Franklin Roosevelt foreign policies from 1937 to 1941 Essay

â€Å"To a greater or lesser extent, three factors were involved in explaining U.S response to Japanese and German aggression, economics, national security, and democratic values,† these factors influenced Franklin Roosevelt foreign policies from 1937 to 1941. America’s Involvement in World War two not only contributed in the eventual downfall of Adolph Hitler, but also came at the precise time and moment. Had the United States entered the war any earlier the consequences might have been worse. The U.S. desired to avoid foreign entanglements of all kinds had been an American foreign policy for more a long time. The U.S. was under geographical isolation and it permitted the U.S. to fill up the empty lands of North America free from the threat of foreign conflict. As stated in Document D, that â€Å"the American people cannot put their faith in me without recording my conviction that some form of selective service is the only democratic way in which to secure the trained and competent manpower we need for national defense.† This explains how the American people need to face with in foreign nations. Also in Document H, shows that if the U.S. focuses on protecting the country, no foreign army will ever attempt to land on American shores. The health of the American economy could not be jeopardized and it was Roosevelt’s view that the United States would fare well whether Europe went to war or not. For most of the 1930 the United States traded as openly with Germany and Japan, as it did with any other country. Japan relied on fuel oil and iron until 1941. Germany was one of the United States most important markets during the 1930, American investments in Germany increased by forty per cent between 1936 and 1940. The chart from Document G shows the effect of WWII on the American industry and it shows an increase of profits and lower business failures. The real concern of American business was not the rights or wrongs of trading with fascism but the fear that commercial rivals such as Japan and Germany would exclude American goods from Europe and Asia altogether. Adolf Hitler, leading the Nazi Party, took power in Germany and eliminated its democratic government. Document C reveals that without democracy, the country will have no power to maintain the illusion of security, and shall have no business, but primitive self-defense. The Allies valued democracy because they are vitally concerned in the defense for freedom. Factors that influenced Franklin Roosevelt foreign policies are economics, national security, and democratic values. Roosevelt lead the United States every step of the way and he did a superb job in bringing America into war. If the principles of democracy mean anything at all, that is enough reason for the U.S. to stay out of the war. One of the reasons given was that unless America was directly threatened they had no reason to be involved. This reason was a valid one because it was the American policy to stay neutral in any affairs not having to with them unless American soil was threatened directly. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II Documents American Pageant Book

Gaming the Console Response

2121 – Writing for MIT Dr. Tim Freeborn January 31, 2012 Gaming the Console – Rhetorical Essay In Linda Bernstein’s informative article â€Å"Gaming the Console† she presents both sides to the ongoing debate about the possible consequences associated with playing video games. Some experts have concluded that gaming leads to negative outcomes such as an increase in violent behavior, or a decrease in academic and social skills. On the other hand, there is a belief that some video games can have positive educational and physical benefits.Bernstein touches on all of these aspects of gaming and leaves the ultimate decision up to the reader to form his or her own opinion on the matter. Throughout the article, there are three images displayed that effectively support the text and help develop the arguments presented. The initial picture that is splashed across the entire first page of the article seems to represent the type of teen who exhibits the potential for increased aggression as a result of playing video games.The photo depicts a male teenager with spiked hair, dark eyes, pierced ear, and stubble on his lip and chin. These characteristics are typically indicative of a more rebellious or aggressive individual. His concentration is evident in his wide-eyed expression and his grimacing face with his tongue in his mouth. He holds the console in a tight grip as shown by the redness of his skin around his thumbs, which indicates his level of intensity. All of these details compliment the notion that video games may be unknowingly impacting areas of the brain associated with aggression.Professor Craig A. Anderson of Iowa State University describes this as follows: â€Å"The effects aren’t huge or immediately noticeable by a game player, but they tend to increase over time† (Bernstein 14). The player may not feel more aggressive after playing a game, but there may be evidence to suggest the effect is still there none the less. The next image in sequence works well in conjunction with the text and seems to support the argument that gaming can have positive benefits if used appropriately. For instance, in the article eighteen-year-old David A. xpresses, â€Å"It’s a fun way of being with your friends when [you are] home relaxing. [It is] competitive and fun, but I only do it when I have extra time† (Bernstein 14). This opinion appears to be shared by the two male and two female teens shown in the picture. They appear to be having fun while playing the