Seeds: Contracting the Audience in a Play about Science

Abstract

In pursuing the question ‘what can scientists learn from theatre?’ Particularly, ‘what can scientists, as scientists, learn from theatre?’ this paper argues that science lacks a normative framework that theatre is capable of providing. Despite science’s well-earned epistemic reputation, there is adequate reason to question its ethical reputation, particularly at the point where cutting edge scientific technology impacts society. I consider science as operating in four categories: the scientific method; the scientific hypothesis; the scientific experiment; and the scientist’s personal character. The realms of the scientist’s hypothesis and personal character are those where social pressures are reciprocally exerted, where imaginative play mentality and epistemic values are most in evidence. Theatre can examine these realms effectively because it is able to use narratives that appeal not only to logical and social moral judgements but to emotional and visceral responses, so as to situate science in the social context in which the pressures of law, funding, experimentation, society, and personal ambition converge in ‘the game of life’.

This can be seen in the theatrical process known as ‘contracting with the audience’. I point out a spectrum of traditional narrative tropes by which science makes “contracts with” audiences. The paper draws on theories of entrainment and theatrical game-play from Peter Stromberg and Philippe Gaulier, as well as my own practice and research into the process of contracting with the audience, to propose how to reach beyond tradition and to shift normalising contracts “outside the box”. To illustrate my proposition, I examine the play Seeds by Annabel Soutar as directed by Chris Abraham for Crow’s Theatre and Theatre Porte Parole. Seeds follows the controversial court battles of Saskatchewan farmer Percy Schmeiser against agricultural-biotech corporation Monsanto, which sued him for patent infringement of its Genetically Modified Organism Roundup Ready Canola. Seeds helps its audience define a public arena for discourse even as it brings to our attention the factors that make this difficult to do, while making an excellent contribution to the genre of ‘Documentary Theatre’. It is a successful contract with the audience that creates a public forum for discussion about contemporary ethical debates in science, thereby merging artistic ambiguity and scientific theory.     

The Ambivalence of Anti-Austerity Indignation in Greece: Resistance,Hegemony and Complicity

This article engages with a contradiction that can help us appreciate the ambiguity and complexity of indirect resistance as this is articulated in informal everyday contexts: many citizens in Greece boldly challenge the antisocial austerity measures that have plagued their lives, highlighting how these represent a hegemonic imposition led by foreign centres of economic power. Their anti-hegemonic critique, however, often recycles a dislike for foreigners and xenophobia, echoing more pervasive hegemonic narratives (for example, a crypto-colonial identification of Greece with the West). To deal with this contradiction, I stress the need to (1) de-pathologize local indignant discourse (avoiding the orientalization of anti-austerity discourse as emotional or inconsequential) and (2) acknowledge that indirect resistance may represent an astute critique of visible inequalities, but is not isolated from overarching hegemonic ideological influences that shape local interpretations of historical/economic causality.     

东周楚式戈斑纹的成分与相组成

为探讨东周楚式戈斑纹的处理技术,采用金相显微镜、SEM、EDS、EBSD研究了上海博物馆藏的楚式斑纹戈的成分、显微组织和相组成,讨论了其制作工艺.结果表明:东周楚式戈富锡层厚度不均,以十余μm左右的厚度居多,最多处由4种不同物相组成,分别为η相、ε相、σ相及(α+δ)共析相.富锡层与基体之广日j没有明显的分界线.与现有其它富锡工艺研究成果进行比较,认为此件楚式戈与其它地域的富锡技术具有共同的工艺特征,应为热镀锡工艺.但在工艺参数掌控方面应呈现地域上的差异.     

Best Practice und Worst Case? Der Umgang mit der Hochschulzeitgeschichte an der Universität Jena und der Humboldt‐Universität: ein exemplarischer Vergleich

Best Practice vs. Worst Case? How East German Universities Deal with their Contemporary History: the Humboldt University of Berlin and the University of Jena. East German universities are often criticized for a lack of efforts to come to terms with their own history in the GDR. Two universities are regularly compared to illustrate the chances and shortcomings in this field: while the University of Jena is considered as very active in dealing with their own contemporary history the Humboldt University of Berlin is claimed to have substantial deficits. As a part of a general survey of the efforts of East German universities concerning their own contemporary history this contrastive picture is examined. It can be shown that the main differences between the two universities are less the intensity of historical self‐reflection but rather the thematic focus and the forms of presentation.     

