A post war poem, ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ snatches at the opportunity to put an abrupt end to political problems worldwide

A post war poem, ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est' snatches at the opportunity to put an abrupt end to political problems worldwide, and to avoid any sort of future World Wars. Poet Wilfred Owen shapes this poem around war and its consequences; this is a poem of deep, twisted, emotive imagery portrayed through intelligent poetic devices. The opening stanza draws the reader into the proverbial trench, ‘Bent double, like old beggars under sacks' – an example of accessible imagery, used through a simile. The following lines continue to create the atmosphere of war: ‘Coughing like hags, we cursed through the sludge', an unpleasant yet easily understandable occurrence. ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est' practically marches the reader to war by emphasising soldiers' hardships at war; travelling to a ‘distant rest', and ‘men march asleep', an effective metaphoric phrase, elaborated upon straight after, Owen states soldiers would be ‘drunk with fatigue', and even after they'd ‘lost their boots', they would ‘limp on, blood-shod, all blind' on this seemingly eternal and insignificant march. Wilfred Owen will have captivated any reader by now to see the poem through to it's end. This poem is of a standard much higher than Owen's other work, as well as many of its time. ‘An ecstasy of fumbling', ‘misty panes and think green light' and ‘a green sea' are all first-rate adjectival phrases portraying further visions of war. ‘And floundering like a man in fire or lime' paints a very descriptive and hideously detailed picture. This stanza's flow is excellent and the rhyme scheme and iambic pentameter really keeping a solid rhythm going. In a small break-off from the second stanza, we have stanza three, just two lines, acting as an anti climax, the predecessor to the final twelve line stanza; this couple of lines links with the previous stanza via its rhyme scheme, it ends with the emotive, meaningful line ‘He plunges at me, guttering, choking drowning' – repetition of ‘drowning' through rhyme, emphasis used to a great effect. This draws us into the ultimate chapter of ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est'. Stanza four is littered with intelligent and effective poetic devices in the way of similes and existential imagery. For instance ‘Like a devil's sick of sin', ‘obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud', two lines, and three similes manage to highlight the repulsive nature of war. Yet more simple yet informative adjectives and verbs paint pictures in the readers mind – ‘Watch the white eyes writhing in his face', sickening yet beautiful. This is followed by ‘If you could see †¦ with such high zest' – a five line cut from the stanza illuminates the poem with brilliance. ‘The blood coming from the froth-corrupted lungs', ‘obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud' and ‘vile, incurable sores' are three examples of emotive, negatively charged poetry. The poem then draws into its infamous close: ‘Dulce et decorum est †¦ Pro patria mori' – Latin, simply translated to â€Å"It's sweet and fitting to die for your country†. This is after playing down war for four convincing and vibrant stanzas. He dubs the saying an ‘old lie', a bold yet shockingly debatable declaration. This ending rounds off the poem impeccably; ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est' rhymes in alternating couplets and uses iambic pentameter in the right places, it's a near-perfect formula not to be missed out on. The poem begins with an introduction to trench warfare and goes on stating the hardships of war and life as a soldier followed by a poetic patch of high-quality description, it proceeds to finish drowning you in a sea of soldiers' sorrow. In a moment of bias, I have to input my own opinion on this piece; it is one of the more interesting pieces of poetry, not too bogged-down, the rhythm throughout the second stanza in particular is excellent. The poetic devices incorporated are done so as effectively as I've ever read, all the similes and metaphors already mentioned in this appreciation fully validate my statement. At the same time the poem doesn't overdo use of imagery and intelligent language, to the point it is so abstract it makes difficult, complicated reading. ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est' provides good balance, making it accessible and easy to relate to. Overall it's an impeccable, negatively charged protest against war, which leaves the timeless question: â€Å"Dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori† – Well?

Reading Strategies Essay

Reading is an essential skill in human life. People are trained to learn how to read at very early age and they read with many purposes such as reading for pleasure or reading to earn experience or simply to know what is happening around them. In academic setting, reading is assumed to be the central means for learning new information and gaining access to alternative explanations. Reading also provides people with the foundation for synthesis and critical evaluation skill. In addition, reading is the primary means for independent learning, whether the goal is performing better on academic tasks, learning more about subject matter, or improving language abilities (Grabe and Stoller, as cited in Celce-Murcia, 2001). However, according to Dr. Kathleen King (Reading Strategies, n. d. ) for students at college, reading is a new experience although they have been reading for more than 12 years at school or for pleasure. In addition, academic reading is not easy; therefore, it is extremely difficult for academic students to achieve complex goals without reading strategies. Supporting to this idea, (Hawkins, 1991, cited in Celce-Murcia) also said that â€Å"Of all the skills that the child must acquire in school, reading is the most complex and difficult†. Therefore, English Second Language students are surely unavoidable to face some problems. Firstly, learners may be good at understanding separate words or even each sentence, but fail to understand the relationships between the sentences and the meaning of the text as a whole. Next, they do not have necessary knowledge about what they read. And the most important problem is that they lack necessary reading strategies. English Second Language students need to learn reading strategies because their comprehension breaks down easily. They need different ways to approach reading to help facilitate the reading process and provide them with a better sense of what they are reading (Reading strategies for ESL Students, n. d. ). Reading strategies are the most effective means to help them deal with obstacles in reading and become a better reader. Furthermore, with practice, the strategies lead to skills that become automatic and quick over time (McNamara and Danielle, 2009). But for students at the college, reading is not simply to do the task and reading passage is often longer than it is at high school meanwhile not all of them know the reading strategies and how to use them effectively. So, teaching reading strategies for students becomes necessary. That is the reason why the researcher choose â€Å"reading strategies for academic students† as a topic to do the research with the hope of improving the effect of their reading. CHAPTER II: LITERATURE II. 1. Definition of Strategies Brown (2001) defined strategies as specific methods to solve a problem or task, as modes of activity to reach a particular end or intentional designs to control or manipulate certain information. He stated that strategies differentiate within an individual and that a person can use a variety of strategies to achieve his or her goal. Oxford (as cited in Oxford, 2003, p. 8) defined strategies as follows: â€Å"The word â€Å"strategies† comes from the ancient Greek word strategia, which means steps or actions taken for the purpose of winning a war. The warlike meaning of strategia, has fortunately fallen away but the control and directedness remains in the version of the word. † He believed that whether a strategy is helpful or not depends on the specific context in which it is appropriately used. In order to use a strategy effectively, learners have to consider three important conditions: whether the strategy relates well to the second language task at hand, whether the strategy fits the particular students’ learning style preferences to one degree or another, or whether the students employ the strategy and link it with other strategies well. II. 2. Distinction between Strategies and Skills Strategies can be defined as conscious actions that learners take to achieve desired goals or objectives, while a skill is a strategy that has become automatic. As learners consciously learn and practice specific reading strategies, the strategies move from conscious to unconscious; from strategy to skill (Nunan, 2003). Strategic reading is defined as the ability of the reader to use a wide variety of reading strategies to accomplish a purpose for reading (Nunan, 2003). Strategic reading means not only knowing what strategy to use, but knowing how to use and integrate a range of strategies (Anderson, 1991). II. 3. Difference Strategic Readers from Poor Readers (Reading Strategies, n. d. ) |1. Before Reading, Strategic Readers †¦ |Poor Readers †¦ | |? Build up their own background knowledge about reading and the |? Start reading without thinking about the process of reading or the| |topic |topic. | |? Set purposes for reading. |? Do not know why they are reading but merely view the task as | |? Determine methods for reading, according to their purposes. |â€Å"ground to cover†. | |2. During Reading, Strategic Readers †¦ |Poor Readers †¦ | |? Give their complete attention to the reading task. |? Do not eliminate distractions from reading. | |? Check their own understanding constantly. |? Do not know whether they understand. | |? Monitor their reading comprehension and do it so often that it |? Do not recognize when comprehension has broken down. | |becomes automatic. |? Seldom use fix-up strategies to improve comprehension. | |? Stop to use a fix-up strategy when they do not understand. |? Skip or ignore meanings of unfamiliar but crucial words. | |? Use semantic, syntactic, and graphophonic cues to construct |? Do not integrate text with prior knowledge. | |meanings of unfamiliar words. |? Read without reflecting on meaning or text organization | |? Synthesize during reading. | | |? Ask questions. | | |? Talk to themselves during reading. | | |3. After Reading, Strategic Readers †¦ |Poor Readers †¦ | |? Decide if they have achieved their goals for reading. |? Do not know what they have read. | |? Evaluate their understanding of what was read. |? Do not follow reading with comprehension self-check. | |? Summarize the major ideas. |? Rely exclusively on the author’s words. | |? Seek additional information from outside sources. |? Do not go beyond a surface examination of the text. | |? Distinguish between relevant and irrelevant ideas. |? Apply no conscious strategies to help them remember. | |? Paraphrase the text what they have learned. | | |? Reflect on and personalize the text. | | |? Critically examine the text. | | |? Integrate new understandings and prior knowledge. | | |? Use study strategies to retain new knowledge. | | II. 4. Some Methods for Teaching Reading Strategies Reading Strategies (n.d. ) separates reading lesson into three stages and has some ideas about activities for each stage. II. 4. 1. Before Reading activities should emphasize methods of merging reader, text, and content –enabling students to set appropriate reading purposes, recall related prior knowledge, preview and predict what the text will be about, and select reading methods to suit their purposes and the text. Included in these considerations may be readers’ decisions to expand their background knowledge through related discussion, exploration of key concepts, or related reading. II. 4. 2. During Reading: activities should enable students to monitor their comprehension through a variety of strategies and experience and acquire diverse fix-up strategies to improve their understanding where necessary. II. 4. 3. After Reading: activities should teach students to review their understanding of text, relate new ideas to their background knowledge, revisit the text to clarify and extend meanings, make responsible interpretations and criticisms of ideas from the text, revise their thinking, apply the information to other texts and disciplines, and remember crucial learning for future application. II. 5. Some Techniques for Teaching Reading Strategies Reading Strategies (n. d. ) also gives some techniques to teach reading strategies II. 5. 1. Some Techniques for Teaching Before-Reading Strategies Before reading, strategic readers: * Preview the text by looking at the title, the pictures, and the print in order to evoke relevant thoughts and memories. * Build background by activating appropriate prior knowledge through self –questioning about what they already know about the topic (or story), the vocabulary, and the form in which the topic (or story) is presented. * Set purposes for reading by asking questions about what they want to learn during the reading process. II. 5. 2. Some Techniques for Teaching During-Reading Strategies During reading, strategic readers: * Check understanding of the text by paraphrasing the author’s words. * Monitor comprehension and use fix-up strategies: use the cueing systems to figure out unknown words and imaging, imagining, inferencing, and predicting. * Integrate new concepts with existing knowledge: continually revise purpose for reading. II. 5. 3. Some Techniques for Teaching After-Reading Strategies. After reading, strategic readers: * Summarize what they have read by retelling the plot of the story or the main idea of the text. * Interpret and evaluate the ideas contained in the text. * Make applications of the ideas in the text to unique situations, extending the ideas to broader perspectives. * Use study strategies for note taking, locating, and remembering to improve content – area learning. II. 6. Kinds of Strategy Before students begin their next reading assignment, identify their purpose for reading. According to the reader’s different purposes, he or she will choose the appropriate reading style. Therefore, there are a variety of strategies. II. 6. 1. Study Reading The Study Reading is used when the readers intend to read difficult material at a high level of comprehension. This reading style says that because of the material at a high level of comprehension the readers should read the material more than once and sometimes reading the material aloud also improves their comprehension. (Becoming a Flexible Reader, n. d. ) II. 6. 2. Skimming When the reader’s purpose is to quickly obtain a general idea about the reading material, he or she is suggested to use skimming style. This strategy is extremely useful if the readers want to read a large amount of material in a short amount of time by two ways: identify the main ideas and ignore the details. (Becoming a Flexible Reader, n. d. ) II. 6. 3. Scanning Contrastively, the scanning style is used when their purpose is to quickly locate a specific piece of information within reading material. To scan, the readers mostly focus on a list of names, words, numbers, short statements, and sometimes even in a paragraph. (Becoming a Flexible Reader, n. d. ) II. 6. 4. SQRW. According to A Strategies for Reading Textbooks (n. d. ), it divides strategies into four-steps, called SQRW. Each letter stands for one step in the strategy. Using SQRW will help readers to understand what they read and to prepare a written record of what they learned. The written record will be valuable when readers have to participate in a class discussion and again when they study for a test. Read to learn what to do for each step in SQRW. ( Survey This strategy brings to mind what the readers already know about the topic of a chapter and prepares them for learning more. The readers do survey by reading the title, introduction, headings, and the summary or conclusion or they will examine all visuals such as pictures, tables, maps, and/or graphs and read the caption. By survey, the readers quickly learn what the chapter is about. ( Question Questions give the readers a purpose for reading and help them stay focused on the reading assignment. To form questions, the readers base on a heading and use the words who, what, when, where, why, or how. When a heading contains more than one idea, form a question for each idea. Do not form questions for the Introduction, Summary, or Conclusion. ( Read Read the information that follows each heading to find the answer to each question readers formed. They may change a question or turn it into several questions to be answered. Readers need to stay focused and flexible so they can gather as much information as they need to answer each question. ( Write Write each question and its answer in your notebook. Reread each of your written answers to be sure each answer is legible and contains all the important information needed to answer the question. CHAPTER III: APPLICATION III. 1. For Students Here are some suggestions for students to apply before, during and after-reading in order to become strategic readers. There are two things that students need to prepare before they read. First of all, it is the reading environment. Students had better to choose a quiet place which is far away from making noise. They would be distract by it and cannot concentrate well on what they read. Moreover, a place gives them an attitude to be ready to read. Besides the place, readers also pay attention to have small things as pen or paper in hand. These things help them take note immediately what they read on the text when the ideas come out in the mind before they quickly disappear. Before reading, firstly it is necessary for English Second Language students to set a goal for reading. This activity will keep them focus on what they read and prevent them from wandering around the text. Secondly, they should activate prior knowledge. It means that students brainstorm what they already know about the topic. Combination between prior knowledge and new text help them understand more about the topic. Last but not least, according to their purposes, they choose suitable methods for reading. Appropriate strategies help them read and achieve their goals quickly. While reading is the stage which students apply all their known strategies to read quickly but effectively. For example, strategic readers do not read the text from the beginning to the end; instead they skim it quickly to have an overview or to get main ideas about what they are going to read. It means that those students would read the introduction or every first line of each paragraph before going to read the whole passage. Next, when students read in detail, they should underline the information which they feel interested in and take notes or  highlight for easy to review important points later. In addition, it is important for students to remember to use what their background knowledge and their brainstorming about the text in before reading and see whether the old information fits the text, whether their prediction is correct or need changing. Moreover, if they have any difficulties with reading the text, slow down their reading speed and reread the information with more care. In case, it is too difficult to understand, highlight it for going back later, then skip it and move forward. Finally, college students are often required to read a lot with difficult vocabulary, so they should break down the assignment into many small sections, for example, ten pages for each reading times and manage to finish reading these sections instead of the whole. This strategy gives students more concentrated on what they read and prevents them from getting frustrated and disappointed. It is not simply to finish the reading task, learners should go beyond. And after reading is a stage for them to do so. First of all, students need to draw a conclusion. They turn back and think about what predictions they made before and during reading by reviewing the text. Also, they had better look back to consider how the information read related to their background knowledge and decide whether they achieve their goal. Secondly, students should take notes what they have read by writing a summary. This summary contains the main ideas, the important information or simply just a list of ideas getting from the reading. This activity is very helpful for the readers to maintain new knowledge for later use. Lastly, this stage also gives students a chance to discuss what they do not understand about the text. Students will mark anything that makes them confused and bring it to class and talk with their friends in order to clarify it. III. 2. For the Reading Teachers It takes a long time for students to become strategic readers and reading teachers play an important role in helping their students read quickly but effectively. Therefore, teachers are suggested to take these considerations. First of all, teachers themselves need to have a full awareness of great benefits which strategies could bring to their students, then the introduction of strategies, their practice, and their uses should be part of  every reading lesson because a strategy can be only applied well when teachers frequently explain, model it carefully, then give them enough opportunities to practice. However, for any approach to strategy development, teachers should remember to introduce only a few strategies at a time until students feel confident to use the strategies. And in each reading lesson, separate application of each strategy does not give a lot of help, so teachers should encourage students to combine some strategies together to get the best results. Moreover, teachers should be well-prepared the lesson beforehand. The aim of this preparation is to figure out which strategies are used in the lesson, then the teachers will carefully prepare suitable activities for each stage of a reading lesson. For example, in before-reading stage, teachers give activities such as True/ False Prediction, Brainstorming to help students have some general ideas about what they are going to read. For while-reading stage, teachers use Answer the Questions, Choose the Main Ideas to check their comprehension. For after-reading stage, the activities could be Summary, Discussion or Retelling what they have read. Additionally, when reading process takes place, reading teachers monitor the students’ expertise and independent application of the strategies. If there are many students feeling unsure about using the strategies, teachers stop their work, reintroduce and give them more practice. Finally after every reading times, teachers ask students to record their ability in applying strategies to assess their own growth. CHAPTER IV: CONCLUSION During teaching process, most of reading teachers give more time and emphasis on testing reading comprehension than teaching readers how to comprehend. Therefore, this small research has been done to offer an overview of different strategies to reading and application for practice. All of strategies can be brought into play in an efficient way in the teaching and acquiring reading skill. Simultaneously, it helps both teachers and students recognize the significant advantages of mastering reading strategies. With careful discussion about most of strategies used in three main reading stages: before, during and after reading, hopefully this research is a source of reference for reading teachers and students. REFERENCES A Strategies for Reading Textbooks, (n. d. ). Retrieved December 3rd, 2010 from http://www. how-to-study. com/study-skills/en/studying/40/a-strategy-for-reading-textbooks/ Anderson, N. J. (1991). Individual Differences in Strategy Use in Second Language Reading and Testing. Modern Language Journal, 75: 460-472. Becoming a Flexible Reader, (n. d. ). Retrieved December 3rd, 2010 from http://www. how-to-study. com/study-skills/en/studying/33/becoming-a-flexible-reader/ Brown, H. D. (2001). Teaching by principles- An interactive approach to language pedagogy. (2nd ed. ). NY: Longman, pp 384-387. Dr. Kathleen King, (n. d. ). Reading Strategies, Lecture from University. Retrieved December 14th, 2010 from http://www. isu. edu/~kingkath/readstrt. html Grabe, W. , Stoller, F. L. (2001). Reading for Academic Purpose: Guidelines for the ESL/ EFL Teacher, In Celce-Murcia, M. (Ed. ), Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language. (3rd ed). Boston: Heinle, pp. 187-204. Hawkins, B. , (2001). Teaching Children to Read in a Second Language. In Celce-Murcia, M. (Ed. ), Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language. (2rd ed). Boston: Heinle. McNamara, Danielle S. (2009). The importance of teaching reading strategies, The Perspectives on Language and Literacy. Retrieved December 14th, 2010 from http://findarticles. com/p/articles/mi_7694/is_200904/ai_n32423755 Nunan, D. (Ed. ) (2003). Practical English Language Teaching. Singapore: McGraw Hill. Oxford, R. L. (2003). Language Learning Styles and Strategies. Retrieved February 28, 2008, from web. ntpu. edu. tw/~language/workshop/read2. pdf Reading Strategies, (n. d. ). Retrieved December 10th, 2010 from http://98. 130. 215. 11/articles/6%20Strategic%20Reading. pdf.