game and getting along. Although they have a look of concentration on their faces, the fact that they are all leaning in the same direction could indicate they are playing towards a common goal, and thus encouraging teamwork.It shows boys and girls playing together which illustrates that gaming can have a social and inclusive benefit, and is not simply for socially awkward children. This image can support the notion that if gaming is not performe d at the exclusion of other things such as schoolwork and sports, it can be a fun pastime. The last image Bernstein integrates into her article could be perceived as support for either side of the debate over the impact of video games. The presentation of a boy with his headset on and console in the air with a huge smile indicates again a positive image of gaming.On the other hand, the fact that he is wearing headphones may signify that he is a serious gamer who spends a lot of time gaming at the exclusion of other educational activities. This picture is rather ambiguous because depending on whether he is part of the 8% teen gamers who are addicted or 92% who are not addicted it can have a very different meaning (Bernstein 14). Overall, this image can be interpreted to support whatever argument you are rooting for by the end of the article.Bernstein is successful in presenting useful images that enhance the text while still being fair and showing all views discussed throughout the a rticle. The first image portrays the aggressive nature of gaming, the second illustrates the social aspect of gaming and the third image is left up for interpretation by the viewer. Overall, the article displays a balanced perspective complimented with appropriate corresponding images that support Bernstein’s thesis. Works Cited Bernstein, Linda. â€Å"Gaming the Console. † Current Health Teens. † March 2012.

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

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Texas - Water Riparian Rights (years 1836-1986) - Essay Example The fragmented institutional structure of riparian water rights constituted obstacles to achieving an efficient and comprehensive water-resource management system, thus the development of a surface water permit system. A riparian area refers to an area that acts as an interface between land, and a stream or river; consequently, riparian water rights refers to the system of allocating water on the basis of riparian land ownership. The Riparian doctrine was introduce in Texas over 200 years ago by Hispanic settlers in San Antonio, Texas; the Hispanic practices and legal principles became the blue print from which land title was granted. During this time, and through the 19th Century, riparian land was granted and the benefits included the right of riparian land owners to take water from the streams and rivers for purposes of irrigation. This can be best demonstrated in the case of Motl v Boyd (1926); the case was about the rights of Hispanics to take water from streams for irrigation (Rio Grande). In this case, the Supreme Court of Texas decided that the owner of riparian land had the right to use riparian waters not only for household and domestic purposes, but for irrigation purposes as well (Hutc hins 517). Riparian rights were affected by a couple of artificial and natural challenges; first there was the question of what constituted a river bed, a section of the riparian zone that would be owned by the state. Secondly, there was the question of defining the rivers banks since the boundary was ever changing due to manmade or natural reasons. Effects such as erosion, accretion, avulsion, subsidence and dereliction resulted in the shifting of boundaries, reducing or increasing the state owned river bed and the private owned riparian land (Powell 7). In 1840, the state of Texas abolished the Spanish riparian doctrine and embraced the English riparian common law with a few exceptions from the doctrine; this was later

The movie my big fat greek wedding Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

The movie my big fat greek wedding - Essay Example However, she does her role of taking care of male Greek babies which she usually feeds since her duty is a waiter. As time goes by, her family is in worries of whether of she may find a man in a life or remain single throughout her lifetime. Her father even reminds her in the play to get married since she is becoming old with time. It is because most men do not like to marry old ladies since they do not easily give birth at their old age (Fields and James, 2005). Toula intends to go to college so that she can improve in her knowledge in computer and operations. However, she falls for a handsome man who is not from Greek by the name Ian Miller. The man is a teacher in a given high school and also a vegetarian. She differs with her family in this situation since in this case she goes against the Greek traditions of marrying a person outside the Greek community. She claims that her soul objective of marrying the high school teacher is simply because she gives he gives her the total happiness she deserves in love. In fact it was outside the expectations of her parents from her on getting married to a non-Greek. Therefore, in this situation, her father, Gus, rejects her new found lover since she went against the norms of the society. The father is so furious in the play that he finally utters such statements. He later takes a soft stand upon uttering the tough statements to her lovely daughter whom she is unhappy with in getting married to a pers on outside the Greek community. The soft position taken by Gus, the father to Toula on her decision to marry Ian who is a non Greek makes Toula a happy lady indeed. After realizing that the soft stand he takes on Toula in marrying Ian, Gus follows Toula’s mother and accepts Ian embracing him as his in-law son. However, the tough moments that waits Ian ahead is whether the Toula’s community will also take their marriage just as the father agreed to it. Ian Miller

