The essays in this volume explore the borderland between ecology and the arts. Nature is here read by a number of contributors as 'cultural', by others as an 'independent domain', or even as a powerful process of exchange 'between the human and the other-than-human'. The four parts of the volume reflect these different understandings of nature and performance. Informed by psychoanalysis and cultural materialism, contributors to the first part, 'Spectacle: Landscape and Subjectivity', look at ways in which particular social and scientific experiments, theatre and film productions and photography either reinforce or contest our ideas about nature and human-human or human-animal relations and identities. The second part, 'World: Hermeneutic Language and Social Ecology', investigates political protest, social practice art, acoustic ecology, dance theatre, family therapy and ritual in terms of social philosophy. Contributors to the third part, 'Environment: Immersiveness and Interactivity', explore architecture and sculpture, site-specific and mediatised dance and paratheatre through radical theories of urban and virtual space and time, or else phenomenological philosophy. The final part, 'Void: Death, Life and the Sublime', indicates the possibilities in dance, architecture and animal behaviour of a shift to an existential ontology in which nature has 'the capacity to perform itself'.

This book provides a detailed description of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in China with respect to both efficiency and income distribution. It demonstrates that state ownership in the form of SOEs does not use resources efficiently, holds a poor record in income distribution, and enjoys unfair advantages while competing with other firms. To illustrate this, the book presents data on how favored policies, monopolistic powers, and subsidies benefit SOEs.This book, with its rich empirical data and information, serves as an authoritative reference for researchers interested in SOEs. It is also a good read for students of social sciences and general public.

Accompanying CD-ROM includes 600 figures, tables and color plates from the book Plants in action which can be used for the production of color transparencies or for projections in lectures.

In Encountering Ability, Scott DeShong considers how ability and its correlative, disability, come into existence. Besides being articulated as physical, social, aesthetic, political, and specifically human, ability signifies and is signified such that signification itself is always in question. Thus the language of ability and the ability of language constitute discourse that undermines foundations, including any foundation for discourse or ability. Drawing on Gilles Deleuze’s theory of primary differentiation and Emmanuel Levinas’s philosophy of ethical relationality, Encountering Ability finds implications of music, theology, and cursing in the signification of ability, and also examines various literary texts, including works by Amiri Baraka and Marguerite Duras.

"[This] is a practical guide to building intentional and inspirational practice time, bringing true artistry to every element of a performance, and developing strong personal communication with an audience. For auadiences, the book explains the vital role of the audience in a performance, revealing to them a new level of involvement and collaboration with the performer and with other members of the audience. ..."--Book jacket.

SUMMARY: This book is If you’ve ever wondered about human behavior, wonder no more. In The Laws of Human Nature, Greene takes a look at 18 laws that reveal who we are and why we do the things we do. Humans are complex beings, but Greene uses these laws to strip human nature down to its bare bones. Every law that he presents is supported by a real-life historical account, with an insightful twist to drive the point home. As you read the book, don’t be surprised if you get the feeling that everyone you know, including yourself, is described in the book! DISCLAIMER: This is an UNOFFICIAL summary and not the original book. It is designed to record all the key points of the original book.

This novel approach to philosophy of science asserts that experimentation is at the center of science and explains the experimental process through an analogy with theatrical performance. Attacking positivist and Kantian varieties of philosophy of science in which experimentation takes a backseat to theory, Robert R. Crease develops his conception of the centrality of experimentation via an argumentative analogy with theatrical performances. To establish his program, Crease draws on three nonpositivist strands of recent philosophy: Husserl's phenomenology to clarify the notion of invariance, Dewey's pragmatism to make needed revisions in our idea of productive inquiry, and Heidegger's hermeneutics to formulate a concept of interpretation appropriate to the cultural and historical "lifeworld" in which members of a scientific community think and act.

Theatre in the Expanded Field is a fiercely original, bold and daring exploration of the fields of theatre and performance studies and the received narratives and histories that underpin them. Rich with interdisciplinary reference, international, eclectic and broad-ranging in its examples, it offers readers a compelling and provocative reassessment of the disciplines, one that spans pre-history to the present day. Sixty years ago, in 1962, Richard Southern wrote a remarkable book called The Seven Ages of the Theatre. It was unusual in its time for taking a trans-disciplinary, new-historical and avowedly internationalist approach to its subject - nothing less than a totalizing view of its field. Theatre in the Expanded Field does not attempt to mimic Southern's work but rather takes his spirit of adventure and ambition as its frame for the contemporary moment of performance and its diverse pasts. Identifying seven ways of exploring the performance field, from pre-history to postdramatic theatre the book presents studies of both contemporary and historical works not as a chronological succession, but in keeping with their coeval qualities, as movements or 'generations' of connection and interaction, dissensus and interruption. It does this with the same purpose as Richard Southern's original work: to provide for the planning of responsive performance spaces 'now'. Illustrated throughout with line-drawings, Theatre in the Expanded Field is as richly rewarding as it is ambitious and expansive in it vision.