Fair goal Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Fair goal - Essay Example me matches without selling it for the club or taking any money from them because if they saw it in the match we can also tell the other club to check it while we are using it in this match so they can know what is it and how it works. There was something like our product before but smaller and it was like a small electronic device inside the ball and if it pass the line will make a sound but they couldnt make it and they lost their product and their money.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Competitors in this product will be few or no Competitors because as we said before it is new thing and no one tried it before. This is a great advantage to this, as it means we d not have to worry about having a unique seeing point or a strategy that is better than others. But we are afraid of one thing which is : What if someone after he saw our product try to make something like our product ? This is possible as all it takes is the idea for somebody to see and then claim it as their own and try to market it and make a profit for themselves. This will make us in big trouble because maybe he has support more than us or he have relations with people in the clubs and he can destroy us quickly and we will lose everything. This would be extremely bad for us in every way. But if we work fast and try our product in the small leagues and stay away from the big leagues we will be in the safe side and there will not be as much of a risk. We only want to make for us a name and to make the people know our products so when we get the chance to try it in the big leagues they will know it and will buy it from us. Because if we start in the Big league no one will try us but we can make a deal with one of the big clubs in the world like Barcelona and Real Madrid and we pay them some money to let us try our product in some of their matches so the people know about it more. So we want to start small and lower risks, and then if we are successful, we can then try bigger ventures and bigger clubs. The Strengths ,

How the Metropolol Works Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

How the Metropolol Works - Essay Example The essay "How the Metropolol Works" presents the overview of a medication form that is applied in the treatment of diseases and ailments affecting the cardiovascular system. The drug Metropolol can be administered in two forms which may result in instant response since it is injected directly into the blood and that which does not yield instant response in the body. The medical formulation can be used on it or in a mixture with other medicines in order to contain high blood pressure. It is further used in the treatment of angina which is a condition in which a patient experiences severe chest pain due to stress. The condition is heightened by a low flow of blood especially through the blood vessel situated in the heart. The medication increases the chances of survival after a person has experienced a heart attack. It is important to understand that Metropolol operates in the body by causing relaxation of the blood vessels as well as lowering the heart rate in order to improve the flow of blood. The medication can be used in the prevention of a migraine from starting or when it attacks. A migraine is defined as a recurrent and throbbing form of a headache that attacks only one side of the head which is usually accompanied by nausea as well as disturbed vision. Under higher dosage, the medication can lead to drowsiness, diarrhea, dizziness, unusual fatigue, difficulty in sleep, depression, the problem with vision as well as ataxia which is defined by a lack of proper coordination of the movements of the muscles.

Why numbers matter Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Why numbers matter - Essay Example The principles concerned with managing money are important to be taken into account while planning to save or invest money somewhere. To discuss and understand these principles, an article from Msnbc The Bottom Line dated November 06, 2011, ‘After steadying, home prices begin falling again’ has been taken into account which entails the scenario of the United States’ real estate industry. The author of the article tells about the falling prices of homes in the United States which were on a steady trend in the summer of 2011. He says that due to the imbalance between demand and supply, there are numerous houses unsold in many states of the US until the end of September 2011. This price fall is being observed by investors and analysts and they are waiting for these to be bottomed that is a rise is being expected after massive falls, though not in the short term. Considering the poor interest rates of US short term Treasury Bills; 0.005% for 3-months and 0.035% for 6-month bills as per the recent auction; this investment aspect has been kept on a farer side by many investors as the rate of return is minimal. Considering this point, other investment opportunities should be searched for. This shows that it is a nice time to buy some lower priced houses and benefit from the capital gains arising in the future, though not in the short term (Schoen, 2011). Taking control of finances is very crucial and an investor should read about some financial trends using mathematical concepts such as percentages and shares in different investments and then take calculated actions. This leads to the understanding of the compounding concept. Just as an investor determines the amount of investment he or she can do, he must take into account the related rate of return and use it to compound his or her future inflows from the investment over the concerned time period. The simple formula for it to be calculated is: Amount of investment * (1 +

How James Joyce Influenced the Opinion of The Readers Through Essay

How James Joyce Influenced the Opinion of The Readers Through Symbolisms In His Book The Dubliners - Essay Example The Dubliners by James Joyce is probably one of the few books that leave a lasting impression on the readers. Centered on the theme of paralysis and decay, this book leaves a strong impression on the readers with the use of symbolism and colors. The book is structured in such a way to show how the citizens eventually become trapped in the society of Dublin Ireland (Stone 1990). Written at the time when nationalism was at its peak in Ireland, â€Å"The Dubliners† give us a glimpse of how Joyce perceived the events in Ireland at that time. The point this work of Joyce wants to drive in the minds of his audience is that Dublin is the epitome of paralysis (Levin 1993) and the people in this society are suffering from decay (Friedrich 1990). True enough; the stories in the book are filled with disappointments, frustrations, the feeling of helpless and darkness. The book itself is divided into four parts namely, childhood, adolescence, maturity and public life (Levin 1993) which mak e it easier for the readers to focus on the type of character that the book in trying to portray. Technically, one can read through â€Å"The Dubliners† and treat it as a realistic and straightforward tales of every life filled with disappointments and failures or read the story at the symbolic level thereby interpreting the scenes and the characters of the story thereby transcending into another plane of understanding of the life in Dublin at the time the book was written. For the purpose of this paper, let us take the second option and try to understand how the symbolisms and settings in the book influence the perceptions of the readers and how these settings and symbolisms help the reader form a conclusion at the end of the story.

Reading Film Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Reading Film - Essay Example The film is a superb blend of sexuality and racial prejudice. The film captivates one of the brilliant performances by Juliana Moore. With a vulnerable emotion and strength of mind, she portrays the emotion of a housewife whose spouse has a covert gay life. It’s amazingly true that a movie like ‘Far From Heaven’ has that stylish finish along with tremendous emotional compulsion. This is a rare blend indeed and the greatest achievement with this particular film is the immaculate compatibility between the crew and the stars that make every moment of the movie artificial As well as deeply felt. (Indiana University, n.d.) In a film like ‘Far From Heaven’, the ambience of the narrative and the projection of the theme are never obvious. Yet, the film slowly enchants its spectators and one doesn’t need to wait for long to experience complete entwinement with the film. The film is extremely sensitive and far from being a mere domestic melodrama of Whittaker family, the movie is a strong portrayal of myriad social consideration that transports the film to a realm of difference from the ordinary movies of the same genre. Picking up a particular scene from the movie with so many emotionally exuberance is very difficult. Yet, the scene which forms the most sensitive and most climactic scene of the entire film demands a detailed description. The scene to be noted is where Cathy Whittaker, played by Julianne Moore finds her man Frank, played by Dennis Quaid, in the arms of his gay partner. Undoubtedly, Moore reaches the league of the contemporary actresses after this brilliant performance. The language of camera transcends any narrative incorporated in this scene and the feeling and the expression of Moore is equally mind-blowing. The cinematography, score implementation of light editing and sets make it a complete visual. The visual effect used at the backdrop of the scene makes it so compatible with the