The Gilded Age Essay Example for Free

The Gilded Age Essay Response During the Gilded Age (1876-1900), Congress was known for being rowdy and inefficient. It was not unusual to find that agreement could not be achieved because too many members were drunk or otherwise preoccupied with extra-governmental affairs. It was an era in which political corruption seemed to be the norm. Practices that today would be viewed as scandalous were accepted as a matter of routine. The narrow division between Republican and Democratic voters made both parties hesitant to take strong stands on any issue for fear of alienating blocs of voters. The result was that little got done. The halls of Congress were filled with tobacco smoke, Businessmen wantonly bribed public officials at the local, state and national level, and political machines turned elections into exercises in fraud and manipulation. (Kennedy, pg 591) The Senate, whose seats were often auctioned off to the highest bidder, was known as a â€Å"rich mans club,† where political favors were traded like horses, and the needs of the people in the working classes lay beyond the vision of those exalted legislators. The dominant fact concerning the American political parties between 1875 and 1900 was that the parties were evenly divided. The Republican Party held a slight edge in national politics, largely on their repeated claim that it was the Democratic Party that had caused the Civil War. Republicans were noted for waving the â€Å"Bloody Shirt,† calling Democrats responsible for the blood that was shed over secession. (Kennedy, Pg 602) Union veterans gravitated heavily to the Republican Party, which caused its popularity. Before the Civil War the Democratic Party had become a heavily Southern party, and its strong Southern base continued until well into the 20th century. The northern wing of the Democratic Party leaned heavily in favor of the working classes, whose demographic makeup included Roman Catholics of German and Irish descent, and many of the working class immigrants once they became eligible to vote. Neither Democrats nor Republicans were willing to take strong stands on issues important to the voters. Due to the corruption of the parties, little was done in office. The sectionalism caused unfair elections and favored voting that would last for the next decades to come.

TECHNICAL, VOCATIONAL AND TRAINING IN SOMALIA

TECHNICAL, VOCATIONAL AND TRAINING IN SOMALIA TECHNICAL, VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING (TVET) IN SOMALIA EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Somalia is one of the poorest countries in the world, a situation aggravated by the civil war and the absence of a functioning national government for over a decade. The impact of state failure on human development in Somalia has been profound, resulting in the collapse of political institutions, the destruction of social and economic infrastructure, and massive internal and external migrations. This is more pronounced in Central South Somalia where intermittent conflicts continue to destroy what has been left. In the more peaceful semi-autonomous regions of Puntland and Somaliland, notable progress has been registered in public sector growth, albeit slowly. Even in these regions, the public sector has very limited capacity to create employment opportunities for its own citizens. Providing employable skills is one of the alternatives assessed to have potential to create employment opportunities for the youth. The level of economic development notwithstanding, partner governments in Puntland, Somaliland and Central South Somalia need to formulate and execute appropriate systems and policies that can effectively guide and facilitate the growth of the private sector within agreed national development priorities. Still, in spite of the efforts of the international community, weak coordination and fragmented implementation of actions has not supported the effective growth of the TVET sector. The choice of skills training is not always guided by the needs of the market but by need to ‘address all needs by projects whose scope is too small to warrant such undertakings. Puntland, Somaliland and Central south Somalia do not have standardized curriculum or syllabi for TVET. There is also no standardized system for TVET assessment, examination and certification. The only standardized curriculum available but not being used in most of the TVET centres is the UNESCO PEER developed curriculum[1]. It is imperative that this is considered in any future intervention. Implementation of education programs in Somalia is coordinated through the Education Sector Committee (ESC), yet there are many partners with sub-programs falling under this sector but subsumed under a different thematic area. In such situations, the TVET does not receive appropriate technical direction for its success. The survey involved conducting a skills training market and opportunities study in respect of the vocational training leading to livelihoods opportunities of the unemployed youths in Somalia. The survey was expected to provide a situational analysis on skills development by focusing on opportunities and institutional arrangements for skills development taking cognizance of the specific characteristics of the three different zones of Somaliland, Puntland and South Central Somalia. The