http://www.syndicatemizzou.org Fri, 21 Nov 2008 10:56:28 GMT en-us 40 Center for eResearch Connecting you with the University of Missouri’s innovative research and creative activity http://www.syndicatemizzou.org/images/logo.png 384 80 http://syndicatemizzou.org/resources/mckenney/ipod/McKenney2.m4v Education http://syndicatemizzou.org/resources/mckenney/ipod/McKenney2.m4v Johann Sebastian Bach was very much a tonal composer who wrote contrapuntal compositions, “which are linear in design with some vertical concepts as well.” For example, Bach would have the basses sing the melody at one point, and the altos later, creating a linear, contrapuntal design. Through such research into the work of other composers, McKenney seeks to understand how other composers have handled a certain idea, concept, or technique. 3 Wed, 03 Oct 2007 15:50:28 GMT http://syndicatemizzou.org/resources/gallimore/ipod/Gallimore05redone.m4v Education http://syndicatemizzou.org/resources/gallimore/ipod/Gallimore05redone.m4v Gallimore speaks of the obstacles to overcome when trying to speak the unspeakable, to comprehend the incomprehensible, that is genocide. Her next book involves literary criticism as well as sociolinguistic and anthropological methods, drawing upon data collected in Rwanda as well as archival data and transcripts of the testimonies of women who survived the genocide. She has been working with an organization in Rwanda called ABASA, a group made of rape survivors. (_Abasa_ is a Kinyrwanda word that means “we are all the same.”) Interviewing women from this group, Gallimore hopes to give voice to their stories and identify their various needs so that Step Up can try to address them. 3 Fri, 26 Oct 2007 16:55:11 GMT http://syndicatemizzou.org/resources/carver/ipod/Carver02.m4v Education http://syndicatemizzou.org/resources/carver/ipod/Carver02.m4v Performative writing is a way of writing about performance that engages the reader as one would engage the audience when performing in theatre: “So instead of performing over _here_ and then writing about it over _there_, writing about the work as if the reader were not involved in any kind of audience relationship, performative writing takes the combination of audience, performer, and text and moves that into the writing of performance.” By involving those different levels, Carver suggests, writing “is more accessible to people.” 3 Wed, 28 Nov 2007 01:57:05 GMT http://syndicatemizzou.org/resources/carver/ipod/Carver04.m4v Education http://syndicatemizzou.org/resources/carver/ipod/Carver04.m4v One of Carver’s research areas involves “auto-performance”—a style that “brings the self to task in writing and in performance.” Whether this involves the autobiography or autoethnography, “performative writing is very much a part of it, because you’re writing about your_self_.” Rather than taking other people’s perspectives and points of view, Carver tries to make clear her position from the get-go: “What I try to do in my performative writing is say, ‘this is about me,’… Because I really just want to write about what I’m experiencing for people to understand as a way of opening the conversation.” 3 Wed, 28 Nov 2007 01:57:42 GMT http://syndicatemizzou.org/resources/carver/ipod/Carver06.m4v Education http://syndicatemizzou.org/resources/carver/ipod/Carver06.m4v Since October of 2006, Carver has been developing _Booby Prize_, a comedy about the unfunny subject of breast cancer. “It’s a one-woman show featuring me [laughs],” and how she was “lucky” to be the one of every seven women to get the disease. Through _Booby Prize_, which is ever evolving, Carver is able to combine her interest in social activism, women’s health, and autobiography: “I decided that I _could_ have breast cancer and still have a sense of humor, and still do my work. And so that’s when _Booby Prize_, you know, became born, the idea that—unfortunately—I won the prize. I won the Booby Prize, which you don’t want to win, you don’t want to be the 1 out of 7 who wins, but I won, and so that’s how I start off the performance.” Much of the performance features Carver performing actual stories that happened to her, infusing humor into the reality of her situation. At the conclusion of _Booby Prize_, Carver warns the audience against expecting closure and a happy ending. Despite the clean bill of health at her last medical checkup, the possibility of cancer returning lingers on, and so Carver reminds the audience, “I don’t have a pretty ending; my ending is still up in the air.” Among audience members, Carver has observed not only laughter and tears, as might be expected, but “people doing both at the same time, and not quite knowing what to do about it.” The thread that runs through _Booby Prize_—like Carver’s other scholarly and creative projects—is storytelling. Some of the stories are painful, and some are funny. Either way, Carver always tries “to keep it raw.” 3 Wed, 28 Nov 2007 01:58:21 GMT