Learning from the past Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Learning from the past - Essay Example Global warming seems to be one of the biggest threats to humanity in today’s world, because if we allow it to continue without taking any measures, the consequences can be catastrophic. Global Warming Global warming phenomenon has been around for a considerable period of time. Its history can be dated back to the 1880s. People in that period, had come to realize that burning fossil fuels such as coal, results in the emission of Carbon dioxide gas and other harmful gases, which can damage the earth’s atmosphere. The concept of greenhouse effect was initiated during that period; the greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide when released into the earth’s atmosphere aid in the depletion of the ozone layer which can increase the earth’s temperature, thus causing major climatic changes. During the early 1900s, increase in the temperature of the earth was even recorded by the scientists and considerable thought was given to this phenomenon that was global warming. (Richard Courtney) The swift industrialization that started in the 1800s contributed a lot to the warming of the planet. It was the first time that people had started to burn fossil fuels in such large quantity to produce energy, which led to the emission of various harmful gases and waste into the atmosphere, and damaged the ozone layer surrounding the earth. This was the one major drawback of industrialization, which although had changed the situation around the world. Rapid deforestation and burning of coal and gases has led to the fast reduction in non-renewable sources of energy, as well as contributed greatly to global warming. During the start of industrialization, many people did not really understand the amount of damage that was being done to the atmosphere, until the scientists actually started to carry out tests and investigations, which showed them they are indeed endangering the planet with their activities. The concept was derived that the people were beginning to pu sh the earth’s resources to the maximum limit. Trees were, and still are, being cut down at a rapid rate to produce energy, and so were coal and other fossil fuels. Nature had been patient for some time with the continuous damage being done to the environment, but for some time now it has started to show signs of impatience. This had to happen because constant meddling with the earth’s natural cycle had to have negative consequences, which have resulted in global warming. This is basically a rise in the temperature of the earth, leading to climatic changes such as melting of ice caps in the northern regions. This can result in massive floods, plus the colder regions will get colder, while warmer regions will get warmer. The balance has been disturbed and it will be really difficult to put it back. Average temperature readings of the earth, taken every once in a while, have showed that the temperature of the earth is spiking; though at a small rate, it is still dangerou s. (How it began?) Though global warming has been on the go since the 1800s, measures have been taken continuously to reduce it, without being so harsh on the world’s economy. In 1987, an act was passed by Montreal Protocol of the Vienna Convention, which banned the releasing of the harmful gases into the atmosphere, which can damage the earth’

ENGLISH LEGAL SYSTEM Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words - 3

ENGLISH LEGAL SYSTEM - Essay Example Solicitors were more concerned with office work such as the preparation of contracts for clients. Since 1991, solicitors with a little extra qualification have been allowed to act as advocates before the highest courts. On the other hand, barristers can now deal directly with professional clients without the intervention of a Solicitor. Many commentators believe that the two legal professions, once almost entirely separate, are slowly entering a state of gradual fusion as both are training and qualifying themselves to serve in the capacity of the other. Solicitors require a practicing certificate if they are to be involved in legal work. An exception is made for those in local government, commerce and industry. In 1996 there were 8702 firms of solicitors in England and Wales which earned at least  £15,000 per annum, with 4,377 of those firms classified as sole practitioners.1 There are also Legal Executives who qualify separately from both Barristers and Solicitors. Legal Executives carry out lower-level procedural or transactional work and must work under the supervision of a Solicitor. These functionaries are classified as paralegals in other countries. The practice of having Licensed Conveyancers started in 1986. They work separately from solicitors and are focused on domestic property transactions. The profession has its own system of qualification. The legal profession is largely self-regulated. The chief methods of regulation are; restrictions on entry, restrictions on advertising and other means of promoting a competitive process within the profession and restrictions on fee competition. The associations that regulate the practice of legal professionals are largely independent of government control. The main tool for regulation of the legal profession comprises the limitations imposed on who may enter into the legal profession. To become a solicitor one must take one of two degree routes or,

Critical Thinking and Ethics Essay Example for Free

Critical Thinking and Ethics Essay Critical thinking is a concept that is derived from the application of the cognition toward the separation of the most likely when one is presented with a set of possibilities, while ethics is used in reference to the perception of what is right or wrong in a defined situation (wisegeek.com). A relationship between critical thinking and ethics can be seen in the sense that the individual will have to think of several methods for approaching the issue of ethics, eliminating the most likely approach until he or she settles on that which will be the most acceptable for the situation. Another way of viewing the issue of the link between critical thinking and ethics is by considering the manner in which an individual can differentiate between his or her own personal ethical concepts and that of the organization. That is to say that people have their own ethical foundations that they must be able to categorize in a separate compartment from that of the organization (wisegeek.com). The principles and rules of critical thinking are applicable to ethical reasoning. One reason is because ethical reasoning is also culturally and religiously influenced and may at times suffer from misreading the environment or the desired accomplishments of actions. In addition, there are certain rules and guidelines of logic. If everyone followed the rules and guidelines of logic, there would still be a need for ethical decision-making. The reason is because morals and beliefs, such as religion or nonreligious beliefs, play a role in rules and guidelines of logic. In conclusion, critical thinking and ethics play a significant role in an individual’s critical thinking, morals and beliefs. Although the relationship between the two have many similarities, it is important that we have a clear understanding of the differences as well. References Ruggiero, V. R. (2012). Thinking critically about ethical issues. (9th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: McGraw-Hill Education. Retrieved from

Benefits of Social Media Recruitment

Benefits of Social Media Recruitment With the advent of social media, companies have more information than ever on job candidates, and the process of evaluating those candidates can be lengthy. In the past, companies tried to determine candidate fit through their rà ©sumà ©s. Today, employers perform web searches on candidates, learn more about them from social media, and examine their work samples. These processes introduce noise and are potentially risky the Protected Class issue Id mentioned before often leading to inconsistent results as well. Also, it is a challenge to derive useful information, such as passion around a particular technology or relevant professional connections. To ensure no ethical or legal boundaries are crossed, our proprietary technology removes the noise, such as Protected Class data, ensuring both the privacy of the job seeker is protected while helping the employer get a better perspective on the best candidates for the position. Companies are increasingly using  social recruiting  t o source candidates for employment, as well as to investigate applicants they are considering hiring. Its important to be aware of how companies are using social media to recruit, so you can use employers recruiting tactics to your advantage and position yourself to be discovered by companies seeking candidates. A new survey released by  Jobvite, a company that provides applicant tracking software, shows that 92% of employers are using or planning to use social networks for recruiting this year. This is up slightly from last year at 89%. The study retrieved insights from over 1,000 companies, mostly based in the U.S., in a wide variety of industries. Social networks are viewed by corporations as a means to recruit both passive and active candidates in a personal yet professional way. Companies such as  Ernst Young  Ã‚  are building employer brands on social networks to position themselves as the best place to work and to interact with potential candidates. Aside from passively marketing their companies, recruiters are messaging prospects directly, getting introduced through connections and posting jobs in groups. They are using these networks to fish where the fish are. Here are some more details regarding how recruiters are using the top three social networks, and how you can best shape your profiles and posts to increase your chances of getting hired. 1. LinkedIn.  Nearly all (93%) of recruiters are using LinkedIn to discover talent. This is up from 87% in 2011 and 78% in 2010. Furthermore, 89% of recruiters have hired through LinkedIn. LinkedIn was made for recruiting, and the site has an entire suite of recruiting solutions.  LinkedIn Recruiter  allows recruiters to reach passive candidates by expanding the reach of their personal networks, contact candidates directly and manage a pipeline of talent. The smart advice is to fully utilize LinkedIn in your job search. Its essential to have to have a flawless (and completely filled-out) profile so that recruiters take you seriously. You should also optimize your profile by adding specialty keywords into your headline (for example eCommerce and Social Media Expert), summary, and throughout the rest of your profile so that when recruiters search for candidates with certain skills, you come up. I also recommend that you join industry groups to connect with recruiters that are loo king for industry-specific candidates. 2. Facebook.  Out of the three networks, Facebook saw the biggest gain in overall usage by recruiters to find job candidates, moving from 55% in 2011 and 2010, to 66% today. One in every four recruiters has successfully found a candidate on Facebook. Companies are using Facebook to discover talent and arent hiring directly from the site. But they are creating Facebook pages and promoting them, as well as jobs, through the  Facebook Ads  platform. Recruiters are using Facebook groups, advertising and their corporate Facebook careers page in order to source candidates. For instance, Marriotts Jobs and Careers page has an application that lets you run your own Marriott Hotel kitchen, which increases their page engagement and attracts more people to like the company. As a job seeker, you have to make sure youve turned on your privacy settings, are careful what you post regardless, and youre tapping into your friend network to get referrals. You can also use the BranchOut or BeKnown applications to map job openings to your network. If nothing else, you should like a company so you can follow updates and comment. 3. Twitter.  More than half of recruiters (54%) now use Twitter as part of their talent search. This is up from 47% in 2011 and 45% in 2010. Only 15% of recruiters surveyed have actually hired a candidate through Twitter. Companies are using Twitter to post job entries through their own accounts (i.e.  CitiJobs). They are also using third party companies, such as  Tweet My Jobs  and  Twit Job Search, to promote their listings. Job seekers should follow companies they want to work for on Twitter and watch out for job listings, while also interacting via Twitter with employees who work there. Again, its important to have a strong profile and several Tweets under your belt before you start truly utilizing Twitter to help you pursue work. If Im a recruiter, Social media can be a great source for discovering passive candidates those who are employed but open to changing jobs for the right opportunity who represent nearly half of all currently employed talent. Because the desired opportunities rarely exist on job boards, and job seekers are participating in communities all over the web (sites like GitHub for engineering talent, for example), social media can become a fascinating place for employers to find talent that they may not be able to find otherwise. At Reppify, we simplify this process even further by first identifying this talent and then connecting with this talent to suggest those candidates who best match against specific job criteria. If Im a job seeker, Leveraging your network wherever possible is key. The average user on a network such as LinkedIn, for example, has around 200 connections. With hiring on the rise again, job seekers will need to use their connections to help get ahead of the competition and get through to those jobs where they are most qualified. Soon, this will also begin working in reverse as employers adopt new technology and tools, those right jobs will begin to find you. ADVANTAGES OF UTILIZING SOCIAL MEDIA IN TERMS OF RECRUITMENT: It is more efficient. Organizations can use social media to tap potential recruits much more easily by advertising vacancies and searching for recruits on LinkedIn, for example. However, LinkedIn and other social media applications can actually be used for much more than simply a job post site. Indeed, social recruiting can be used to increase effectiveness and forge new and deeper relationships between employees and employers. Rather than simply recruiting the person with the best-looking CV, social media can ensure that that person is also the best fit for the company. Technology is essentially being used to provide better quality links to potential employees, developing and maintaining a relationship over a number of years, which can be tapped in to at later date. There are a number of ways in which this can be done, for example, LinkedIn, Facebook and other social networks offer the chance to form a community based on a topic determined by the organization. However, while an organization like Goldman Sachs globally invests over 100,000 hours each year in conversations with prospective employees, it is not always practical for organizations to put this much effort into their recruitment. That said, social media does make it simple for any organization to proactively develop some kind of relationship with potential employees to the best if its ability.  Ã‚   Social media applications are also being used to rate and compare employees, determine cultural fit and extend internal initiatives, like the referral scheme, to an external audience and using social media to compliment their hiring process: 75 percent are using LinkedIn for background checks and 48 percent are using Facebook for background checks. In fact, more than two-thirds of all HR professionals now run internet searches on job applicants. According to Microsoft, one in four HR employees has rejected a candidates application based on their social networking profile, while only 37 percent of people see it as their responsibility to protect their online reputation.   Top 10 tips for social media recruitment: Rip up the old organizational chart:  The corporate social media function crosses disciplines. The customer service, public relations, marketing and sales teams, they all have a stake in how the social media function impacts daily operations. Dont give the job to the junior staffer:  British furniture retailer Habitat learned a hard lesson in 2009: dont entrust the brands Twitter feed to an impudent intern. Since the infamous hash tag incident, in which Habitat tried to spam the Twitter verse by using trending hash tags from the Tehran protests, companies have started putting a dedicated, always-staffed Dont outsource:  This is a job thats far too vital to be placed in the hands of an outside agency. The insights that come with speaking directly to customers is crucial feedback that can better inform a companys sales, PR and marketing functions, plus product development and innovation.   Give the social media team the power to report to the board:  The social media outreach team has a finger on the pulse of customers, prospective customers and critics. This is vital detail that needs to be communicated as far up the management chain as possible.   Be prepared:  A lone gripe posted to Facebook, Twitter or on a blog can quickly become a PR nightmare. Have a response strategy drafted up and be ready to use it. Find your voice:  Veteran journalists speak of the need to develop a resonant voice, one that puts the reader at ease, entertains and informs. Its no different with your social media communications strategy.   Be courteous, professional and respectful:  This is a medium that gives some companies fits because they do not know how to respond to customers venting their frustration. Take the high road.   Treat each gripe as an opportunity to learn:  In the old days you had to organize focus groups, promising them tea and biscuits, to learn what the public thought of you and your products and how you conduct business. Now, that detail is available without strings.   Monitor, monitor, monitor:  What is the public saying about you? About your competitors? You need to listen intently before you can begin to engage, and ultimately, transform your brand into a more transparent and socially adept organization. Reasons Social Recruiting Beats Traditional Recruiting Recruiting top talent has always been a challenge. But with new social recruiting tactics, many companies are turning to online communities and platforms to source candidates quicker and easier. 1. Making Human Resources Human Again, Digitally: Social recruiting has a major advantage over traditional recruiting: its more human. Compared to the post a job; wait for hundreds of resumes; let ATS filter through keywords; never get back to anyone process many use today, social recruiting is a transparent, active approach where only the best candidates are sourced. In addition, recruiters can determine first impressions and cultural fit even perform a bit of a background check before approaching the candidate. 2. Ability to Connect with Top Talent Now: Social recruiting has made it possible to interact directly with job candidates. These days, the best candidates are easily found online and recruiters can weed out job seekers who are not a match for the position in a simpler way. Use social media outlets to find recommendations from previous employers can save you time you might have spent contacting references and former employers. 3. Leads to Better Connections Faster: In the traditional hiring process, it could be several rounds of resume reviews and phone screens before applicants and employers got to really connect on a personal level. Thanks to social media and video interviews, this connection is happening more instantaneously and with less time wasted. Now employers can see if a candidate will be a good match for the company sooner, helping both job seekers and hiring managers save valuable time and resources in the search for the perfect fit. 4. Make Your Job Openings Go Viral: The prime advantage of social recruiting vs. traditional recruiting is that social recruiting allows your job openings to have viral qualities. Viral qualities can include the language of your job description, the visuals you use, engaging or funny videos, and social connect ability features. You cant use any of these tools with traditional recruiting and why wouldnt you want to? 5. Helps You Get to Know More About the Candidate Than Just Whats on Paper: While social recruiting does have its challenges (its a legal compliance nightmare if done incorrectly), it helps you learn more about a person and their demeanor. Social recruiting lets you engage with candidates and assess not just their skills but their personality and ability to fit with the culture of your organization. 6. Discovering Candidates Who Want to Be Discovered: Companies are increasingly using social recruiting to source candidates for employment, as well as to investigate applicants they are considering hiring. Its important to be aware of how to use social media to recruit to discover candidates that have positioned themselves to be discovered. Social recruiting allows you to see how the candidate represents themselves and what companies they are connected with. 7. Allows Recruiters to Connect With Talent in a More Informal, Engaging Manner: Social recruiting allows talent acquisition professionals to engage with a community of talent in a more informal, engaging manner versus Were hiring, youre great, lets talk.   Ultimately, what were trying to do is initiate a dialogue and information exchange with people and social channels are an excellent way for this to happen. 8. Relationship-Driven Connections: Social recruiting supports the development and maintenance of relationships that can reach far beyond the immediate hiring need. By connecting and interacting with candidates through social channels, recruiters are able to create real connections and build relationships with interested individuals. You never know who may turn into a great new hire in the future! 9. Availability of Relevant Candidate Data: The combination of the quantity and quality of relevant candidate data in social networks is a game changer. Social connections are now mapped out in a way that makes it possible for employers to supercharge the referral process like never before. Employees dont have to conjure up candidates social networks can present quality referrals with a single click. CONCLUSION According to the research on this topic I do think that the use of social media by employers will continue to be the trend; and while there will be instances of Facebook password requests of candidates by potential employers so they can examine their profiles for objectionable content, these will likely remain edge cases. Most employers will pursue intelligent policies that effectively leverage relevant information from social media, such as project work on an open-source engineering site, to select the top qualified candidates.