study would come up with recommendations on appropriate skills development to provide the target and guidelines on implementation framework of the skills development strategy. Data was gathered using secondary sources, key informant interviews, semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, and direct observation. Excerpts of interviews with stakeholders by the first consultant were reviewed and relevant inferences made. The survey found that skills market in Puntland, Somaliland and some regions of South Somalia has potential owing to private sector growth, the high demand for specific skills, among other factors. The skills in high demand include electrical works, tailoring/dressmaking, solar PVC technology, plumbing, shampoo/soap making, masonry, metal work, shoe making, fabric design (tie/dye, printing, batik, and embroidery), secretarial, management and ICT. Poverty, insecurity, low expectations and an overall environment characterized by market imperfections limit skills development and will be critical challenges during project implementation. Based on the findings, the survey recommends the following: 1. Financial support to partners and institutions implementing vocational training activities should demand a proportionate financial contribution from the partner government or institutions. This could take either or all of the following forms: cost recovery through charging user fees; government part funding to the VTCs or public-private-partnership. 2. Capacity strengthening of MOEs structures to execute a policy framework which will guide the quality implementation of vocational training by public and private institutions. 3. Given the nascent/formation level of the management structures of respective vocational training centers, it is critically important to train and build the functional capacity of these institutions on the vocational skills training concept and Employment Promotion so that they can be stronger in their role of designing and implementation of literacy and vocational training in skills with economic and social relevance to the community. 4. Orientation of the vocational training teachers on adult education pedagogy/methodologies. Even if they have been found qualified during recruitment, orientation is critically important for consensus and solidifying their understanding on vocational and livelihoods skills training objectives and expectations as well as the different stages in the learning process. 5. UNESCO needs to re/design modular training process entailing the following three areas: (i) Basic functional literacy and numeracy skills. (ii) Vocational and Livelihoods skills in identified trade areas. Cross cutting issues such as HIV and FGM needs to be gradually worked into this module. (iii) Simple business management or entrepreneurship skills on identifying and evaluating a viable business idea, market effect on skills demand, getting started and basic management and book keeping, and customer care principles. Continuous efforts should be made to bear in mind that livelihood and skill training is a process and not an episodic event. 6. Given the landscape of insecurity and the concomitantly heavy investment in security, it is advisable to link vocational training with peace and reconstruction efforts. The example of Kosovo Enterprise Programme (KEP) in the collapsed USSR can be a learning model. The model is simple and workable in any society under reconstruction. 7. In order to enhance the marketability and relevance of the skills, it is critical to support a research and marketing development unit that regularly undertakes local Economic Development and Skills Market survey for consideration by VTCs in reviewing vocational skills curriculum. The training approach adopted should be one that links center-based vocational training and apprenticeships in which those being trained can undertake practical work with the local business/merchant community for purposes of applying the knowledge acquired and getting exposed in starting their own enterprises. The capacity of the master craftsmen to whom the trainees will be attached will have to be improved through training and induction on areas of practical emphasis. 8. Address the poverty barrier that hinder access to vocational skills training by implementing competency/performance based bursary schemes for the trainees. Existing schemes pay the cost of training based on duration required to complete the training. It is a fact that not all are competent enough to produce quality products after completing. A high premium needs to be pegged on performance for both the trainee and the master trainer. 9. Within a wider consultation under the principle of Sector Wide Approach, rethink the incentive structure for trainers at vocational training centers so as to attract and retain qualified trainers. 10. Creating synergy with other vocational training programs implemented or being implemented by other donors (STEO, VETAPE etc) in the same regions will strengthen the sector growth by avoiding wasteful duplication of efforts. This should be greatly achieved through the organisational platform of Somali Support Secretariat/Education Sector Committee and other coordination mechanisms in Puntland, Somaliland and Central South Somalia. 