The process of transmitting ballet’s complex technique to young dancers can interfere with the innate processes that give rise to efficient, expressive and harmonious movement. With the intention of identifying possible solutions, this article draws on research across the fields of neurology, psychology, motor learning, and education, and considers their relevance to ballet as an art form, a technique, and a training methodology. The integration of dancers’ technique and expressivity is a core theme throughout the paper. A brief outline of (...) the historical development of ballet’s aesthetics and training methods leads into factors that influence dancers’ performance. An exploration of the role of the neuromotor system in motor learning and the acquisition of expert skills reveals the roles of sensory awareness, imagery, and intention in cuing efficient, expressive movement. It also indicates potentially detrimental effects of conscious muscle control, explicit learning and persistent naïve beliefs. Finally, the paper presents a new theory regarding the acquisition of ballet skills. Recontextualization theory proposes that placing a problematic task within a new context may engender a new conceptual approach and/or sensory intention, and hence the genesis of new motor programs; and that these new programs may lead to performance that is more efficient, more rewarding for the dancer, more pleasing aesthetically, and more expressive. From an anecdotal point of view, this theory appears to be supported by the progress of many dancers at various stages of their dancing lives. (shrink)

Рассматриваются основные мероприятия российских властей в Галиции в годы Первой мировой войны. За годы войны в Галиции последовательно сменились три оккупационные администрации - Г. А. Бобринского, Ф. Ф. Трепова и Д. И. Дорошенко. Политика в национальном вопросе каждой из этих администраций отличалась своей спецификой. В статье автор уделяет особое внимание эволюции этой политики и отслеживает взаимоотношения российских властей с москвофилами и украинскими националистами. В работе дан краткий обзор политической ситуации в крае в довоенный период.

Though scholarship has explored Karin Costelloe-Stephen’s contributions to the history of psychoanalysis, as well as her relations to the Bloomsbury Group, her philosophical work has been almost completely ignored. This paper will examine her debate with Bertrand Russell over his criticism of Bergson. Costelloe-Stephen had employed the terminology of early analytic philosophy in presenting a number of arguments in defence of Bergson’s views. Costelloe-Stephen would object, among other things, to Russell’s use of an experiment which, as she points out, (...) was first conducted by Carl Stumpf. Russell appeals to Stumpf's experiment in his attempt to prove that sense data are terms in logical relations, a thesis presupposed by the project of logical analysis outlined in Our Knowledge of the External World. A reformulated version of Costelloe-Stephen's argument put forth by this paper shows that Russell's argument fails to provide adequate proof for his thesis. Further modifications of the argument can also address a reconstruction (based on contemporary reports) of Russell's reply to Costelloe-Stephen. In his reply, Russell would use, already in 1914, the term ‘analytic philosophy’ in contrasting his and Moore’s approach to a continental one, exemplified by Bergson and Costelloe-Stephen. (shrink)

Building on Miranda Fricker’s work on epistemic injustice, Karin Murris has recently argued that children in school characteristically receive a credibility deficit based on a disparaging stereotype of children, and charged teachers with eschewing such stereotypes and committing to epistemic equality. I raise some objections to Murris’s argument.

This fine new study amalgamates catalogue-type entries for a number of illustrated manuscripts of the homilies of John Chrysostom with a cogently written thesis. Only certain manuscripts have been chosen for full analysis : this is a study devoted primarily to the Chrysostom manuscripts of the 11th and 12th centuries that have some anthropomorphic figural illustration , with a special emphasis on miniatures which are text-based, i. e. correspond in some precise way to the text they accompany. Earlier homily manuscripts (...) , and manuscripts with full-page, non-text-based frontispiece illustrations such as the magnificent, oft-discussed imperial codex Paris, B. N. Coislin gr. 79, though included, are not the central concern of this book. Despite the fact that distinctions between anthropomorphic and non-anthropomorphic figural decoration, and between text-based and non-text based imagery are not likely ones that would have been drawn by the Byzantines themselves, the author's particular focus has the advantage of bringing into the scholarly arena a considerable number of unfamiliar works, here subjected to careful codicological, paleographical and stylistic analysis, and reproduced in superb color and black and white plates. (shrink)