Antonin Scalia :: essays research papers fc

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was born on March 11, 1936 in Trenton, New Jersey to a Sicilian immigrant father and an Italian-American mother and was raised in Queens. He attended Catholic schools in New York City as a child and teen. Scalia then attended Georgetown University, spending his junior year at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland, and graduated at the top of his class with an A.B. (Sorry, I don’t know what that means) in 1957. He also attended Harvard, serving as the editor for Law Review. Scalia graduated from Harvard in 1960. On September 10, 1960, Scalia married Maureen McCarthy, and the two went to go live in Cleveland, Ohio. While in Cleveland, Scalia was admitted to the Ohio Bar and worked for the law firm of Jones, Day, Cockley, and Reavis until 1967. The Scalias then moved to Virginia, and he was admitted to the Virginia Bar in 1970. While In Virginia, Scalia taught law at the Virginia Law School until 1974. In 1971, Scalia became General Counse l of the Office of Telecommunications Policy for the White House, and from 1972 to 1974, he was the chairman of the Administrative Conference of the US. Scalia was then appointed the assistant attorney general of the Office of Legal Counsel for the Department of Justice. In 1977, Scalia returned to teaching after 6 months serving as the resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in DC. Him and his family picked up and moved again to Chicago, Illinois. While In Chicago, Scalia taught at the University of Chicago’s law school (he was also a visiting professor of law at his alma mater, Georgetown University, and also at Stanford University during that time) until President Ronald Reagan appointed him to the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit in 1982. Scalia took his oath of office on August 17 of that year. Four years after Scalia began working at the Court of Appeals, President Reagan then chose him to be an associate justice of the Supreme Court. The Senate conf irmed Reagan’s appointment on September 17, and Scalia took his oath of office on the 26th of that month. In the year 2000, Scalia has made decisions in two Supreme Court cases, Troxel vs. Granville and California Democratic Party vs. Jones. I will discuss the Troxel vs. Granville case. Troxel vs. Granville is in violation of "The Washington Rev.

William Blakes The Tyger Essay -- The Tyger Philosophy Literature Pap

William Blake's The Tyger Terror, in the eighteenth century, was commonly considered the highest manifestation of sublimity. "Indeed," writes Edmund Burke in his Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757), "terror is in all cases whatsoever, either more openly or latently, the ruling principle of the sublime."(1) In Section VII of his aesthetic treatise, Burke tries to explain why this is so: "Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain, and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime; that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling" (39). The chief effect of the sublime, according to Burke, is "astonishment"--"that state of the soul, in which all its motions are suspended, with some degree of horror," and in which "the mind is so entirely filled with its object, that it cannot entertain any other" (57). These effects are produced when we contemplate dangerous objects which we know cannot harm us. Burke finds examples of this that immediately bring William Blake's poem "The Tyger" to mind: "We have continually about us animals of a strength that is considerable, but not pernicious. Amongst these we never look for the sublime: it comes upon us in the gloomy forest, and in the howling wilderness, in the form of the lion, the tiger, the panther, or rhinoceros" (66). "The Tyger" is, indeed, a poem that celebrates the effects of that sublimity which Burke calls "the concomitant of terror" (66). In this aspect, the poem is reminiscent of one of Blake's Proverbs of Hell: "The roaring of lions, the howling of ... ...lake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, British Literature: 1780-1830, ed. Anne K. Mellor and Richard E. Matlak (Forth Worth: Harcourt Brace, 1996) 289. back (3) William Blake, "The Tyger," British Literature: 1780-1830, ed. Anne K. Mellor and Richard E. Matlak (Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace, 1996) 301. All further quotations from this poem are given parenthetically in the text by line number. back (4) William Blake, "The Little Girl Lost," British Literature: 1780-1830, ed. Anne K. Mellor and Richard E. Matlak (Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace, 1996) 282. back (5) William Blake, "The Lamb," British Literature: 1780-1830, ed. Anne K. Mellor and Richard E. Matlak (Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace, 1996) 278. back (6) William Blake, "The Divine Image," British Literature: 1780-1830, ed. Anne K. Mellor and Richard E. Matlak (Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace, 1996) 280. back

Tuber Cells Essay -- essays research papers

DETERMINATION OF THE WATER POTENTIAL OF POTATO TUBER CELLS. Method. Five sucrose solutions with varying molarity and one control containing distilled water were prepared and poured into test tubes. The potato discs were dried, weighed and added to the test tubes. The discs were then weighed again after a period of 24 hours. The percentage change in mass was then calculated. Apparatus.  Specimen tubes with stoppers x6  1cm3 diameter cork borer  razor blade  filter papers  balance  distilled water  sucrose solutions with varying concentrations  potato cut into small discs Results. (Fig 1.0) Sucrose concentration (M)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Initial mass (kg)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Final mass (kg)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Change in mass (%) 0.10  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  0.95  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  1.25  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  31.57 0.20  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  0.94  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  1.13  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  20.21 0.30  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  1.03  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  1.15  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  11.65 0.40  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  0.95  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  1.05  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  10.52 0.50  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  0.88  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  0.86  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  -2.27 0.60  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  0.93  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  0.84  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  -9.67 Control  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  0.99  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  1.40  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  42.41 Discussion. Osmosis is the passive diffusion of water molecules across a selectively permeable membrane from a down a concentration gradient. The water potential of a system is the tendency for water to exit the system. In this experiment the aim was to measure the tendency for water to leave the tuber cells. As the water potential of pure water is zero the concentration of sucrose in solution will have an effect on the water potential, this is called the solute potential. The greater the concentration of sucrose the more negative the water potential, because water moves from a high to low water potential. When the potato is put into water it contains solute molecules which draw water in providing the external solute concentration is lower. The more s... ...ent was quite limited as the degree of experimental error that could occur gives rise to scepticism over the validity of the results. The cutting up of the potato into pieces of equal surface area and mass was extremely difficult given the equipment available. If error had occurred then this would have an effect on the amount of water moving to and from the cells. However this may have had little influence in this case, as the potato discs were meticulously weighed and cut out. Another area of likely error was the drying out of the discs. There was a degree of difficulty in deciding if the discs were dry enough, and the length of drying time each disc received. If the discs had not been dried sufficiently then the percentage change in mass recorded would have been greater than before. Such a change would result in a more negative water potential, making the results less accurate. If given the chance to repeat this experiment I would like to use more solutions ranging from 0.30M to 0.60M to give a more accurate graph, thus giving a more accurate determination of the water potential. I would also like to determine with the same degree of accuracy the point of incipient plasmolysis.

Key Historical Developments in Nursing Research

IntroductionThe aim of this paper is to discus key historical developments in nursing research and nursing research utilization. The aforementioned events will be grouped into five categories, namely Nursing Research, Nursing Publications, Emergence of Nursing Schools, Establishment of Research Institutes, and Research Utilization. Two examples per category will be presented. Also, the paper will analyze how and to what extent the selected events have influenced nursing research.Nursing ResearchMany nursing theorists deserve being mentioned in this section, however, the selected ones produced the most significant impact on further nursing research and research utilization. Dorothea E. Orem, the author of Self-Care Deficit Nursing Theory, began its development in 1950’s. The theory holds that adults are generally expected to perform self-care themselves, but if they fail to do so, nursing should be provided. Another important theory, namely Modeling and Role-Modeling theory, wa s developed by Tomlin, Swain and Erickson. It was presented in a book, which was first published in 1983. Theoretical models exemplified the need for a new approach to nursing. They showed that nursing, like any other science, should be based onNursing PublicationsAmerican Journal of Nursing was first published in 1900. It is believed to be not only the oldest but also the most widely read nursing publication in the world. Slightly more than half a century later the first issue of Nursing Research, the official journal of the Eastern Nursing Research Society and the Western Institute of Nursing, was published in 1951. Professional journals are crucial for knowledge exchange among specialists from the given field. In addition, emergence of nursing journals legitimized nursing research as a separate field of study.Emergence of Nursing SchoolsYale School of Nursing established in 1923 was the first autonomous to teach and research nursing issues. In 1956 the Columbia University School of Nursing became first in the country to award a master's degree in a clinical nursing. All reputable nursing schools focus not only on teaching but also research. As the official website of Yale School of Nursing informs, the school â€Å"relies heavily on its deep tradition of excellence in research† and assures that at â€Å"one of the world's most distinguished research universities, scholarship reflects the interchange between practice and knowledge† (Yale School of Nursing, 2007, â€Å"Research and Scholarship†).Establishment of Research InstitutesWestern Institute of Nursing was established in 1957 as the Western Council on Higher Education for Nursing (WCHEN) and given its present name in 1985. It is best known as the organizer of the annual Communicating Nursing Research conference, the older event of such kind in the United States (The Western Institute of Nursing, 2007). The National Institute for Nursing Research (NINR) was founded in 1986 and playe d an important role in further advancement of nursing research by offering funding opportunities and coordinating the effort by many dispersed institutions. Both institutions offer small grants for nursing research and sustain a network of organizations and individuals involved in this research.Research UtilizationThere are different models of nursing research utilization, which were developed during the last four decades. Developed by the Michigan Nurses Association model referred to as Conduct and Utilization of Research in Nursing (CURN) advises determining the credibility of scientific studies before implementation (MacGuire, 2006). Historically, this method can be attributed to 1970s-1980s decades, since the most prominent works advocating this method, namely â€Å"Research utilization as an organizational process† (1978) by Horsley, Crane and Bingle, â€Å"Developing research-based innovation protocols: process, criteria, and issues† (1979) by Haller, Reynolds an d Horsley, and â€Å"Using Research to Improve Nursing Practice: A Guide† (1983) by Horsley, Crane, Crabtree and Wood appeared during these decades.The Stetler Model of Research Utilization and Iowa Model for Research in Practice appeared simultaneously in 1994 (Beyea & Nicoll, 1997). The first model establishes six-step model for nursing research utilization (preparation, validation, comparative evaluation, decision making, translation and application, and evaluation), while the latter is based on Quality Assurance Model Using Research (1987) and emphasizes multidisciplinary approach to evidence-based healthcare. The emergence of these models provided a clear framework for the implementation of nursing research findings into everyday nursing practice.ConclusionNursing research and nursing research utilization evolved over the centuries, yet the most important period in the history of nursing research started in the second half of the 20th centuries due to the emergence of sc ientific theories, specialized publications, nursing schools, and research institutes.ReferencesBeyea,  S.C., & Nicoll, L.H. (March 1997). â€Å"Research utilization models help disseminate research findings and ultimately improve patient outcomes.† AORN Journal, 65(5), 978-9.MacGuire, J.M. (2006). â€Å"Putting nursing research findings into practice: research utilization as an aspect of the management of change.† Journal of Advanced Nursing, 53 (1), 65-71.Yale School of Nursing. (May 25, 2007). Home Page. Retrieved June 17, 2007, from the World Wide Web: http://nursing.yale.edu/