1 INTRODUCTION Susceptibility of Communities to adverse effects of poverty is largely contributed by lack of appropriate skills to engage in efficient and diversified income generation production systems. In Somalia, unemployment creation is slow and inadequate to absorb the high number of youth looking for employment opportunities. Livelihood skills that include technical and vocational abilities impart the community with capabilities, resources and opportunities for pursuing individual and household economic goals. Where this is lacking, poverty and insecurity rise by almost equal proportion. Weak institutional structures limit the provision of skills causing individuals ability to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life to be adversely affected. The political and social turmoil in Somalia provides many challenges for young people, which could be potentially alleviated by providing them with opportunities to acquire appropriate employable skills. Consequently, UNESCO is supporting the development of a systematic, coordinated, needs-based and institutionalised provision of vocational, technical and livelihoods skills approach in Somalia. By working with the local administrations, partners and institutions to set systems and standards for skills development, UNESCO aims at strengthening vocational, technical and livelihoods skills for development and participation of young people. One of the major problems UNESCO will be addressing is the need to increase opportunities for employment and participation in income generation activities for the youth. As verified from different studies and reports, the youths are deficient in employable skills and have limited opportunities to develop themselves in the current situation. In the last 7 years, there has been increased attention by the international community to the revitalisation of the TVET sector. Unfortunately, the capacity of the Ministry of Education to coordinate and monitor the implementation of the TVET is weak raising serious questions on quality and sustainability. The result has been training that is neither linked to the market nor designed with adequate consideration of the capacity of the trainees to uptake and practice the skills effectively. 1.1 BACKGROUND With a population of 7.7 million in 2006[2], and an income per capita estimated in 2002 to be $226 (compared to $515 in Sub-Saharan Africa), Somalia is one of the poorest countries in the world. The UNDPs Human Development Index ranked Somalia 161 out of 163 countries in 2001. Extreme poverty (less than $1 PPP) is estimated at 43 percent. It is 10 percentage points higher for rural and nomadic populations. General poverty (less than $2 PPP) afflicts 73 percent of households, but reaches 80 percent in rural and nomadic populations. Income inequality is significant with the poorest 10 percent of the population receiving only 1.5 percent of total income. The civil conflict, continuing insecurity in many parts of the country, and poor access to services and infrastructure have made conditions worse than they were before the civil war. Absent or weak administrative structures provide minimal interference with trade or private sector activities. As a consequence, the private sector has flourished, trading with neighbouring and Asian countries, processing agricultural products and manufacturing on a small scale, and providing services previously monopolized or dominated by the public sector. There has been significant (but unmeasured) private investment in commercial ventures, including in trade and marketing, money transfer services, transport, communications, airlines, telecommunications, construction and hotels, education and health, and fishery equipment, largely funded by the large remittances from the Diaspora. The World Bank Country brief for Somalia (2009) assesses that remittances, amounting to about $1 billion per year, have partially offset a larger drop in per capita output for Somalia. However, persistent insecurity threatens further growth of the private sector and the absence of provision of key public goods is hurting both rural and urban households and the private sector. The macro-economic situation offers opportunities as well as challenges in the promotion of vocational and livelihoods skills. The thriving private sector, offers varied opportunities for skills to drive the growth of the different enterprises. Some of the skills are not readily available in Somalia and are frequently sourced from Diaspora or neighbouring countries, the main reason being that there are not adequate Vocational Training Institutions that offer quality trainings to meet the skills demand of the local market. On the other hand, the weak administrations have resulted to growth of the private sector, including the vocational training under a policy vacuum. Even where it exists in Somaliland, enforcement is weak leading to major challenges on quality control. In an environment where the private sector is far ahead of the regulatory functions of the government, it would be more prudent to pursue the dual track of strengthening the governments capacity to implement policy guidelines alongside capacity development of the private vocational training institutions and organisations to implement demand driven quality skills training and self regulate. Male and female Gross Enrolment Rates was estimated by UNICEF to be 37 percent and 25 percent respectively in 2006/2007 school year[3]. Since 2000, the number of children enrolled in grades 1-8 has increased roughly by 300%, from an estimated 150,000 to over 467,780[4]. There is a very high disparity between male and female learners, administrative regions, and various social and economic groups. Secondary enrolment rates are even lower, estimated by UNESCO[5] to stand at only 6%. Those joining Institutional Based Vocational Training are even lower as the facilities only exist in major cities of Puntland, Somaliland and Central South Somalia. Even where they exist, their capacity to absorb the growing number of school dropouts and those who complete