12244 research outputs found
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Everybody needs beauty: in search of the nature cure
No full textIn an effort to uncover the long cultural legacy of the ‘nature cure’... Walton sets off to explore landscapes associated with healing – from the miraculous waters of Lourdes, to a turn-of-the century wilderness retreat in Bethel, Maine, and from the experimental farm of Craiglockhart in Scotland to a laboratory simulating the experience of nature indoors. On her journey, she examines the history and science behind the pull of these spaces, as well as writers like Kate Chopin, John Muir and Nan Shepherd who engaged with them – and asks the important question of just what will happen to our relationship with nature in the face of a rapidly changing environment
Imparaticci
No full textThis solo exhibition focusses on a unique artist’s book that is a meditation on the craft of lace making. Inspired by research into the ‘white work’ embroidery collection held at the Cooper Hewitt Museum in NYC and the domestic lace samplers at the Museo del Merletto, Venice; the recent work combines pin-prick and pencil drawing, with tiny areas of collage, in addition to minutely detailed botanical studies.
Bonnell’s motifs refer both to lace pattern templates that are pricked with intricate details taken from nature and the repetitive rhythms of stitching, reflected in the work as tiny pencil marks. Imparaticci alludes to a colloquial Italian term for ‘learning about’ (and sometimes mending), a domestic task. The durational activity – of the meticulous making and mending of lace – is conveyed by the frayed edges of the book’s pages that have been ‘repaired’ by tiny collage patches
The talk of pram town
No full textIt's 1981. Eleven-year-old Sadie adores her beautiful and vibrant mother, Connie, whose dreams of making it big as a singer fill their tiny house in Leeds. It's always been just the two of them. Until the unthinkable happens.
Jean hasn't seen her good-for-nothing daughter Connie since she ran away from the family home in Harlow – or Pram Town as its inhabitants affectionately call it – aged seventeen and pregnant.
But in the wake of the Royal Wedding, Jean gets a life-changing call: could she please come and collect the granddaughter she's never met?
We all know how Charles and Diana turned out, and Jean and Sadie are hardly a match made in heaven – but is there hope of a happy ending for them
Social worker well-being: a large mixed-methods study
Get PDFSocial workers play a vital role in maintaining and improving the lives of the service users that they work with. Despite this, the role is replete with high levels of stress-related sickness absence, turnover intentions and low levels of jobs satisfaction in addition to poor working conditions. This study sought to further investigate working conditions in the UK social workers, as well as the reasons for these working conditions via a mixed-methods survey and interview study. A total of 3,421 responses were gained from the cross-sectional survey which looked at working conditions, perceived stress, job satisfaction and turnover intentions (both migration and attrition), with the semi-structured interview schedule (n = 15) based on survey findings and analysed via thematic analysis continuing through to saturation. Similar to 2018, results demonstrated poor working conditions, irrespective of job role, and regression analysis suggested each of demands, control, managerial support, role and change influenced stress. Qualitative results found that workload, lack of managerial support and service user/family abuse were distinct demands associated with the role, whereas buffering positive resources were the social work role, peer support and positive managerial support. Implications for managerial practice, and harnessing the positive experience of peer support, are discussed
The Feldenkrais Method® and a theater of enaction
No full textThis chapter discusses the application of the Feldenkrais Method as an enactivist, transformative process within theatre-training and performance-making contexts. It takes into account contemporary reflections on somatic-informed performance practices and developments in the field of theatre and cognition, and gives insight into an emerging working practice with professional and student actors. There has been an increase in literature on the Feldenkrais Method as a resource for actors’ training and practice, highlighting issues concerning performer-agency, skills acquisition and holistic communication. This is part of a trend in western actor training that embraces 20th century somatic practices as a resource for a holistic education. Such a trend recognizes movement as a fundamental agency-constituting experience, and parallels scholarly developments in actor training and theatre reception that draws on studies in cognitive sciences concerned with notions of autonomy, embodiment, kinesthetic empathy, imagination, and affect (Blair & Cook 2016)
Testing two retrieval strategies to enhance eyewitness memory: category and location clustering recall