Building a Supportive Vocabulary Learning Environment

To every learning curriculum, it is a fundamental requirement to provide a sustainably befitting environment at the background to ease the flow of assimilation and aid the mission accomplishment of a prolific study. Without an enabling environment, the efficiency of the learning result is significantly reduced. Though avoidable, many unrefined teachers still take with levity, the necessity of creating an environmental aura that permeates the mind of learners involved towards creating a smooth psychological linkage to understanding the vocabulary lesson (Diller & Karl, 1978).Supportive Tools  Firstly, we design a befitting structural arrangement that reflects some basic expectations concerning the vocabulary to be studied, the choice of which ranks common in preference of usage (Foss & Lenzini, 1999). The pictorial representation (e. g. on the wall) enables learners to access unrestricted support; demonstrating how tongue or the entire â€Å"buccal† cavity (mouth) is expected to be positioned while a particular sound is being pronounced. The pictorial representation should equally demonstrate practical situations where each word is most appropriately in day-to-day events.In buttressing the importance of this structural or pictorial design as a supportive learning tool, researches have shown that new vocabularies are best understood by exerting a subconscious effort sequel to the first pronunciation exposure in class (Holden, et al. , 1998). The sub-consciousness is characterized with the absence of stress, sensual tension or urgency demand to study within a restricted period. The presence of pressure brings a sense of active competition among other colleagues in class.The slow learners, the average and the fast learners are the three classes of learners that must have their interest managed on the overall while determining the contextual modalities of supportive environments to be considered (Foss & Lenzini, 1999). Moreover, it is of importance to recog nize the use of student-to-student interactive class session in learning foreign vocabulary. This creates an enabling environment where learners can share and gain views from one another. This in a great sense, is a complementary learning tool to teachers own method.The teacher here, logically listen and gain from diverse ways of interaction that exist in this session of students’ group discussion. The specific style of teaching to adopt will be gotten from preponderances of events as they unfold (James L. B. , 2001) One-to-many Learning Support Scheme In this scheme, each learner on rotation is given an assignment to present a topic to other co-learners in class. Preferentially, suggestion of a multi-media projection could aid teaching. Here comes a research among students in science class, a class of 50 students was given an assignment to treat 10 topics within a course.The modality involved allotment of a topic to a group of 5 students within which they are equally expecte d to further divide the topic into sub-headings. Other remaining 45 students follow suit in their respective groupings. The examination result for this method of teaching was taken for over a period of 5 years, with the mean and mode recorded. The result showed a wide grade-gap between the first three best students and other members of the class. The mean was high but students within this range were found scanty (James L. Barker lecture, 2001).One-to-many learning scheme shows that the method could only help the confident students to perform even better at the expense of other colleagues. The other group members does belong to the same class but perhaps, limiting study to what they actually present and not bordering to probe other students’ presentation to perfect understanding from the first exposure in class. Participative/Interactive Class Session Another proposed scheme suggests a modality where members of the class have no formal presentation for others to listen.But rat her, everyone prepares for the task ahead of the class and involve in a general discuss. All opinions are accommodated by the supervision of a tutor in charge. In furtherance to the earlier research for another five years, findings were taken from another set of 50 students with different learning environmental supportive modality. In this scheme, no student is expected to teach the other colleague but rather each student contributes one after the other to the pending discussion on the vocabulary lesson.In this way, the teacher set the ball rolling by introducing the topic and secondly in guiding against shifting of focus to irrelevancies. The reciprocal interactions give a supportive environment that deposit in each student a personal sense of meeting the huge challenge to perform up to expectations among peers (Kinsella, K. , 1995). The result of the later five years shows students having a higher mean gradient. The mode was slightly reduced, an indication pointing that only minor ity members of the class understand on the average with one-to-many learning support.Conclusion When discussing vocabulary skills, some basic essentialities are necessary; a listening, speaking, reading and writing acts. Other recently identified skills include description, narrating and summarizing skills among others. All supportive environments must focus on ensuring these necessities. Having an enabling environment in assisting the students reading culture is most important especially when learning an unfamiliar vocabulary, hence, the derivative of interactive study guide is just a perfect one to make learners actively involved.Findings had also shown that students usually get frustrated over time if encouragement and assistance are not near. Conclusively, teacher could equally assist in instilling the culture of reading; this is the strongest individual tool. References Diller, Karl Conrad (1978). The Language Teaching Controversy. Rowley, Massachusetts: Newbury House. Foss, C. R. , P. , & Lenzini, J. J. (1999). Textual and pictorial glosses: Effectiveness on incidental vocabulary growth when reading in a foreign language. Foreign Language Annals, 32 (1), 89-113.Holden, Susan; Mickey Rodgers (1998). English language teaching. Mexico City: DELTI. James L. Barker lecture on November 8th 2001 at Brigham Young University. Kinsella, K. (1995). Understanding and empowering diverse learners in ESL classroom. In M. J. Reid (Ed. ), Learning styles in the ESL/EFL classroom (pp. 70-86). Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle Publishers. Koda, K. (1997). Orthographic knowledge in L2 lexical processing: A cross-linguistic perspective. In J. Coady & T. Huckins (Eds. ), Second language vocabulary acquisition (pp. 35-52). New York: Cambridge Universit

Shopping Addiction

What Shopping Can Lead To What is shopping? Is shopping something we do for fun, for fashion, or to make us happy? Is shopping in our culture? Is shopping something we have learned from our parents, growing up? Shopping can be defined in many ways, but when does shopping become a problem? In â€Å"Shopping Spree, or Addiction† by Heather Hatfield, MD, she says â€Å"shopping can be one of America’s favorite past-times, but shopping can also lead to a self-destructive addiction that will cause financial disaster (1-2). I’ll be going over two main factors, credit cards and the mall environment, that cause a shopping addiction, along with the type of illness, depression, that also causes a shopping addiction. I’ll also talk about the treatment individuals go through to overcome the addiction. The dictionary definition of shopping is the act of a person who shops. It does not define an overreaction to shopping. What is an overreaction to shopping? It’s a shopping addiction. A shopping addiction is referred to as shopoholism, and is just as unhealthy as alcoholism, drug abuse, and gambling.In some cases there are similarities amongst these addictions. For instance, alcoholics will hide their bottles, and shopaholics will hide their purchases. Having a shopping and spending addiction is defined as being inappropriate, excessive, and out of control. â€Å"Like other addictions, it has to do with impulsiveness and lack of control over one’s impulse. In America, shopping is embedded in our culture; so often, the impulsiveness comes out as excessive shopping,† says Donald Black, MD (quoted in Hatifield 1-2).A article by David Futrelle, who is a licensed psychologist and prominent researcher of Shopoholism, states that shopoholism is an impulse control problem rather being an obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). For an example, a person with OCD will wash their hands and find relief whereas a compulsive shopper will get a high. The euphoria compulsive shoppers feel keeps them coming back for more, and more, and more (Futrelle). Individuals who are compulsive shoppers aren’t able to control their behavior through rational considerations. They will not be concerned if they don’t have enough money to pay.Since credit is so easily available, it makes it easy for people to spend, but before they know it they will find themselves in debt. The word credit card is in almost every shopaholic’s story. But it’s not credit cards that cause shopping addictions. According to statistics most individuals who develop this addiction are in their early twenties. Normally, this is after they get their first real job and their first credit card. It’s not just shopaholics who have problems spending with credit cards. It’s everyone. Using credit cards is easier, and we feel like we got it for free because no money has come out of our pocket, just not yet anyway. People who use cred it instead of cash tend to spend 20%-30% more than someone who is paying with cash† says Gary Herman, director of counseling services for consolidated credit (quoted in Futrelle). With all the spending that’s going on the debt keeps piling up. Individuals won’t know how much debt they are in. Eventually individuals will go into denial on how much they really spent and owe back. People will end up owing back twice as much as they thought they did. Credit cards aren’t to blame for addictive shopping; they just play a big part in a person’s life who is addicted to shopping.The way malls, stores, and advertisements are set up plays a big part on how people spend. Advertisers influence people to shop and spend more. Malls and shops are set up to attract people with their displays. For instance, people can go into their favorite store and there could be a sale. Of course the shopper will buy more than they really need because they feel like they have gott en a deal. â€Å"In a way malls and stores seduce us to buy, and it can lead to an addiction† says James J. Farrell who is a professor of history at St. Olaf College (53-55).Companies also will use their slogans to get people to buy and spend more. Take BMW for instance, their slogan is â€Å"The Ultimate Driving Machine. † This slogan tricks people into thinking that if they don’t own a BMW then whatever car they do own is not good enough. Other catchy slogans include Levi jeans, â€Å"You Walk a Little Taller in Levis† or Visa â€Å"Everywhere You Want to be. † Companies use these tactics to persuade people to spend and spend and spend, attracting the shopalcholics until individuals can’t spend any more. Nine million people in America suffer from shopoholism, and it’s more common in women.There have been studies conducted to see if addictions are genetic. â€Å"About 10%-15% may have a genetic predisposition to an addictive behavio r† says Ruth Engs, MD (quoted in Hatifield 1). As reported by Dr. Adrienne Backer â€Å"There is a strong link between compulsive shopping and an inadequate maternal relationship (quoted in Futrelle). † Frequently the mother was depressed or absent emotionally causing the daughter to develop a low self-esteem, resulting in the daughter turning to shopping to feel happy (Futrelle). In reality people who have a shopping addiction are covering up a low self-esteem.Dr. Louise Chang who is a physician at Grady Memorial hospital states that the endorphins, dopamine, and  naturally occurring opiate receptors get switched on in the brain, and people will feel a high that makes them feel good about themselves for that short amount of time while shopping. The causes of addictions and why addicts will continue their destructive behaviors remain uncertain. Most individuals who suffer from compulsive shopping have a history of psychological problems and difficulties at home, and t his plays a huge part in forming this compulsion (Chang 1).There are many warning signs to look out for in individuals who are addicted to shopping. Some of the signs to look out for are spending over budget, compulsive buying, being obsessed with money, and feeling lost without credit cards or cash. Having a shopping addiction will cause arguments with other family members about the individual’s shopping habits. A shopping addiction is a vicious cycle that keeps repeating itself. For most people shopping is going to the mall with friends or to buy the latest style, but for compulsive shoppers, shopping makes them feel good.About ninety years ago German psychologist, Emil Kraepelin defined excessive shopping as an illness calling it â€Å"onioman,† (quoted in Velez-Mitchell 20-25) but only recently it’s being understood as a disorder. After individuals shop they feel guilty or depressed about how much they spent. In some cases individuals will feel so guilty the y will go back to the store and return the merchandise thinking they will feel relief. Again once they return home they find the guilt has gone away, but then they will feel anxious. The outcome of feeling anxious will lead to another shopping spree.It’s an ongoing cycle. More than half the time shopping addicts have to hide their problem from loved ones to avoid arguments. Individuals will let merchandise pile up in their car until loved ones aren’t home. Then they take their purchases inside. In marriages, one will have secret bank accounts or credit cards to avoid confrontation with their significant other about spending money. Just like any other addiction it takes a toll on family relationships or personal relationships. Individuals will spend every extra minute they have at the mall instead of being home.Individuals will also isolate themselves from others because they become preoccupied with their behavior. Before one notices that their partner has a problem, th ey usually are in debt for $75,000 or more. The husband or wife is equally responsible for the debt their significant other has obtained. Usually this addiction will ruin a relationship, and if one is married it will end with divorce, which is stated by Jane Velez Mitchell who is an awarding winning journalist and bestselling author (192-198). Is there a cure for someone who has a shopping addiction? The answer is yes. The first thing to do it to admit one has a problem.There are different levels of a shopaholic. Individuals will have to find a debtors anonymous 12 step program to go to. This program is important for ongoing support and maintenance. Individuals will also have to go through credit counseling. â€Å"There are no standard treatments for shopping addictions† says Donald Black, MD (quoted in Hatifield 1-2). There is one type of medication that is given to people with a shopping addiction and that is an antidepressant, called Celexa. The cause of a shopping addicti on results in the individual being depressed, and they will use shopping to relieve their depression and feel happy.But antidepressants don’t always work, and many victims they have to go to counseling. For individuals who try to recover from this addiction, it’s a good idea to get rid of check books and credit cards which fuel the problem. People also should not shop by themselves. They should find other meaningful ways to spend their time. With people who have a severe shopping addiction, it’s recommended that someone else controls their finances for them. If someone disagrees with what I’ve written about shopping addictions, they are either an addict or wealthy.People with shopping addictions or any other addiction don’t realize they have a problem and think they are ok. It’s very hard for one to realize and admit they have a problem. In seeking help for this addiction a person needs to admit they have a problem in order to recover from t he addiction. Another type of person who would disagree with a shopping addiction is someone who has money to spend. If an individual has money and can afford going on shopping sprees regularly, then why not buy everything they want. But individuals who are wealthy won’t realize they have a problem, and they could be suffering from depression.The first thing to do to recover from this addiction is to admit one has a problem, otherwise treatment won’t work. Works Cited Chang, Louise, MD. â€Å"The New Addiction. †WebMD. 2009. Web. 5 July 2011. Farrell, James J. One Nation Under Good. Washington D. C: Smithsonian Books, 2003. Print. Futrelle, David. â€Å"Do You Shop Too Much. † Money Magazine. Money Magazine, 31 Oct. 2003. Web. 1 July 2001. Hatifield, Heather,MD. â€Å"Shopping Spree, or Addiction? †Ã‚  WebMD. 2004. Web. 5 July 2011. Velez-Mitchell, Jane and Sandra Mohr. Addict Nation. Florida: Health Communications, 2011. Print.