grade 8 and form 4 for vocational training is limited. It is estimated that about 65.5% of the urban youth are unemployed. The figure is lower among the rural and nomadic communities where it is estimated to be 40.7%[6]. This is expected, bearing in mind that in rural areas, over 75% of the communities is estimated to be employed within the agricultural and livestock sector- their main source of livelihoods. Overreliance on traditional farming systems coupled with extreme weather conditions have been highlighted as major causes of poverty in the rural areas. A feasibility study conducted by the EC in June 2004 in Puntland and Somaliland revealed that there was a very high rate of unemployment among young adults, and in turn resulted to vulnerable livelihoods and widespread poverty of the target groups. The situation is worse in Central-South Somalia where the civil war destroyed the entire economic and social infrastructure resulting in missed opportunities, disruption of the social order, poverty and vulnerability. Based on available policy papers, strategies and study reports available in the three different regions major problems identified on access to TVET include: threat to traditional livelihoods sources, Structural constraints on job creation, limited availability of people with employable skills and basic education and, high population of disadvantaged people. Among the strategies suggested to address these problems include: provision of financial resources to strengthen TVET framework; Institutional and organisational development for sustainability of TVET, raising quality levels and relevance of skills to increase employability; policy dialogue with partners; Increase and optimise capacity through better management and utilisation of facilities; increased provision and retention of qualified trainers and the implementation of employment promotion to improve rural livelihoods. Financial support towards development of TVET sector by EC, Italian Cooperation, UNDP and other international development partners have resulted to enhanced institutional framework for implementation of vocational training. In particular, capacity has been developed in the ministries of Education in Puntland and Somaliland resulting to the establishment of TVET units, administered under the NFE department headed by a Director. TVET policy developed under the EC funded PETT project has already been approved and adopted by MOE, Somaliland. In Puntland, the draft policy developed under the same project has not been finalised for adoption by the council of ministers and parliament. However, attributes of it are well captured in the Puntland Education Policy Paper (PEPP), 2007. Personnel working in Vocational Training Institutions have benefited from capacity building programs implemented under the PETT and STEO projects funded by EC and UNESCO support. The vocational training centers in Kismayo, Mogadisho, Berbera, Burao, Hargeisa, Galkaio, Garowe and Bosaso have received support in the form of equipment. The Kuwait government contributed equipment towards Garowe Technical and Vocational Training center. However, due to low pay, the institutions have not been able to retain all the trained personnel. However, as captured by End of Project evaluation[7] report of PETT (Promotion of Employment Through Training) project, there are many gaps that the current grants are not able to completely address owing to the large number of people who need the skills. The vocational training manuals developed by UNESCO for 11 crafts and trade skills covering levels 3 2 are the only coherent manuals that exist. The manuals have been good references materials for vocational training programs implemented from different funding sources in Somalia. Several studies undertaken by international development partners indicate that the vast majority of the 14-20 year age group is out of school and with very limited access to education and skills training. Among the urban, rural and pastoral families, lack of employment and poverty are consistently ranked the most common problems and potentially the most common causes of other social problems. The institutional framework for implementing TVET in all the three zones (Puntland, Somaliland and South Central Somalia) is weak and currently not able to offer technical support that would guarantee quality control, registration and certification of all the institutions providing vocational training. The situation in south central Somalia is different; Coverage of Ministry of Education as an implementing partner is limited to small pockets of Mogadisho; No recognizable central authority for liaison purposes; Widespread destruction of facilities which could create demand for more capital especially for institutional based intervention (IBTVET); fluid security situation pitting the armed groups against the Transitional Federal Government and threatening to result to full blown conflict. The Technical, vocational and livelihood skills development envisaged by UNESCO is in tandem with the Rehabilitation and Development priorities for Somalia that can partly be pursued through supporting sustainable livelihoods improvement via provision of employable skills to the youth. Currently the majority of the youth have limited knowledge and skills to enhance their employability (self or paid) and productivity. It is recognized that chances of gainful employment are enhanced by acquisition of employable skills. The Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) in Somalia is very limited due to lack of adequate infrastructure and systems to implement the activities falling under the sector. Trainings are provided by private