Category Archives: Arts and Sciences

The programs (majors) in the College of Arts and Sciences

Show me Your Best Jazz Hands

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The history of jazz dance is best understood by thinking of it as a tree. The roots of jazz dance are African. Its trunk is vernacular, shaped by European influence, and exemplified by the Charleston and the Lindy Hop. From the vernacular have grown many and varied branches, including tap, Broadway, funk, hip-hop, Afro-Caribbean, Latin, pop, club jazz, popping, B-boying, party dances, and more. Unique in its focus on history rather than technique, Jazz Dance offers the only overview of trends and developments since 1960. Editors Lindsay Guarino and Wendy Oliver have assembled an array of seasoned practitioners and scholars who trace the numerous histories of jazz dance and examine various aspects of the field, including influences, training, race, aesthetics, international appeal, and its relationship to tap, rock, indie, black concert dance, and Latin dance. 

 

 

A History of Ballet

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For more than four hundred years, the art of ballet has stood at the center of Western civilization. Its traditions serve as a record of our past. Lavishly illustrated and beautifully told, Apollo’s Angels—the first cultural history of ballet ever written—is a groundbreaking work. From ballet’s origins in the Renaissance and the codification of its basic steps and positions under France’s Louis XIV, the art form wound its way through the courts of Europe, from Paris and Milan to Vienna and St. Petersburg. In the twentieth century, Russian émigré dancers taught their art to a generation in the United States and in Western Europe, setting off a new and radical transformation of dance. Jennifer Homans, a historian, critic, and former professional ballerina, wields a knowledge of dance born of dedicated practice.

“Here is a book of immense ambition—a one-volume history of ballet—and of considerable accomplishment. Jennifer Homans, whom we know primarily as The New Republic’s provocative dance critic, shows herself to be both dogged and graceful as a historian—a rare and welcome combination of qualities.” The New York Review of Books

Takes two to Tango

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Widely regarded as the foremost existing textbook on the art of partnering. First published in 1969 in Russian by one of the world’s most respected experts on partnering, the original book was created for the Vaganova Ballet Academy in St. Petersburg, the school that produced Pavlova and Nijinsky. This expanded edition contains new text, sketches, and photographs that describe 32 new poses and lifts, along with new information about strengthening exercises and balance points. It is adaptable to instruction based on the Royal Academy of Dancing and the Cecchetti methods, making it invaluable for teachers and dancers of all three major methodologies.

Beginning with simple exercises for young dancers, the comprehensive text guides students, teachers, and choreographers safely to complex lifts and tosses. The instruction is useful for all forms of dance, including ballet, jazz, modern dance, ballroom, and ice dancing.

Creative Approach to Modern Dance

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An introduction to modern dance and body movement techniques, this guide begins with an overview of the history of modern dance and proceeds to a discussion of basic body movement, improvisation, and choreography. A series of clearly photographed exercises enables the dancer to execute each movement properly and to learn to use the body more effectively and expressively. Clear photos show exactly how to execute each movement. Of interest to students of dance, yoga, aerobics, and t’ai chi; also helps the modern dance viewer better understand the work of Graham, Taylor, Ailey, and other modern dance giants.

The Brain is not an Attic, much to Sherlock’s chagrin

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From the moment we enter school as children, we are made to feel as if our brains are fixed entities, capable of learning certain things and not others, influenced exclusively by genetics. This notion follows us into adulthood, where we tend to simply accept these established beliefs about our skill sets. These damaging—and as new science has revealed, false—assumptions have influenced all of us at some time, affecting our confidence and willingness to try new things and limiting our choices, and, ultimately, our futures. Jo Boaler has spent decades studying the impact of beliefs and bias on education. In Limitless Mind, she explodes these myths and reveals the six keys to unlocking our boundless learning potential. Her research proves that those who achieve at the highest levels do not do so because of a genetic inclination toward any one skill but because of the kyes that she reveals in this book. Our brains are not “fixed,” but entirely capable of change, growth, adaptability, and rewiring. The truth is anyone at any age can learn anything, and the act of learning itself fundamentally changes who we are, and what we go on to achieve.

The Ethical Engineer

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Both engineering and human living takes place in a messy world, one chock full of unknowns and contingencies. To begin with, a design problem raises many questions: how to make occupants of vehicles safer, settle on an interface for an x-ray machine, or create more legible road signs. In choosing any particular solution, engineers must make value choices. These texts provide the foundation of ethics for engineering. The aim of these books is to generate a strong operational ethic in the work of engineers from all disciplines. Providing numerous examples of engineers who sought to meet the highest ethical standards, risking both professional and personal retaliations. Topics that are covered include whistle-blowing, the problem of many hands, gifts, bribes, conflicts of interest, engineering and environmental ethics, privacy and computer ethics, ethical technology assessment, and the ethics of cost-benefit analysis and risk and uncertainty. Illuminating the ethical dimension of engineering practice and helping students and professionals determine engineers’ context-specific ethical responsibilities.

An Inclusive, Beloved Community

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The international community is recognizing that people of African descent represent a distinct group whose human rights must be promoted and protected. Authentic Christianity requires the loving inclusion of all God’s creation. An inclusive, beloved community is a community free from racism. United Against Racism is a call to an authentic Christianity, a religion that strives to become God’s inclusive, beloved community. It summons Christians to pray, think, and act to end racism. This resource aims to support churches, communions, and those who endeavour to share the journey of the Christian faith in the pursuit of an unfinished agenda to embody a more excellent way of racial equity.

Call Number: 277.3083089 U581N

“Partition”

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“you’re kashmiri until they burn your home. take your orchards. stake a different flag. until no one remembers the road that brings you back. you’re indian until they draw a border through punjab. until the british captains spit paki as they sip your chai, add so much foam you can’t taste home. you’re seraiki until your mouth fills with english. you’re pakistani until your classmates ask what that is. then you’re indian again. or some kind of spanish. you speak a language until you don’t. until you only recognize it between your auntie’s lips. your father was fluent in four languages. you’re illiterate in the tongues of your father. your grandfather wrote persian poetry on glasses. maybe. you can’t remember. you made it up. someone lied. you’re a daughter until they bury your mother. until you’re not invited to your father’s funeral. you’re a virgin until you get too drunk. you’re muslim until you’re not a virgin. you’re pakistani until they start throwing acid. you’re muslim until it’s too dangerous. you’re safe until you’re alone. you’re american until the towers fall. until there’s a border on your back.”

Call Number: 816.21 A818I

Video Games and Religion, Finally Together

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Game studies have been an understudied area within the emerging field of digital media and religion. Video games can reflect, reject, or reconfigure traditionally held religious ideas and often serve as sources for the production of religious practices and ideas. This collection of essays presents a broad range of influential methodological approaches that illuminate how and why video games shape the construction of religious beliefs and practices and also situates such research within the wider discourse on how digital media intersect with the religious worlds of the 21st century.

Call Number: 794.8 M592