Noland. Dance Reaserch

The Human Situation on Stage: Merce Cunningham, Theodor Adorno, and the Category of Expression Carrie Noland Dance Research Journal, Volume 42, Number 1, Summer 2010, pp. 46-60 (Article) Published by University of Illinois Press DOI: 10. 1353/drj. 0. 0063 For additional information about this article http://muse. jhu. edu/journals/drj/summary/v042/42. 1. noland. html Access Provided by University of Manchester at 07/08/10 10:18PM GMT Photo 1. Merce Cunningham in his Sixteen Dances for Soloist and Company of Three (1952).Photographer: Gerda Peterich. 46 Dance Research Journal 42 / 1 summer 2010 The Human Situation on Stage: Merce Cunningham, Theodor Adorno, and the Category of Expression Carrie Noland here is expression in Cunningham’s choreography? Are the moving bodies on stage expressive? If so, what are they expressing and how does such expression occur? Several of the finest theorists of dance—among them, Susan Leigh Foster, Mark Franko, and Dee Reynolds—have already approached the question of expressivity in the work of Merce Cunningham.Acknowledging the formalism and astringency of his choreography, they nonetheless insist that expression does indeed take place. Foster locates expression in the â€Å"affective significance† as opposed to the â€Å"emotional experience† of movement (1986, 38); Franko finds it in an â€Å"energy source . . . more fundamental than emotion, while just as differentiated† (1995, 80); and Reynolds identifies expression in the dancing subject’s sensorimotor â€Å"faculties† as they are deployed â€Å"fully in the present† (2007, 169). Cunningham himself has defined expression in dance as an intrinsic and inevitable quality of movement, indicating that his search to capture, isolate, and frame this quality is central to his choreographic process. 2 As a critical theorist (rather than a dance historian), I am interested in expression as a more general, or cross-media, c ategory and therefore find the efforts by Cunningham and his critics to define expression differently, to free it from its subservience to the psyche, refreshing, unconventional, and suggestive.I have become increasingly convinced that Cunningham’s practical and theoretical interventions can illuminate more traditional literary and philosophical discourses on the aesthetics of expression and that they have particular resonance when juxtaposed with the approach to expression developed by Theodor Adorno in his Aesthetic Theory of 1970.Similar to Cunningham, Adorno complicates the category of â€Å"expression† by shifting its location from Carrie Noland is the author of Poetry at Stake: Lyric Aesthetics and the Challenge of Technology (Princeton University Press, 1999) and Agency and Embodiment: Performing Gestures/Producing Culture (Harvard University Press, 2009). Her taste for interdisciplinary work has resulted in two collaborative ventures: Diasporic Avant-Gardes: Ex perimental Poetics and Cultural Displacement (Palgrave, 2009), co-edited with Language poet Barrett Watten, and Migrations of Gesture (Minnesota University Press, 2008), co-edited with Sally Ann Ness.She teaches French and comparative literature at the University of California, Irvine, and is an affiliate faculty member in the Department of Anthropology, a fellow of the Critical Theory Institute, and director of Humanities-Arts, an interdisciplinary undergraduate major combining the practice and analysis of art. Dance Research Journal 42 / 1 summer 2010 47 W subjectivity, understood primarily as a psychic phenomenon, to embodiment, understood as a function of locomotion and sensual existence (in Franko’s words, â€Å"something more fundamental than emotion, while just as differentiated† [1995, 80]).Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory, at once rough around the edges and sparkling with insights, is arguably the most important book on aesthetics since Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Judgment (1790) and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Lectures on Aesthetics (1835), the two works that serve as Adorno’s point of departure. The German-born musician and philosopher advances along the lines established by Kant and Hegel, but he consistently raises questions about art’s function in society. Adorno belonged to a group of early to mid-twentieth-century philosophers who submitted the classical Enlightenment tradition to Marxist critique.Along with Walter Benjamin, Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse, Georg Lukacs, and Bertolt Brecht, Adorno entertained suspicions with regard to the notion of subjective expression; he wondered if the artistic languages identified as â€Å"expressive† hadn’t become conventionalized to the point where it was necessary to break them down, subject them to permutation, distortion, or â€Å"dissonance† by means of practices he associated with the category of â€Å"construction† (Adorno 19 70/1997, 40–44 and 156).Traditionally, â€Å"expression,† he argued, presupposed a self-identical subject to be expressed; but if the subject were in fact a reification of something far more volatile, responsive, and delicate, if the subject were, as he put it, something closer to the â€Å"shudder† of â€Å"consciousness,† then the nature of â€Å"expression† in artworks would have to be rethought (331).It is not my intention in this essay to conduct a full analysis of Adorno’s theory of expression, nor do I intend to â€Å"apply† Adorno to Cunningham, thereby implying that one is more theoretically sophisticated than the other. Instead, I want to initiate a dynamic engagement between the two in an attempt to discern and highlight what I believe to be an incipient theory of expression that is embedded in Cunningham’s practice and that secretly informs Adorno’s account of modernist aesthetics as well.The theory of expres sion I am referring to is one that is not fully articulated in Adorno’s aesthetics. However, implicit in his debate with the Kantian tradition is an incipient theory of art’s engagement with the sensorium; focusing on art’s attention to and dialogue with the sensory and motor body produces an aesthetics arguably in conflict with the traditional aesthetics of disinterested beauty or the cerebral sublime.This new theory of the aesthetic as implicated in human embodiment can be drawn out most effectively if we read Adorno in conjunction with watching (and learning more about) Cunningham’s dance. Although my concerns are primarily theoretical in nature, I am intrigued by the opportunity to explore how a choreographic and dance practice can go where aesthetic theory has never gone before. Neither the technical, discipline-specific language that Adorno employs, nor the schematic idiom Cunningham prefers, can, in isolation, be made to divulge a persuasive altern ative account of expression.However, when the two are juxtaposed and intertwined, and when practice itself is analyzed as theoretically pertinent, then a new definition of â€Å"expression† begins to emerge. The question that immediately arises when one juxtaposes Cunningham with Adorno is â€Å"Why doesn’t Adorno ever mention dance? † Although, as has been well documented, dancers and choreographers were fellow travelers of the authors and artists Adorno treats, 48 Dance Research Journal 42 / 1 summer 2010 e never discusses a single choreographer during the entire course of Aesthetic Theory. Dance is simply not part of Adorno’s history, his chronological treatment of modern works; nor is dance included in his theory, his speculations on how artworks relate to what they are not (nature, material conditions, the human subject). Dance only makes a few cameo appearances as the putative origin of all art, a mimetic form related to magic and ritual practices ( 1970/1997, 5, 329). For Adorno, as for Walter Benjamin, dance coincides with the emergence of art in the caves; it is the earliest practice whereby humans mime nature and, by miming, interpret, displace, and stylize nature, even as they attempt to become one with it (Benjamin 1986). In their treatments, dance remains stuck in that cave, never entirely modern, because it is more intimately connected to practices related to the organic body and the sensorium. It may be that what is intrinsic to dance, its address to the body, surreptitiously characterizes all the other art forms that putatively emerged out of it. This is a path of inquiry I am currently pursuing. ) For now, it is sufficient to note that dance cum dance—that is, as a tradition of corporeal practice that evolves over time, that has its own schools, and that inspires its own critical discourses—never figures as a subject of study in Aesthetic Theory. The historical trajectory Adorno establishes for art in g eneral—its increasing autonomy and formalism as a result of industrialization and secular â€Å"disenchantment†Ã¢â‚¬â€is neither applied to nor tested in any rigorous way against a concrete example of modernist (or any other kind of ) dance.Thus it could be said that, in the strict sense, Adorno ignores dance. At the very least, he finds no place for it in modernism. While other scholars have not been as blind to dance’s contributions as Adorno, they do have difficulty assimilating it into a standard chronology of twentieth-century art. In Ecstasy and the Demon, Susan Manning sums up the critical consensus: Dance stands in an a-synchronous relation to all other twentieth-century forms of expression.It does not evolve at the rhythm it should, or else the story is more messy than one would like (Manning 1993). For example, we cannot say with any certitude that Graham is to romantic ballet as Beckett is to Baudelaire, or as Schoenberg is to Beethoven, or as Malevi ch is to David. Whereas art, writing, and music all seem to pass through the same moments at roughly the same time—late Romanticism; early modernism; late modernism or postmodernism—choreography appears to lag behind, or follow a different route.A typical rendering is provided by Jill Johnstone, who argues that â€Å"not until Cunningham appeared [in the 1950s] did modern dance catch up with the evolution of visual art traced by Clement Greenberg† (qtd. in Manning 1993, 24). In other words, during the era of cubism, when a constructivist aesthetic was clearly gaining ground in painting, writing, and musical composition, Isadora Duncan was still performing supposedly natural gestures and emoting supposedly lyric passions on the international stage.My goal here is not to figure out whether Cunningham is modern or postmodern, or why twentieth-century choreography evolved the way it did. What I want to think about is whether that a-synchronicity, the messier story o f dance (and its absence from Kantinspired aesthetics), tells us something about the inadequacy of the Greenberg-Adorno model. How might Cunningham’s work shed some light on Aesthetic Theory—its lacunae but also its possibilities? How might Aesthetic Theory—despite its inadequacies—be made to say something of value about dance?Dance Research Journal 42 / 1 summer 2010 49 To approach these areas of questioning intelligently, we must first recall that Adorno treats modernism not simply as a matter of increasing self-reflexivity and formalism but also as a struggle—explicitly—with expression. His chronology of secular art could be encapsulated in the following way (and here comes my speed train version of Aesthetic Theory, which I hope summarizes clearly the vital points of the dialectic): The institutional critique responsible for late impressionist and then cubist rt engenders a suspicion with respect to illusionism; the abandonment of illusi onism then heralds the embrace of expressionism as a kind of anticonventionalism (think of the German art movement of the 1920s, the Neue Sachlichkeit or New Objectivity); the subsequent rejection of psychological narrative and subjective emotion, however, entails a critique of expressionism, which then leads ineluctably to an astringent, objective constructivism (minimalism, permutational procedures, chance operations, and so on). At each moment, expression remains—how could it not? but it is reworked through different forms of critique. For Adorno, the tension between expressionism and constructivism becomes paradigmatic of late modernist art. A close reading of Aesthetic Theory reveals further that for its author, this tension is productive of art itself. The salient points of convergence between Adorno and Cunningham are that they both show a marked preference for construction and they both reject psychological narrative, yet they simultaneously rescue expression as an in evitable component of man-made things.In their respective and utterly idiosyncratic ways of thinking they both manage to re-define expression—and they do so in surprisingly compatible ways (although this may not at first seem to be the case). For Cunningham, no movement performed by the human body can ever be lacking in expressive content, either because the human body always communicates some kind of dynamic or because the audience member maps onto the moving body a personal meaning (see Brown 2007, 53). For Adorno, in contrast, expression in art â€Å"is the antithesis of expressing something† (1970/1997, 112; emphasis added).True expression, he argues, is intransitive; there is no object for the verb â€Å"to express. † As with the verb â€Å"to move,† there is a transitive form: one can â€Å"move furniture† as one can â€Å"express a liquid†Ã¢â‚¬â€say, juice from an orange. But when referring to dance (as opposed to painting), to be an intransitive form of expression means that a body must move and thus express without an external object to be expressed. Put differently, the expressive movement is not trying to illustrate anything (even the music).And here is where Cunningham and Adorno converge: an artistic act can be conceived as antinarrative, apsychological, and yet fully expressive. The dance can move its audience without relying on pathos embedded in plot, or energy framed as categorical emotion. There is no external referent that the body’s movement refers to; it is not expressing more than it is (or, rather, more than it is doing). On this reading, expression is borne by a materiality—the moving body—it can only transcend by losing itself.David Vaughan, Cunningham’s archivist, has defined Cunningham’s project in terms that resonate in this context: â€Å"It goes without saying,† he writes, that Cunningham has not been interested in telling stories or exploring psy chological relationships: the subject matter of his dances is the dance itself. This does 50 Dance Research Journal 42 / 1 summer 2010 not mean that drama is absent, but it is not drama in the sense of narrative— rather, it arises from the intensity of the kinetic and theatrical experience, and the human situation on stage. (1997, 7; emphasis added)By â€Å"intensity of the kinetic and theatrical experience,† Vaughan is probably referring to the audience’s experience; he is alluding to John Martin’s famous theory that we, as spectators, empathize kinesthetically with the dancers (a theory developed by Expressionist dancers of the 1920s, or Ausdruckstanz). (He may also be thinking of Cunningham’s aforementioned claim that members of the audience are free to introduce their own meaning into the performed motions. ) What is more interesting in this passage, however, is the notion of a â€Å"human situation on stage. What, precisely, does Vaughan mean by a â€Å"human situation on stage†? What would a â€Å"human situation† consist of? How could non-narrative dance produce â€Å"drama† and remain expressive? Expressive of what? To illustrate what a â€Å"human situation on stage† might be, how it solicits an intransitive expression, and thus how it illuminates the hidden corners of Adorno’s theory of expression, I want to turn to a particular moment in Cunningham’s development as a choreographer, the period roughly from 1951 to 1956. During these years, Cunningham was just beginning to experiment with the chance procedures he learned from John Cage.The two dances that are most pertinent in this regard are Sixteen Dances for Soloist and Company of Three, a fifty-three-minute work first presented in 1951; Suite by Chance (1952–1953); and Solo Suite in Time and Place of 1953, which later became Suite for Five (performed in 1956). The first one, Sixteen Dances, is historic for several reasons: it demonstrated the influence of Hindu aesthetics, which Cage had been exploring since at least 1946, when he first mentions Ananda Coomaraswamy’s The Transformation of Nature (Nicholls 2007, 36).The piece depicts the nine â€Å"permanent† emotions described in the Natyasastra, the sourcebook of Hindu/Sanskrit classical theater. These emotions were, as Cunningham recast them, Anger, Humor, Sorrow, Heroic Valor, the Odious (or disgust), Wonder, Fear, the Erotic, and Tranquility (or Peace). Moreover, Sixteen Dances (accompanied by a composition Cage wrote bearing the same name) contained what might very well be the first dance sequence based on the use of chance operations. 