vocational training centers and the few public training centers funded by the international community. As institutionalised training is limited, most trainees acquire their skills through apprentice training. In effect the quality of skills acquired is dependent on the capacity of the trainee and the quality of the trainers/craftsmen to provide training. TVET needs to be expanded in order to produce skilled artisans and middle level technicians who will eventually strengthen the Somali economy, which can then increasingly rely on their own domestic workforce. Consequently, the MoEs need support in order to expand their capacities by strengthening the TVET framework. The increased efforts by the international community to provide improved technology (eg motorised water pumps, grain milling machines, tractor hire, and improved livestock management systems) are intended to raise productivity and value addition to cushion peoples livelihood activities from the effects of extreme weather patterns. Due to limited technical skills, the uptake and sustainability of this technology has been discouraging. The low unemployment in the rural areas by itself is deceiving as there is plenty of disguised unemployment. Many implementing partners (IPs) have activities under the broad category of livelihoods development. These entail beekeeping, tailoring and dressmaking, soap making, sesame oil extraction and flour milling. By funding livelihood activities, Implementing partners plan to graduate the communities from emergency to development status. But despite the increased programming around the livelihoods development activities, beneficiaries are not being lin ked to vocational training institutions to acquire the relevant skills; in other regions, skills training opportunities are completely lacking. Evaluation reports of many of these interventions present a very grim picture of the sustainability of provided technologies. The primary objective in providing the technologies was to increase productivity that was to result to increased income and employment opportunities for the many unemployed youth in the urban and rural areas. As poverty and unemployment are the major drivers of conflict in Somalia, employment creation for the youth is not only a social and economic necessity but also a political imperative. The study is based on the information needs by UNESCO to guide in planning interventions in TVET and livelihoods Skills Development in Somalia. The study aims at analysing the status of Technical Vocational Education and livelihood skills Development (TVELSD) in Somalia to map out current interventions and gaps in the sector. It also aims to assess the policy and resource capacity of the respective MOEs to implement a sustainable TVET. The survey is reviewed against the existing policies by the government in the respective regions. The broad national development study in Somalia is well documented in the Joint Needs Assessment (JNA) report and the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) report. A previous survey undertaken by UNESCO PEER[8] in 2002 revealed that a number of the institutions providing TVET lacked proper management structures, standardised curriculum and assessment system. Additionally, they lacked adequate equipment, teaching and learning materials, and qualified and motivated personnel. A countrywide market feasibility study conducted by European Commission[9] in 2004 re-confirmed this state of affairs by citing the following constraints in the TVET sub-sector. * Weaknesses in the management of TVET activities; * Difficulties of quality assurance for TVET, especially limited availability of course syllabi and lack of qualified technical trainers; * Limited number of standardized TVET courses; * Lack of standardized assessment and certification services; * Urban bias of TVET opportunities and limited benefits to rural communities; * Difficulties of sustaining TVET interventions; * Lack of strategic planning for TVET by local authorities; * Limited capacity of local authorities to manage TVET Prior to the civil war that culminated in the collapse of the government in 1991, Somalia had functioning technical and vocational institutions in Mogadishu, Kismayu, Burao and Hargeisa that specialized in a range of technical courses and traditional trades at craft and artisan levels. Youth joined these institutions to acquire specialized skills that in turn enabled them to join the employment sector, either as employees or self employed persons. Most of these institutions were however destroyed or run down during the long period of civil. Consequently, these events resulted to high drop out of youth from schools to add to the number of unskilled youth that existed even before the civil war. With limited skills and no functioning education system, the youth had limited livelihood options. In apparent response to the demand for education and vocational skills training, the international community through UN, INGOs, LNGOs have supported the rehabilitation and or construction of vocational training centers in major towns of Somaliland (Hargeisa, Berbera and Burao), Puntland (Bosaso, Garowe, Gardo and Galkaio) and Central South Somalia (Mogadishu, Merka, Baidoa). Most of the functioning institutions are owned by local Institutions and governments through the support of the International Community. Several skills provided in these institutions include: garment making, soap making, tie and dye, carpentry, computer technology, masonry, electrical installation, plumbing and metal fabrication. UNESCO PEER through Technical and Vocational Education projects funded by the Italian Government initiated several interventions to revitalize technical and vocational education in Somalia at the grassroots level. Some of those interventions include: development of curricula/syllabi in selected marketable and demand driven trade areas, training of instructors and center managers, provision of course materials and textbooks to vocational training centres and initiation of standardized assessment and certification. This study commissioned by UNESCO PEER draws lessons from past and current activities on TVET in Somalia. 