my.evergreen.edu
2012-13 Undergraduate Index A-Z
Need help finding the right program? Contact Academic Advising
Tips for Using the Catalog
Somatic Studies [clear]
| Title | Offering | Standing | Credits | Credits | When | F | W | S | Su | Description | Preparatory | Faculty | Days | Multiple Standings | Start Quarters | Open Quarters |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Sarah Williams and Donald Foran
|
Program | FR–SRFreshmen - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | F 12 Fall | W 13Winter | S 13Spring | "Poetry is good for neural development." You can buy a T-shirt that says so. This program will engage you experientially in understanding how and why the recycling of neurons informs poetry's transformative power. We'll explore how reading can be understood from an evolutionary perspective as an exaptation in which the ability to interpret animal tracks and bird flight was co-opted for the ciphering of lines and circles as letters and words. This exploration will include the scientific writing of Stanislas Dehaene as well as the poetry of Susan Howe, who in "Pythagorian Silence" writes: "age of earth and us all chattering/a sentence or character/ suddenly/steps out to seek for truth fails/falls into a stream of ink Sequence/trails off/ ... flocks of words flying together tense/as an order/cast off to crows." We'll recite, analyze, discuss, perform, and write poems about the mind's reflexivity.Our goal is a mindful recycling of neurons, one in which the neuroscience of poetry reveals a continuity with the neurology of our ancestors. Thus, we'll reflect on our experiences of flocks of words and tracks of letters as binding mechanisms for neural integration and ecological adaptation. Indeed, Frederick Turner refers to poetry as a "neural lyre." Urban spoken-word poets and indigenous healers produce what Eliot describes as "music heard so deeply it is not heard at all/ And you are the music while the music lasts." We're equally interested in how poetry can have the opposite effect on consciousness. We'll engage in contemplative practices to learn more about experiences of neural disintegration, such as the thumps and jolts of modern life. As Seamus Heaney put it, poetry is "a thump to the TV set to restore the picture" and "a jolt to the fibrillating heart." Throughout the year we'll be exploring the emergence of a new meta-field of scholarship in which poetry and neuroscience interact, remaking and renewing the meaning and impact of the poetic as words become flesh ... and vice-versa. Emily Dickinson's poetic rendering of this polarity provides one model of the neuro-phenomenological: "I felt a cleaving in my mind/As if my brain had split/I tried to match it, seam by seam/But could not make it fit. The thought behind, I strove to join/Unto the thought before/But Sequence ravelled out of sound/Like balls upon a floor." We'll experiment with this process of "sequence ravelling out of sound" as a transformation of a new archaic.Fall quarter's immersion in the scholarship of this meta-field will include group research projects: ethnographic studies of poetic jolts. When, where and from whom or from what do we hear poetry? Can we sense it in our own reading and writing? Our fall quarter nature retreat to the Hoh Rain Forest and the beaches of the Olympic Peninsula will introduce practices we'll use throughout the year for experiencing the reciprocity between specific forms of poetry and states of consciousness. During winter quarter we’ll experience and articulate specific forms of consciousness and language in relation to a particular passion. One of us might want to explore Gerard Manley Hopkins’ love of bluebells and windhovers in relationship to his poetry, or create a poetic world around a passion for sport or to experience how fantasy sports are a poetic world. One of us might immerse herself in the biodynamic rhythms of chocolate sustainably farmed, or listen for the resonance between silence and sound in YoYo Ma’s performance of Bach’s Cello Suite #1 in G. The methodology of our field study will aspire to that of 18 C poet and civil engineer, Novalis for whom "knowledge and creation were united in a wondrous mutual tie.” Writing in response to our field studies will take the form of reciprocal creations such as in Melissa Kwasny’s . Spring quarter work will combine theory and practice. Students will engage in peer group community-based service projects that use poetry to "jolt fibrillating hearts.” Writing projects will accompany this work in order to illuminate the relationship between the growth of dendrites and the flourishing of both neurons and community. There will be a weekly film and poetry series that inspires "poetic jolts" and demonstrates their meaning for communal life. Throughout the year students will keep a creative journal, a field notebook, participate in poetry writing and recitation, and compile an anthology of program work. | Sarah Williams Donald Foran | Mon Tue Tue Tue Wed Wed Thu Thu | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Fall | Fall Winter | ||
|
Walter Grodzik, Ariel Goldberger and Robert Esposito
|
Program | FR–SRFreshmen - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | S 13Spring | In this program students will study the voice, the body, and objects as sources of expression through the use of vocal and movement exercises, the recitation of poetry and other forms of literature, and performance. The class will explore creativity and imagination as expressed by the human voice, the body, and animated objects. How does the human voice respond to the emotional self, the physiology of the body, and the imagination? What are the contributing factors in how we use our voices, bodies, and objects to express ourselves in our daily lives and during performance? How can voices, bodies, and animated objects become more expressive and responsive to our inner selves? How do they contribute to the creation of artistic images and performances?This program will consist of multiple voice, object, and movement workshops. We will begin with exercises that increase focus, and enhance vocal color and strength. Movement workshops will focus on developing physical awareness and creativity. Animated Object labs will introduce students to experiments with body, voice, and objects in performance. We