4 Thus, Sixteen Dances, the very choreography in which chance procedures are introduced for the first time, is explicitly about the emotions and their expression.There is some confusion concerning precisely how—and to what extent—Cunningham applied chance procedures to Sixteen Dances. However, his comments in â€Å"A Collaborative Process between Music and Dance† and his rehearsal notes (in the Cunningham archive at Westbeth) indicate that in at least one segment (the interlude after Fear), he used charts and tossed coins to determine the order of the movement sequences (phrases), the time intervals, and the orientations and spatial arrangements of the dancers.In â€Å"A Collaborative Process† he writes The structure for the piece was to have each of the dances involved with a specific emotion followed by an interlude. Although the order was to alternate light and dark, it didn’t seem to matter whether Sorrow or Fear came first, so I tossed a coin. And also in the interlude after Fear, number 14, I used charts of separate Dance Research Journal 42 / 1 summer 2010 51 movements for material for each of the four dancers, and let chance operations decide the continuity. (qtd. in Vaughan 1997, 58; qtd. in Kostelanetz 1998, 140–41).A gain, in â€Å"Two Questions and Five Dances,† Cunningham specifies: â€Å"the individual sequences, and the length of time, and the directions in space of each were discovered by tossing coins. It was the first such experience for me and felt like ‘chaos has come again’ when I worked in it† (qtd. in Vaughan 1997, 59). It is clear that the first dance Cunningham choreographed entirely through the application of chance procedures was Suite by Chance in 1953. Cunningham’s published accounts of Suite by Chance are much more specific with respect to the use of charts and coin tossing than his accounts concerning Sixteen Dances (Cunningham 1968, n. . ; see also Brown 2007, 39; and Charlip qtd. in Vaughan 1997, 62, 70). Carolyn Brown has indicated that in Sixteen Dances it was the order of the movement phrases that was determined by chance, not the individual movements or positions within the movement phrase. 5 The continuity at stake in Sixteen Dances, t hen, would be the continuity between phrases, not individual movements. And yet, in an unpublished note from the archive, Cunningham indicates that he was already interested—at least conceptually—in separating phrases into individual movements and enumerating their various possibilities.In other words, the logic generating his later procedures—the breaking up of phrases into individual movements that were then charted and ordered into sequences selected by chance—already existed in an embryonic state. Anticipating a practice he would soon refine, Cunningham provides the following list of potential movement material in his rehearsal notes: â€Å"Legs can be low, middle or high in air; legs can be bent or straight; legs can be front, side, or back† (Cunningham 1951). The schematic rendering of movement choices (into what he calls â€Å"gamuts of movement†) foreshadows the kinds of taxonomies he would develop later (Vaughan 1997, 72).Photograph ic representations suggest that at this point in his career, Cunningham was still choosing movement material thematically. That is, the types of movement selected for any given emotion had a culturally conventional relation to that emotion. Describing Sixteen Dances, Cunningham writes: â€Å"the solos were concerned with specific emotional qualities, but they were in image form and not personal—a yelling warrior for the odious, a man in a chair for the humorous, a bird-masked figure for the wondrous† (qtd. in Vaughan 1997, 59).Unfortunately, there is no video or film record of the dance, but from the extant photographs, it is apparent that Cunningham was working with a modernist vocabulary; there is something reminiscent of Martha Graham or Ted Shawn in the dramatic poses, the off-center leaps, and the contracted upper body that we do not see in his work later. In Cunningham’s rehearsal notes (1951) for the piece—and there is no way of knowing if these re flect the completed piece as it was ultimately performed—he jots down the idea of introducing a conventional balletic vocabulary for the final quartet on â€Å"tranquility. â€Å"Finale to proceed from balletic positions, and return to them at all cadences!!! † he exclaims. I believe Cunningham so emphatically chooses balletic positions as starting and termination points, as tranquil â€Å"rests,† because they offer movement material that is less associated 52 Dance Research Journal 42 / 1 summer 2010 Photo 2. Merce Cunningham in his Sixteen Dances for Soloist and Company of Three (1952). Photographer: Gerda Peterich. by convention—at least, by Graham convention—with particular emotional states.As Cunningham writes about the period: â€Å"It was almost impossible to see a movement in modern dance during that period not stiffened by literary or personal connection† (qtd. in Vaughan 1997, 69). If â€Å"tranquility,† the ninth emotion f rom the Natyasastra, signifies the transcendence of emotion, then perhaps a ballet vocabulary would be appropriate, especially against the background of the earlier eight, more conventionally expressive, â€Å"images† used for the solos and the erotic duet. During the years 1951–1956, Cunningham was obviously making discoveries that would become consistent elements of his practice for years to come.In works such as Sixteen Dances and Solo Suite in Space and Time (1953), not only does he introduce chance operations but he also develops an approach to the body as an expressive organ. He chooses movement material that might be considered conventionally expressive as well as movement material based on classroom exercises, but he elects (or engenders through chance operations) a sequence of phrases or poses that is not conventional. In Sixteen Dances newly minted chance operations allow him to experiment with the order of the movement material in a way that endangers the co ntinuity of the dance. But what he learns by endangering that more conventional Dance Research Journal 42 / 1 summer 2010 53 form of continuity is that another form of continuity can emerge. As he underscores in his rehearsal notes for the 1956 Suite for Five (an extension of Solo Suite in Space and Time with added trio, duet, and quintet): â€Å"Dynamics in movement come from the continuity† (Cunningham 1951; emphasis in the original). What would supply this continuity if not the acquired syntax of traditional dance forms, if not the momentum of propulsive movements?Over the course of a year of rehearsals for Sixteen Dances (the time it took to mount the duets, trios, and quartets on Dorothea Brea, Joan Skinner, and Anneliese Widman) Cunningham found his answer. The continuity melding one movement to another would be derived from the dancer herself, that is, from the way she found to string together movements previously not linked by choreographic or classroom practices. In â€Å"Two Questions and Five Dances,† Cunningham describes his pleasure as he watched Joan Skinner take a notoriously difficult sequence of movements and thread them together seamlessly with her own body.Skinner introduced â€Å"coordination, going from one thing to another, that I had not encountered before, physically† (qtd. in Vaughan 1997, 59). His comments introduce what emerges as a constant in his choreography. According to Carolyn Brown, Although the overall rhythmic structure and tempi were Merce’s, he wanted me to find my own phrasing within the sections. . . . Unlike what happens in ballet, there is no other impetus, no additional source of inspiration or energy, no aural stimulus . . . There is only movement, learned and rehearsed in silence.In order for Cunningham dancers to be â€Å"musical,† they must discover, in the movement, out of their own inner resources and innate musicality, what I call, for want of a better word, the â€Å"song. à ¢â‚¬  . . . There is a meaning in every Cunningham dance, but the meaning cannot be translated into words; it must be experienced kinesthetically through the language of movement. (2007, 195–96; emphasis in the original) Dynamics are thus not preconceived by the choreographer but instead emerge from the dancer’s creation of unscripted, â€Å"discovered† transitions leading from one movement, or one movement sequence (phrase), to the next.These transitions providing continuity are forged by the dancer’s own coping mechanism, her way of assimilating each movement into a new sequence, a new logic, that only the body can discover in the process of repeated execution. In Sixteen Dances Skinner provided him with a crucial insight (reinforced by Carolyn Brown soon after), namely, that the expressivity of the body is lost neither when the elements of an expressive movement vocabulary, a set of â€Å"image forms,† are re-mixed or forcibly dis-articulated, nor when the elements re-mixed are themselves as neutral and unburdened by cultural associations as possible.So what is the â€Å"human situation on stage†Ã¢â‚¬â€to return to our earlier question—and in what way can it be considered expressive? I believe that what Cunningham was beginning to uncover in his work during this period, and that he fully realizes in Suite for Five of 1956, is that the human body is doubly expressive: it can be expressive transitively, in an easily legible, culturally codified way, and it can be expressive intransitively, simply by exposing its dynamic, arc-engendering force. This intransitive expressivity belongs to an animate form responding at what Adorno calls the â€Å"proto† subjective level (1970/1997; 112).That is, the continuity-creating, coping body is relying on an order of sensorimotor 54 Dance Research Journal 42 / 1 summer 2010 sensitivity that is itself an expressive system, one that underlies and in fact renders possib le what we identify as the familiar signifying system of conventional expressive â€Å"images† and â€Å"personal† emotions. 7 The â€Å"human situation on stage† can therefore be summed up as a set of kinesthetic, proprioceptive, weight-bearing, and sometimes tactile problems to be solved. In the rehearsal notes for Suite for Five (1952–1958), these problems are enumerated succinctly.Cunningham composed this piece by relying on movement materials whose sequences were determined by the imperfections appearing on a sheet of paper. (Here, he was imitating Cage, who invented the process with Music for Piano, which accompanied the Solo Suite. ) Cunningham tells us that the dancers had to worry about (1) â€Å"where† they are; (2) â€Å"then where to† (where they have to get to); and (3) â€Å"if more than one person [is] involved,† how the movements they make will be affected by the other’s presence on the stage. In short, the spat ial and interpersonal relationships present the problems and constitute the â€Å"human situation on the stage. The dancers are called on not to express a particular emotion, or set of emotions, but instead to develop refined coping mechanisms for creating continuity between disarticulated movements while remaining sensitive to their location in space. They must keep time without musical cues; sense the presence of the other dancers on stage; know blindly, proprioceptively, what these other dancers are doing; and adjust the timing and scope of their movements accordingly, thereby â€Å"expressing† the â€Å"human situation† at hand.All this work is â€Å"expressive†Ã¢â‚¬â€it belongs to the â€Å"category of expression†Ã¢â‚¬â€insofar as it is demanded by a human situation on a stage and insofar as human situations on stages (or otherwise) constitute an embodied response to the present moment, an embodied response to the utterly unique conditions of exis tence at one given point in time. In an interview with Jacqueline Lesschaeve, Cunningham puts it this way: â€Å"You have to begin to know where the other dancer is, without looking. It has to do with timing, the relationship with the timing. If you paid attention to the timing, then, even if you weren’t facing them, you knew they were there.And that created a relationship† (Cunningham 1991, 22). Relationships, engendering inevitably the â€Å"human situation,† are defined as body-to-body relationships, or really moving-body-to-moving-body relationships. As Tobi Tobias has suggested, â€Å"perhaps movement is at the core, the body’s response preceding the psyche’s† (1975, 43). Contemporary neuroscience is in fact beginning to confirm this point of view: relationships are forged kinetically, and thus the human drama begins at a prepsychological, perhaps even presubjective level of interaction with the world.The work of Antonio Damasio (1999) and Marc Jeannerod (2006) in particular emphasizes the degree to which largely (although not entirely) nonconscious operations of the sensorimotor system—including visuomotor functions and kinesthetic, proprioceptive, haptic, and vestibular systems—constitute the very conditions of possibility for the emergence of â€Å"higher level† processes of conscious thought, symbolization (language), and feeling. These scientists dub the former, more somatic (and evolutionarily prior) layer of activity the â€Å"protoself. This protoself is related to homeostasis and the fundamental intelligence that discerns the boundary between the subject’s body and other bodies; it is thus the corporeal substrate of subjectivity understood as an awareness of being a separate self. 8 If we return to Cunningham’s statement, quoted above, we can see that a relationship Dance Research Journal 42 / 1 summer 2010 55 forged simply by occupying the same duration of time produce s a â€Å"human situation† insofar as two bodies are obliged to remain aware of each other’s presence.This awareness is not necessarily colored with affect; that is, the â€Å"human situation on stage† is not necessarily charged with emotion. To that extent, we can say that Cunningham’s choreographic procedure attends to intimacies occurring on the level of the presubjective layer of interaction between human beings; â€Å"presubjective† would not mean pre-individual or pre-individuated but rather singular embodiment in an intersubjective milieu before that embodiment enters a narrative, a conventional, socially defined relation to the other.The relation to the other, as Cunningham points out, is structured by time; in a duet, for instance, the choreographic imperative is that bodies should be doing particular things at particular moments in a predetermined sequence. Yet at the same time, the cohabitation of that temporal and spatial dimension that is the stage creates a situation—a â€Å"human situation†Ã¢â‚¬â€in which two or more bodies must become aware of one another’s movements; they thereby enter into a relation on the â€Å"presubjective,† or prepsychological, level.In Aesthetic Theory Adorno defines precisely this presubjective layer of existence as the origin of expressive behavior: that is, the prepsychologized body, related in his mind to the human â€Å"sensorium,† is itself the source of expressive content. Beyond—or underlying—the explicit, conventionalized content of artworks is another content: the sensorium’s â€Å"objective† consciousness, as he puts it, of the surrounding world that it probes. In their expression, artworks do not imitate the impulses of individuals, nor in any way those of their authors†; instead, he continues, artworks are imitation (mimesis) â€Å"exclusively as the imitation of an objective expression† (1970/199 7, 