1.2 OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY According to the TOR, the study will identify dimensions of technical and vocational education training (TVET): Skills Development and issues of economic relevance, social relevance, and management models effectiveness. Based on this; make recommendations for increased and improved TVET delivery in Somalia. The anticipated results of the study will be as follows: 1 Analysis of the organization and structure of TVET, public and private, formal and non-formal, by levels and management structures, including objectives, strategies and results, as well as the regulatory framework for private TVET 2 Identification of the main issues and problems in TVET delivery in terms of relevance to economic and market requirements, access to training, quality of training, and efficiency in the delivery processes. 3 Analysis of government TVET management and delivery. 4 Recommendations on improving the relevance, equity, quality, efficiency and management of TVET 1.3 SCOPE OF WORK The study was planned to cover the whole of Somalia but due to insecurity in the Central South Somalia, the Consultant limited his visits to Puntland and Somaliland- the two semi-autonomous regions of Somalia. The survey covered the Non Formal, technical and vocational Education sub-sector targeting the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPS), Refugees, Returnees, pastoral communities and ex militia as study groups. The study involved undertaking socio-economic and prefeasibility investigation of vocational and livelihoods skills training in Somaliland, Puntland and Central South Somalia. Unfortunately, field visits to south central was not undertaken due to insecurity. 1.4 JUSTIFICATION FOR THE STUDY i. Technical and vocational education and training (TVET) in conflict and post conflict areas is a critical component of the socio-economic development of target communities. It has been assessed that acquisition of livelihood skills results in enhancing communities ability in battling poverty and social exclusion in favour of self-employment. By spreading know-how, it inspires innovation and works to curb unemployment, especially among marginalized population in conflict and post-conflict countries. ii. It will act as a catalyst for streamlining the TVET sector in Somalia by providing information which will better inform policy makers and service providers and facilitate TVET programme development. iii. It will contribute to better coordination and implementation among stakeholders. 1.5 APPROACH AND METHODOLOGY Following initial meetings with the Head of UNESCO PEER in Somalia, it was agreed that the study would review the initial study report, assess information gaps not addressed by the submitted report and use a combination of methods to collect information necessary in re-drafting the report. The study thus reviewed available information on TVET projects that included the PETT and STEO, relevant TVET-related surveys, project evaluations reports and best practices undertaken elsewhere in the world. There was a feasibility Survey done by EC[10] in June 2008 covering Puntland and Somaliland and the report was extensively used as a key source of information for this study especially in the general overview of livelihoods and vocational training situation in Somaliland and Puntland. However, from the gaps identified from the direct interviews with stakeholders in Somaliland and Puntland and to validate some of the information contained in the report and documents reviewed, questionnaires were designed to elicit information from the some of the VTC where much of the information gaps existed. The data collection was undertaken by consultant assisted by field based UNESCO staff. The methodologies adopted in redrafting the report included: i. collection of data from the submitted report, ii. stakeholders consultations and interviews, iii. Review of literature available, and iv. internet research, The methodology and approach used in generating data for the first report included: i. Discussions with different TVET stakeholders, NGOs, UN agencies, institutional managers and trainees to understand implementation of TVET; ii. Focused group discussions with the Somali Ministries of Education officials at various levels and other stakeholders to establish policy aspects of Non Formal and Technical and Vocational Education; iii. Site visits to observe institutional facilities; iv. Document review of UNESCO PEER reports and syllabuses and reports of other agencies hard copies and online including UNESCO Website to gain insight into technical and vocational education; v. Structured questionnaire used to access baseline data on institutions offering technical and vocational training; vi. An assessment of the job market to find out the livelihood skills and skill gaps. The consultant was not able to visit some central south Somalia but was able to interview MOE officials in Puntland, Somaliland and other implementing partners in both locations. Much of the information in compiling this report is derived from the initial field interviews undertaken by the first consultant and enriched by additional literat