentiveness and mother fixation, and such other characters as the excitable Italian opera coach, all in light of discourses about sexuality from the 1930s and the "crisis of masculinity" that the severe economic times engendered.
Professor Lugowski also recently served as a panel respondent at this year's Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference in Chicago. The panel, "Film and the Brass Section: Trumpeters, Divas and the Cavalry," featured papers examining gender issues relating to male and female trumpeters in cinema, the use of the term "brassy" to characterize Ethel Merman's singing style and star persona, and the roles that singing and music play in the Westerns of director John Ford.
March 12, 2007
Lisa Rafanelli, Assistant Professor of Art History, served last Februaryas chair and moderator of a conference session titled "The Thematization of the Senses in 16th Century European Art" at the 95th Annual College Art Association Conference in New York. Professor Rafanelli’s work has shown how traditional religious subjects, like the “Incredulity of Thomas” or "Noli Me Tangere," provided a field of discourse for artists to probe tensions among touch, hearing, and vision as the basis of understanding, and, ultimately, to celebrate the power of vision (and therefore, the image) to instill belief. The conference session expanded the inquiry – looking at religious and secular imagery, and a wide range of media – and dealt more broadly with how the senses were thematicized in the visual arts of sixteenth-century Europe, and how images participated in art-theoretical debates.
March 6, 20007
Alison Carson, Assistant Professor of Psychology, just returned from the annual conference of the Society for Cross-Cultural Research in San Antonio, TX. There she presented a paper entitled, “The Role of Acculturation, Ethnic Identity, and Culture in Women's Perceptions of Body.” The paper was co-authored by Laura McDowell and Vanessa Gibens, both senior Psychology majors, and GiaMarie Daino, a Manhattanville psychology graduate. The results of this research support the hypothesis that acculturation affects concepts of body and body dissatisfaction. Specifically, women who were more strongly identified with their ethnic cultures were more likely to rate heavy weight and large hips as more attractive.
February 19, 2007
Geoffrey Kidde, Assistant Professor of Music, had two compositions performed last semester by the Manhattanville Electronic Music Band: “Amphibius Folivorous” (1984; revised 2006) and the premiere of “Samsara” (2006) for flute and live electronics. During that semester, Professor Kidde, in the capacity of a flutist, joined forces with two Manhattanville faculty: flutist Harold Jones and conductor Elliot Magaziner in a performance of Domenico Cimarosa’s “Concerto in G major for Two Flutes” by the Manhattanville Orchestra. At the end of 2006, Professor Kidde completed “Samburan,” a three act opera based on Joseph Conrad’s novel, Victory.
February 16, 2007
Francis Brancaleone, Associate Professor of Music, was the featured pianist with violinist Riana Ricci Muller on a just-released instructional, three-disc DVD and CD series entitled: “Classical Music in the Italian Class, Classical Music in the French Class and Classical Music in the Spanish Class.” In addition to performances of compositions from the different regions, the discs contain background information on the composers as well as historical materials (including test questions), which music and language teachers may then develop in a cross-disciplinary, cooperative spirit.
February 13, 2007
Mary Ann Joyce-Walter, Professor of Music, received honorable mention last December, for her composition: “A Winter Fantasy” at the 3rd International Composers’ Competition in Kraków, Poland. The competition, sponsored by Kraków ‘s Jagiellonian University, involved 57 entries from composers of 19 countries. “A Winter Fantasy,” for string orchestra and solo flute, will be performed in the Krakow Botanical Garden on June 3, 2007.
Recently, a score by Professor Joyce-Walter was selected as one of the winning works from over 350 submissions, to be recorded and included in the upcoming volume of ERM Media’s critically-acclaimed compact disc series “Masterworks of the New Era.” “Cantata for the Children of Terezin,” a composition for orchestra and chorus, is based on the poetry of the children from the Theresianstadt concentration camp. ERM (Editions de la Rue Margot) is the US-headquartered French label showcasing international contemporary composers. The recording will take place in Prague in late February, with the Czech Philharmonic and the Kiev Chamber Choir.
February 12, 2007
Anthony Santucci, Professor of Psychology, along with Psychology major Erica Smith and Biology major Petra Majdak, presented a poster at the October 2006 annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Atlanta, GA. The presentation: “Residual effects of methylphenidate exposure during adolescence prevents amphetamine, but not cocaine, from inducing hyperactivity in rats,” summarized research conducted in Prof. Santucci's laboratory, examining the long-term effect of methylphenidate (Ritalin) and cocaine in adolescent animals. The findings indicated that methylphenidate produced long-term changes in motor activity levels that might be related to alterations in the brain neurochemical dopamine.