A dialogue with Nietzsche: Blumenberg and Löwith on history and progress

While discussions of the debate between Karl Löwith and Hans Blumenberg over ‘secularisation’ focus primarily on the methodological utility of the concept, the difference between them was also one of the philosophical commitments and substantive claims about modernity. This difference is not always obvious. One way of bringing it out is to address the different contexts in which they produced their most famous statements about secularisation. But another, and one that will be pursued here, is to consider the critical dialogue that both thinkers engaged in with Nietzsche. Put briefly, while Löwith thought that Nietzsche misunderstood the ancients, Blumenberg thought that he misunderstood the moderns. For Löwith, Nietzsche's doctrine of the eternal return is not Greek, but an aggressive countergospel that owes much to the Christian culture it seeks to oppose; for Blumenberg, Nietzsche assumes, wrongly, that the self-belittlement of man by theology has been succeeded by the self-belittlement of man by science. In addition, Blumenberg – unlike both Nietzsche and Löwith – thinks that he can mount a robust defence of both modern science and progress.     

河南淅川县马川墓地118号东周墓

2007～2008年在淅川县马川墓地发现了近百座东周墓。墓葬保存基本完整,其中以118号墓的规模较大。该墓为带墓道的长方形多台阶竖穴土坑木椁墓,由墓道、墓室两部分组成。墓内有一椁三棺,出有陶器、青铜兵器、铜铃及料珠、玛瑙珠等遗物。该墓年代应为战国早期,墓主人为卿大夫级。     

皖南发现的青铜剑纹饰及初步研究

皖南周代青铜剑纹饰资料详实、变化丰富。剑格主要有兽面纹、蟠螭纹与几何纹,剑首基本上为弦纹圈及几何纹饰。剑首、剑格纹饰与剑体其他部位特征演变规律类似,各期特征也较为显著,存在一定的组合关系。研究表明,始自西周中晚期,设计者便注意到格、首在装饰上需要保持的平衡与协调,至春秋晚期该传统便达极致,其中剑格兽面纹的出现,是吴越青铜文化的一大改造与创新。而战国时期青铜剑纹饰的衰退则反映出吴越地区制剑审美观的转变。     

Makaynûn and its territory: the formation of an urban centre during the South Arabian period in the Hadramawt

Work at the site of Makaynûn in eastern Hadramawt (Yemen) and surrounding territory has yielded information on ancient settlement patterns in southern Arabia. This small regional centre lay within an area marked out by a network of seasonal flood‐water cultivation systems that irrigated agricultural areas. Each system was associated with one or more villages that were contemporary with the central site. As well as providing a communal refuge, the central site contained religious buildings, dwellings and doubtless the residence of the local elite, within the shelter of a defensive enclosure. This territory was overlain by a symbolic geography defined by the location of the sanctuaries and cemeteries of the Makaynûn community. This model of settlement was repeated all along the valley, where comparable systems were found at the mouths of the main tributary valleys.     

汉代对羊纹金饰片初探

1968年,河北满城中山靖王刘胜墓出土5件金饰片(原文称金叶),上面捶揲对称的侧面羊首。无独有偶,1983年广州象岗山南越王赵眜墓也出土8件形制类似的金饰片(原文称金叶)。2004年,在江苏扬州西汉刘毋智墓的收缴文物中,再次见到了同样形制的金饰片。     

跨国领养与跨文化的“家”——以来华领养的美国公民为例

论文通过对跨国领养的出现及其发展与国际政治气候之间是否存在着某种相关性、美国跨国领养家庭如何建构跨文化的＂家＂等问题的分析论述,揭示了美国公民跨国领养的历时性变化的原因及其相关的国际政治大背景以及通过对美国公民来华领养及其连带形成的社会文化现象。认为某种世界性的关怀与视野,已经是美国中产阶级民众价值观中不可或缺的部分;被美国人所领养的数目庞大的中国婴孩,他们当中的绝大部分人在美国中产阶级或者中产阶级以上阶层的家庭中生活,他们将有着与其他的美国华人不同的社会资源与背景;他们对中国和中国社会文化的理解甚至可能会直接在两国关系上发挥影响,日后必将在美国的华人社区中占有一席之地。