will learn the fundamentals of expressing sensory, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral experience by attending to space, time, body, breath, voice, artistic discipline and effort. In all these workshops, students will present group and individually created original compositions based on poetic and non-traditional texts. Integration and critique seminars will offer opportunities for exchange of ideas.Regular attendance, timeliness, and enthusiastic participation in workshops will be fundamental and extremely important in this program. This program is suitable for students at all levels with a sincere interest in developing greater vocal range, physical variety and strength, as well as a more flexible, and emotionally rich, range of expression. These interdisciplinary public presentation skills are useful in fields such as law, management, performing arts, and teaching. | Walter Grodzik Ariel Goldberger Robert Esposito | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Spring | Spring | |||||
|
Robert Esposito
|
Program | FR–SRFreshmen - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | F 12 Fall | This focused, one-quarter, movement-based program, involves progressive study in modern dance composition, theory, and technique. Prior dance experience at the beginner/intermediate level is advised.Activities will include regular classes in Laban-based Nikolais/Louis dance technique, theory, improvisation, composition, and seminar. Students will engage in vigorous physical activity based in basic anatomy and dance kinesiology, using a Pilates-based floor barre. Mind-body (somatic) work will be based on Feldenkrais’ “Awareness Through Movement” and theories of Gestalt psychology. Regular work in dance improvisation and composition will emphasize the personal and group dynamics of power-freedom-belonging-fun. Students will learn basic craft principles of composition: the formal design of space, time, shape and motion, drawing content from their own life experience and past interdisciplinary study to create original dance theatre work. Compositions will be performed weekly in performance forums that include faculty and student-centered critique and analysis.Theory, texts, and seminar will review the history, development, and methodology of dance and movement as somatic therapy, draw distinctions between art and psychology; and explore the creative process in therapy and the therapeutic efficacy of dance and other art forms. Seminar will draw on texts in psychology, art history, linguistics, poetics, and neurophysiology to develop skills in critical analysis and discourse, as well as situating texts, art and performance in their historical and sociocultural contexts. Writing will balance creative and analytical forms and research styles. The program culminates with a Week 10 showing of selected student work. | dance and theatre. | Robert Esposito | Mon Tue Wed Thu | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Fall | Fall | |||
|
Jehrin Alexandria
|
Course | FR–SRFreshmen - Senior | 6 | 06 | Day and Weekend | Su 13Summer Session I | This class is an in-depth study of movement and its role in the organization of the human brain as well as a look at contemporary works in the field of energy psychology. We will explore the emotional issues that can occur when such organization is not complete and various techniques to address them. Students will learn to recognize normal neurological organization by studying specific developmental milestones as well as recognize gaps and abnormalities in brain development and how they impact growth, learning, and psychological well-being. This class will be deeply experiential as well as theoretical. Please wear comfortable clothing as there is basic movement in some classes. | Jehrin Alexandria | Thu Fri Sat | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Summer | Summer | ||||
|
Ryo Imamura
Signature Required:
Spring
|
Contract | SO–SRSophomore - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | S 13Spring | This is an opportunity for sophomore, junior and senior students to create their own course of study and research, including internship, community service, and study abroad options. Before the beginning of spring quarter, interested students should submit an Individual Learning or Internship Contract to Ryo Imamura, which clearly states the work to be completed. Possible areas of study are Western psychology, Asian psychology, Buddhism, counseling, social work, cross-cultural studies, Asian-American studies, religious studies, nonprofit organizations, aging, death and dying, deep ecology and peace studies. Areas of study other than those listed above will be considered on a case-by-case basis. | Ryo Imamura | Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Spring | Spring | |||||
|
Walter Grodzik
Signature Required:
Fall
|
Contract | SO–SRSophomore - Senior | 16 | 16 | Day | F 12 Fall | Individual study offers individual and groups of students the opportunity to develop self-direction, to learn how to manage a personal project, to focus on unique combinations of subjects, and to pursue original interdisciplinary projects without the constraints of an external structure. Individual and groups of students interested in a self-directed project, research or internships in Queer Studies or the Performing and Visual Arts should contact the faculty by email at | Walter Grodzik | Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Fall | Fall | |||||
|
Karen Gaul
|
Program | FR–SRFreshmen - Senior | 8 | 08 | Day | Su 13Summer Session II | The yogic sysetm, emerging through a complex history over several millenia, is extremely relevant in today’s world. As a "science of the mind," yogic inquiry offers concrete ways to closely examine habits of behavior and thought. Through theory and , this program explores intersections between yoga and sustainability. The of Patanjali and other texts will be examined for key guidelines for sustainable and just living. We will journey to inner landscapes and outward to our local community and world around us. We will bring theory to practice through collective service work at local community gardens. For all bodies; no experience of yoga necessary. | Karen Gaul | Tue Tue Wed Wed Thu Thu | Freshmen FR Sophomore SO Junior JR Senior SR | Summer | Summer |