111–12; emphasis added). This objective expression is best captured by the musical term â€Å"espressivo,† he continues, since it denotes a dynamic that is entirely intransitive, â€Å"remote from psychology,† although generated by a human subject.Significantly for our purposes, he adds that the â€Å"objective expression† of subjectivity is continuous with the layer of existence â€Å"of which the sensorium was perhaps once conscious in the world and which now subsists only in artworks† (112). This â€Å"sensorium†Ã¢â‚¬â€a â€Å"consciousness† not yet self-reflexive yet nonetheless a consciousness—is composed of a set of receptors relating intimately to the external world.The layer of existence captured by the sensorium may be considered the objective aspect of subjectivity, the world-sensitive, outer-directed, knowledge-seeking, coping body that is the foundation on which a psychic subjectivity, a personality, builds. Ult imately, for Adorno, it is the experience of this objective layer of being (the â€Å"consciousness† of the sensorium) that artworks seek to â€Å"express. † â€Å"Artworks,† Adorno writes, â€Å"bear expression not where they communicate the subject, but rather where they reverberate with the protohistory of subjectivity† (112).Another fruitful way to think of the relation between the â€Å"protohistory of subjectivity† and expression can be found in the work of Charles Darwin. As unlikely as it may seem, there is a continuum leading from Darwin’s The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872/1965) through Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception ([1962] where he relies heavily on Darwin for his understanding of the expressive body), to Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory and its notion of a primordial sensorimotor apprehension captured mimetically in art.Adorno’s sensorial â€Å"consciousness† or â€Å"presu bjective† layer of being in the world looks surprisingly like Darwin’s understanding of â€Å"corporeal intensities†Ã¢â‚¬â€muscular 56 Dance Research Journal 42 / 1 summer 2010 contractions, accelerated circulation, and their various manifestations on the faces and bodies of animals and humans. These â€Å"corporeal intensities† are forms of expression—or â€Å"proto† expression, if you like—that serve as the precondition for the development of more culturally legible, codified expressive gestures (such as the wince or the smile).In The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, Darwin’s theory of expressivity links the development of what we call emoting to primary neurological and physiological responses generated by a sensorimotor intelligence. What we identify as rage, he writes, is actually caused by a response generated in animals by the autonomic circulatory system; behavior that comes to be designated as anger (for the observer) begins with an accelerated flow of blood, while behavior identified as joy or vivid pleasure is underwritten, so to speak, by the quickening of the circulation.What we identify as â€Å"suffering† is expressed through the contraction of a wide variety of muscle groups. Over the course of time, muscular contraction in general comes to be associated with angst, although the specific groups of muscles contracted might vary from culture to culture. For instance, one culture might associate suffering with the contraction of the facial muscles, for example, in a grimace. A different culture—or really, a subculture, such as modern dance—might associate suffering with the contraction of muscles in the abdominal cavity, sternum, and pelvis.In both cases, the adaptive behavior, muscular contraction, can be observed as distinct from the social significations it comes to acquire. Animals and humans both exhibit behaviors that are closely associated with emotio ns, but theoretically it should be possible—and this is Darwin’s goal—to dissociate the protosubjective expressiveness of the body (muscle contractions, autonomic responses) from the conventionalized, codified gestures into which this expressivity has been conjugated.Adorno and Cunningham both target—the first to theorize, the second to achieve—this primary order of protosubjective expressiveness contained in, but potentially dissociable from, the conventionalized gestures to which it gives rise. The â€Å"human situation on stage† that is so â€Å"dramatic† or â€Å"expressive† (in Cunningham’s vocabulary) is one in which human bodies have been released from the prefabricated shapes and congealed (â€Å"stiffened†) meanings imposed by a given choreographic vocabulary or gestural regime (qtd. n Vaughan 1997, 69). Cunningham trusts that by preventing the conventional sequencing of movements within a phrase (through the application of chance procedures) he will coax dancers to exhibit dynamics that are at once more â€Å"objective†Ã¢â‚¬â€in the sense that they are generated by coping mechanisms rather than emotional states—and utterly idiosyncratic—radically subjective, we might say, in the sense that they are generated by the singular body of the dancer confronting an utterly unique â€Å"human situation on stage. In â€Å"The Impermanent Art† (1952), Cunningham comes very close to naming Darwin’s â€Å"corporeal intensities† when he evokes an order of muscular dynamics released from association with conventional emotions, such as passion and anger. Here he writes that Dance is not emoting, passion for her, anger against him. I think dance is more primal than that. In its essence, in the nakedness of its energy it is the source from which passion or anger may issue in a particular form, the source of energy out of which may be channeled the energy t hat goes into the various emotionalDance Research Journal 42 / 1 summer 2010 57 behaviors. It is that blatant exhibiting of this energy, i. e. , of energy geared to an intensity high enough to melt steel in some dancers, that gives the great excitement. (qtd. in Vaughan 1997, 86) The â€Å"blatant exhibiting† of an intensified corporeal energy bears a relation to what Darwin calls the exhibition of â€Å"corporeal intensities† by animals that can only be said to be â€Å"angry† or â€Å"ashamed† if we anthropomorphize their movements.Cunningham seems acutely attuned to what Darwin also notes: our tendency to interpret (anthropomorphize) animal behaviors, a tendency he implicitly identifies with the public’s desire to read psychological meaning into the intensified corporealities of the dancers on stage. One could even say that Cunningham attempts to de-anthropomorphize our understanding of human behavior on stage; that is, he wants us to de-reify, to extract from the conventionalized, psychologizing modes of dance spectatorship, the movement behavior â€Å"blatantly† exhibited in his choreography.He asks us to experience even the graceful, plangent duet of Suite by Chance without sentimental overlay, as though it were simply an instance of protosubjective expressivity displayed by two moving bodies implicated in a â€Å"human situation on stage. † Perhaps not incidentally, Cunningham’s most suggestive evocation of this â€Å"protosubjective† layer of expressivity appears in a passage on animals and music—and it is with this passage that I would like to conclude. Cunningham is talking about his reasons for separating music from his horeography, explaining why he avoids giving his dancers musical cues with which to time the duration of their movements or generate their expressive dynamics. At pains to offer a positive rendering of what he is seeking, he notes instead that the polar opposite of what he aspires to in his collaborations with Cage may be â€Å"seen and heard in the music accompanying the movements of wild animals in the Disney films. [This music] robs them of their instinctual rhythms,† he claims, â€Å"and leaves them as caricatures.True, [the movement] is a man-made arrangement, but what isn’t? † (qtd. in Vaughan 1997, 10). Let us imagine for a moment the Disney animator as cave painter, miming—like the â€Å"primitive† dancer of Benjamin’s â€Å"On the Mimetic Faculty†Ã¢â‚¬â€the power of the animal totem. In an act of sympathetic response, troubling the boundary between mime and mimed, the animator studies the animal, acquiring its rhythmic gait, the expressive dynamic of its way of howling or extending a paw.Without knowing exactly what the animal means, how that howl or extension signifies in an animal world, the animator copies, uses whatever conventions and images—whatever man-made arrangementsà ¢â‚¬â€she has to approach the original in its presubjective, prepsychologized movement state. That, for Cunningham, is what can be freed through the disruption of continuity, through the imposition of the strict, unforgiving disciplines of permutation and chance.The protosubjective order of the wild gesture is what we might see if it were unencumbered by narrative, if it could be captured without the omnipresent, strip-mall swelling music of the Disney world in which we all too often bathed. Ultimately, the â€Å"human situation on stage† is, despite years of rehearsals and revivals, a set of â€Å"wild gestures† expressing what it is like to be a sensorium moving on stage. The challenge that remains is to determine both how Cunningham’s choreographic practice divulges the work of the proto-self and how that work informs (and is balanced by 8 Dance Research Journal 42 / 1 summer 2010 the exigencies of ) the construction of artworks, that is, the construction of dances for audiences in specific historical settings with demands of their own. Another challenge arises with respect to Adorno and my allied project of reading dance back into Aesthetic Theory. If, as he claims, artworks—not dances, but paintings, sonatas, and poems—â€Å"reverberate with the protohistory of subjectivity,† then where is this â€Å"reverberation† to be located?Where (or when) in the process of art making does protosubjectivity intervene as an agent, as a constituting force? And if, as Adorno implies, we are no longer sensuously alive (â€Å"the sensorium was perhaps once conscious in the world,† he writes), then how do we recognize the presence of the sensorium’s influence on the composition of artworks? What remains of the sensorium in art, of the sensorium in dance? These questions inform the next phase of my research, the contours of which I have only begun to outline.Notes 1. Jose Gil provides several fine articulations of Cunningham’s project in â€Å"The Dancer’s Body† (2002). I agree with Gil that, in an attempt to â€Å"make grammar the meaning,† or â€Å"make body awareness command consciousness† (121), Cunningham â€Å"disconnects movements from one another, as if each movement belonged to a different body† (122); however, I do not believe that the actual dancer ends up with a â€Å"multiplicity of virtual bodies† (123), a â€Å"body-without-organs† (124).As I document later in this essay, Cunningham’s most successful dancers (in his eyes and my own) have been those who are able to absorb the movement sequences into their own body; the grammar’s inflection, the sequence’s assimilation through the body’s singular dynamics, is what ultimately lends the dance â€Å"meaning† in the way Cunningham intends. 2. See â€Å"The Impermanent Art,† first published in Arts 7, no. 3 (1955) and reproduced in Ko stelanetz (1989) and Vaughan (1997). 3.See especially the appendices to Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory. The work was not finished during Adorno’s lifetime (Adorno died in 1969. ) 4. Sixteen Dances for Soloist and Company of Three was first performed in Milbrook, New York. It contained the following sequence: solo, trio, solo, duet, solo, quartet, solo, quartet, solo, duet, solo, trio, solo, quartet, duet, quartet. See Vaughan (1997, 289). 5. Carolyn Brown, personal communication with the author, June 24, 2009. 6. Cunningham presents what he is getting at as ollows: â€Å"You do not separate the human being from the actions he does, or the actions which surround him, but you can see what it is like to break these actions up in different ways, to allow the passion, and it is passion, to appear for each person in his own way† (qtd. in Vaughan 1997, 10). 7. Mark Johnson (1987) and Daniel Stern (1985/2000) also believe that our ability to be expressive in the more familia r way—to display human emotions such as anger or pity—is predicated on a presubjective capacity to organize experience into â€Å"image schemata† ( Johnson) or â€Å"vitality affects† (Stern).The neuroscientist Antonio R. Damasio has more recently argued that a protoself, or neural substrate of sensory feedback, is the condition of possibility for emotions per se (1999). What is â€Å"expressed† by this protoself is movement, a nonthematized awareness of orientation, a sense of balance. Cunningham’s choreography appears to be calling on its dancers to â€Å"express† precisely these functions; they are what provide the continuity, the dynamic, that is so moving to watch. On the sensorimotor protoself and our access to it, see my Agency and Embodiment (2009). 8. See Damasio (1999) and Jeannerod (2006).Damasio insists that the protoself is entirely nonconscious, but Jeannerod provides persuasive evidence that kinesthetic awareness is oft en available to the conscious self. See also Joseph LeDoux (2002) for a similar account. Dance Research Journal 42 / 1 summer 2010 59 Works Cited Adorno, Theodor W. 1970/1997. Aesthetic Theory, edited by Gretel Adorno and Rolf Tiedemann. Translated and introduced by Robert Hullot-Kentor. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Benjamin, Walter. 1986. â€Å"On the Mimetic Faculty. † Reflections: Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writing, edited by Peter Demetz, 333–36. New York: Schocken.Brown, Carolyn. 2007. Chance and Circumstance: Twenty Years with Cage and Cunningham. New York: Knopf. Cunningham, Merce. 1951. Rehearsal Notes. Merce Cunningham Archives, Westbeth, New York City, New York. ———. 1952–1958. Rehearsal Notes. Merce Cunningham Archives, Westbeth, New York City, New York. ———. 1968. Changes: Notes on Choreography. Edited by Frances Starr. New York: Something Else Press. ———. 1991. Th e Dancer and the Dance: Merce Cunningham in Conversation with Jacqueline Lesschaeve. New York: Marilyn Boyars. Damasio, Antonio R. 1999. The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness.New York: Harcourt Brace. Darwin, Charles. 1872/1965. The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Foster, Susan Leigh. 1986. Reading Dancing: Bodies and Subjects in Contemporary American Dance. Berkeley: University of California Press. Franko, Mark. 1995. Dancing Modernism/Performing Politics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Gil, Jose. 2002. â€Å"The Dancer’s Body. † In A Shock to Thought: Expression after Deleuze and Guattari, edited by Brian Massumi, 117–27. London: Routledge. Jeannerod, Marc. 2006. Motor Cognition: What Actions Tell the Self. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Johnson, Mark. 1987. The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason. Chicago: University of Chica go Press. Kostelanetz, Richard. 1989. Esthetics Contemporary. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus. ———, ed. 1998. Merce Cunningham: Dancing in Space and Time 1944–1992. New York: Da Capo. LeDoux, Joseph. 2002. The Synaptic Self. New York: Viking. Manning, Susan A. 1993. Ecstasy and the Demon: Feminism and Nationalism in the Dances of Mary Wigman. Berkeley: University of California Press. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. 1962. Phenomenology of Perception. Translated by Colin Smith. New York: Routledge. Nicholls, David. 2007.John Cage. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Noland, Carrie. 2009. Agency and Embodiment: Performing Gestures/Producing Culture. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Reynolds, Dee. 2007. Rhythmic Subjects: Uses of Energy in the Dances of Mary Wigman, Martha Graham, and Merce Cunningham. Hampshire, England: Dance Books. Stern, Daniel. 1985/2000. The Interpersonal World of the Infant. New York: Basic. Tobias, Tobi. 1975. â€Å"Notes for a Piece on Cu nningham. † Dance Magazine 42 (September). Vaughan, David. 1997. Merce Cunningham: Fifty Years. Edited by Melissa Harris. New York: Aperture. 60 Dance Research Journal 42 / 1 summer 2010