"This book celebrates Noguchi's contributions to dance with photographs of and commentary on 37 of his set designs, mainly for Martha Graham but also for such other choreographers as George Balanchine, Erick Hawkins, Merce Cunningham, Yuriko, Kei Takei and Ruth Page. The photographs, mainly by Arnold Eagle, Philippe Halsman, Barbara Morgan, Nan Melville and Max Waldman, capture the movement and mood of the dances and their interaction with Noguchi's settings. The commentary, from original and revival program notes, author Robert Tracy and Noguchi himself, recalls the content of each of the dances and the vision behind each of the sculptor's creations."--BOOK JACKET.

Mind and Body Spaces highlights new international research from the US, Canada, Britain and Australia on bodily impairment, mental health and disabled peoples social worlds. International contributors discuss a variety of current issues including the historical conceptions of the body and behavior as well as masculinity and sexuality.

"Every kid in the world needs a safe, welcoming, and even weird place to write. That's the theory behind 826 Valencia, a writing and tutoring center started in 2002. That center, with a pirate-themed storefront, inspired similar centers around the world, from New York to Melbourne. Across 280 pages and hundreds of beautiful full-color photos, this lavish, oversized book takes you behind the scenes of how these centers started, in the hopes of inspiring more communities, schools, and libraries around the world to build their own centers for young writers. Unnecessarily Beautiful Spaces for Young Minds on Fire is a joyous and wildly creative book, filled with stunning photos of the world's most welcoming and wild spaces for young minds."--Publisher's website.

Within cognitive science, two approaches currently dominate the problem of modeling representations. The symbolic approach views cognition as computation involving symbolic manipulation. Connectionism, a special case of associationism, models associations using artificial neuron networks. Peter Gärdenfors offers his theory of conceptual representations as a bridge between the symbolic and connectionist approaches. Symbolic representation is particularly weak at modeling concept learning, which is paramount for understanding many cognitive phenomena. Concept learning is closely tied to the notion of similarity, which is also poorly served by the symbolic approach. Gärdenfors's theory of conceptual spaces presents a framework for representing information on the conceptual level. A conceptual space is built up from geometrical structures based on a number of quality dimensions. The main applications of the theory are on the constructive side of cognitive science: as a constructive model the theory can be applied to the development of artificial systems capable of solving cognitive tasks. Gärdenfors also shows how conceptual spaces can serve as an explanatory framework for a number of empirical theories, in particular those concerning concept formation, induction, and semantics. His aim is to present a coherent research program that can be used as a basis for more detailed investigations.

Leading scholars respond to the famous proposition by Andy Clark and David Chalmers that cognition and mind are not located exclusively in the head.

“Esther Sternberg is a rare writer—a physician who healed herself...With her scientific expertise and crystal clear prose, she illuminates how intimately the brain and the immune system talk to each other, and how we can use place and space, sunlight and music, to reboot our brains and move from illness to health.”—Gail Sheehy, author of Passages Does the world make you sick? If the distractions and distortions around you, the jarring colors and sounds, could shake up the healing chemistry of your mind, might your surroundings also have the power to heal you? This is the question Esther Sternberg explores in Healing Spaces, a look at the marvelously rich nexus of mind and body, perception and place. Sternberg immerses us in the discoveries that have revealed a complicated working relationship between the senses, the emotions, and the immune system. First among these is the story of the researcher who, in the 1980s, found that hospital patients with a view of nature healed faster than those without. How could a pleasant view speed healing? The author pursues this question through a series of places and situations that explore the neurobiology of the senses. The book shows how a Disney theme park or a Frank Gehry concert hall, a labyrinth or a garden can trigger or reduce stress, induce anxiety or instill peace. If our senses can lead us to a “place of healing,” it is no surprise that our place in nature is of critical importance in Sternberg’s account. The health of the environment is closely linked to personal health. The discoveries this book describes point to possibilities for designing hospitals, communities, and neighborhoods that promote healing and health for all.

Make to Know: From Spaces of Uncertainty to Creative Discovery will change the way you think about creativity. The book upends popular notions of innate artistic and visionary genius and probes instead the event of discovery that happens through the act of making. In contrast to the classic tale of Michelangelo, who 'saw the angel in the stone', the artists and designers Buchman interviews for this book talk about knowing their work as they engage in the doing. Make to Know explores the revelatory nature of the creative journey itself. As Buchman weaves together the vivid stories of his multiple conversations, we learn about writers of all stripes as they confront creative spaces of uncertainty 'the blank page'; about visual artists and what they understand from the materials they encounter; about designers and architects and the iterative process of solving problems; and about actors and musicians facing the surprises of improvisational performance. Make to Know is a book that will, ultimately, open a path to your own making, and, in the end, will have significant implications for how you live. Make to Know presents a way of thinking that democratizes creativity and uncovers a process that leads to knowing both ones work and oneself. It is relevant to anyone interested in why creativity matters.

An international exploration of how our physical environments shape and define us

ONE SUBTLE SHIFT COULD CHANGE YOUR ENTIRE LIFELead author, Colleen Avis has invited a powerful group of expert authors to share their stories and master teachings with you in this second volume of Sacred Spaces. You'll take your journey to the next level with moments of inspiration, learning, growth, perspective, strategy, and practices that shift your energy and the way you live, mind, body, and soul. Waking up to what's possible is easy when you have a team of passionate and skilled professionals to guide you. Enjoy every step on the path! Grab your copy now!

The need to reflect, contemplate, and concentrate is an essential counterpoint to the rush of daily life and its surface details. This has been recognized since ancient times, and meditation in one form or another has been practiced through the centuries and across cultures, for reasons both sacred and mundane. In the modern world the motivations are more likely to be personal than religious, but the same dynamics apply in calming and focusing the mind. A prerequisite is the right physical space-somewhere to help set one's frame of mind and to hold back the distractions of the outside. Specifically for the purpose of meditation, the examples are from sources as varied and fascinating as contemporary Japanese tea-ceremony rooms, minimalist Western architecture, idiosyncratic chapels, artists' and writers' workspaces, and portable tented structures. The principles are all applicable to modern living, whether permanent or temporary, at home or in beautiful natural settings.With its crisp photography and inventive design, Meditative Spaces will appeal to a variety of readers, from architecture enthusiasts to those with an interest in Japanese style to anyone looking to find-and celebrate-serenity in today's hectic and rapidly paced world.