Get PDFAsking eyewitnesses to provide an initial account using free recall strategies is a crucial procedure used in most investigative interviews (e.g. Cognitive Interview or PEACE model) allowing eyewitnesses to recall accurate and detailed information about the crime. Recent studies suggest clustering retrieval strategies like Category Clustering Recall (CCR) can also be effective for obtaining accurate information from eyewitnesses, and perhaps more effective than the change order mnemonic, a witness-compatible questioning, or a free recall task. This study compared how effective three retrieval strategies were (free recall, CCR, and a new retrieval strategy: Location Clustering Recall - LCR) for obtaining and initial account from eyewitnesses when used as the sole form of retrieval but combined with compatible preliminary instructions, mnemonics, and procedures that constitute best practice. We employed a between-subjects experimental design where 69 participants watched a mock robbery video and were interviewed 48 hours later with either a free recall, CCR, or LCR. Participants interviewed with CCR or LCR recalled a higher number of correct details, particularly person-related details. Participants interviewed with LCR also recalled a higher number of environmental details. Report accuracy was high, and similar, for all groups. This study provides further evidence of the ecological validity of CCR as well as initial evidence suggesting LCR might be an effective retrieval strategy as well. These retrieval strategies (CCR and LCR) might be particularly advantageous in situations where there are multiple crime-scene locations and/or the interviewer is particularly interested in obtaining information concerning environmental and person-related details
"My body shall pay recompense": the embodiment of Margaret in selected staged and televised cycles of the first tetralogy
Get PDFThis is a critical study of the body of Queen Margaret in performance in selected cycles of the first tetralogy (the three parts of 'Henry VI' and 'Richard III'). Focussing on four major British cycles (two by the Royal Shakespeare Company and two by the British Broadcasting Corporation), the study places each cycle within its cultural and theatrical or televisual context and analyses how these selected productions present Margaret and her theatrical mirrors, and how they embody (or refuse to embody) contemporaneous concepts of female transgression. The introduction provides an overview of the aims and objectives of the work and an introduction to the methodological approaches used. The first chapter analyses the presentation of Margaret's hair in production photographs from two Royal Shakespeare Company cycles either side of the sexual revolution (1963 and 1977), and creates a theorised performance history that explores how the cycles interacted with prevalent cultural ideas of female sexuality, as well as representing a change in Royal Shakespeare Company management. The second chapter examines Jane Howell's 1983 BBC cycle - part of the BBC/Time-Life complete works project - and how Howell used televisual and theatrical techniques to create a cycle that both literally and figuratively centred Margaret and her theatrical mirrors. The third and final chapter analyses Dominic Cooke's 2016 BBC cycle 'The Hollow Crown: The Wars of the Roses', and how the creative direction of the cycle, its star actors, and its existence in a time of large scale cinematically realistic and bombastic television, made for a cycle that both allowed characters to marginalise and use female bodies, and did so itself. The conclusion of the study draws together these analytical threads, and outlines how each of the approaches contribute to a larger critical study of the body of Margaret in performance
Real world risk in speculative fiction: how can cognitive poetics be applied to the design of sound-led text games which incorporate difficult information?
Get PDFThis thesis documents a research project that applies cognitive poetics to the writing, design and build of three playable prototypes that combine text with spatial sound. Each prototype tells a different part of one original work of speculative fiction, the theme of which is species extinction. In order to focus the research on how texts can incorporate difficult information, the prototypes are designed with reference to narrative transportation theory. Narrative transportation is a psychological framework for measuring how involvement in a story can cause persuasive information to be absorbed and beliefs to be changed.
Throughout the thesis, three main lines of enquiry are pursued; how cognitive poetics can be used to develop an understanding of the psychological processes involved in reading, how this understanding can be used to create a user-centred writing approach, and how cognitive poetics can be synthesised with sound design theory and practice to create narrative transportation.
In part one of the thesis, the psychological processes involved in narrative transportation are researched through the application of cognitive poetics to readings of multiple texts. A specific aspect of cognitive poetics - cognitive grammar - is explored in detail, allowing for a synthesis of theories of linguistic grammar with musical grammar and cinematic sound design practice.
The second part of the thesis documents the iterative design process used to make the prototypes. During this process, design questions are addressed through the application of cognitive poetics, cinematic sound theory and musical grammar to the practice of multimodal writing. The user interaction designed into these prototypes is also informed by research into narrative transportation
Sunderland gig
No full textThis book is the result of a collaboration between John Strachan and Michael Pennie, and reflects their shared passion for the North East of England