Finite quantum systems with d-dimension Hilbert space, where position x and momentum p take values in Zd(the integers modulo d) are studied. An analytic representation of finite quantum systems, using Theta function is considered. The analytic function has exactly d zeros. The d paths of these zeros on the torus describe the time evolution of the systems. The calculation of these paths of zeros, is studied. The concepts of path multiplicity, and path winding number, are introduced. Special cases where two paths join together, are also considered. A periodic system which has the displacement operator to real power t, as time evolution is also studied. The Bargmann analytic representation for infinite dimension systems, with variables in R, is also studied. Mittag-Leffler function are used as examples of Bargmann function with arbitrary order of growth. The zeros of polynomial approximations of the Mittag-Leffler function are studied.

This thesis examines how mental illness has been represented in British theatre from c. 1960 to the present day. It is particularly concerned with the roles played by space and embodiment in these representations, and what emerges as bodies interact in space. It adopts a mixed methodology, drawing on theoretical models from both continental philosophy and contemporary cognitive and neuroscientific research, in order to address these questions from the broadest possible range of perspectives. The first part of the thesis draws on the work of Michel Foucault and Henri Lefebvre to explore the role of institutional space, and in particular its gendered implications, in staging madness. The second part introduces approaches to the body drawn from the cognitive turn in theatre and performance studies. These are connected to the approaches of the first section through phenomenology’s concern with lived experience. Dan Zahavi and Shaun Gallagher’s work on ‘the phenomenological mind’ provides important context here. In addition, Emmanuel Levinas’s critique of ontology offers a solid basis from which to think about how to act ethically as both a producer of, and an audience member for, representations of mental illness. Through these explorations, this thesis suggests a model of madness, not as something to be bracketed as ‘other’ and belonging to a deviant individual, but as emerging between bodies in space – there is no madness outside of social, spatial and embodied contexts. This in turn suggests a new approach to understanding the role theatre can play in addressing the lived experience of mental illness. While many productions currently attempt, unilaterally, to reduce the ‘stigma’ of mental illness, this thesis suggests that that, in fact, discrimination against people experiencing mental illness is more likely to be reduced through the interaction between an ethically minded production and an ethical spectator. Such a model does not claim to be able to reduce the experience of madness to a totalising concept which can be communicated through theatre, but rather insists that it is only through an embodied, empathic interaction that a true concern for the (‘mad’ or ‘sane’) Other can emerge.

This thesis places the notion of risk and the diversity of treatment that the management of risk involves, at the centre of the discourse about Early English drama. It locates the spectator’s experience on the edge of reality and fiction. Offering an alternative to current theories of metatheatricality and cognitive theory, this research attempts to contribute to knowledge by arguing that the most important element of the dramatic experience exists between the two poles of an awareness of artifice and absorption, and that the dramatic experience is managed by playwright, actor and spectator with respect to these two poles. This thesis focuses on the spectator, not just on the absorbed spectator who ‘lives’ in the drama, such as one finds in cognitive studies, or on the reflective spectator who is conscious of the artifice of drama, such as in metatheatrical studies, but rather on participatory spectators, and on spectators moving between the two positions of absorption and reflection. The case studies in this thesis are reflective of the contexts of early English dramatic performance: they show how similar issues were controlled differently in different contexts; that there might be no clear boundary between Catholic and Protestant drama in terms of spectator management; that some playwrights had political reasons to believe it best if they did not manage their spectators’ experience, while other playwrights displayed a deep commitment to controlling not only spectators’ experiences and responses during the performance but also afterwards, suggesting that risk management is not an act but rather a process; that dramatic performance could cause disaster if not sufficiently managed, or if the performance context in which the drama was performed, was misjudged, but that the use of the dramatic medium could also be recuperated by later events of a similar nature. Examining drama in its specific literary and historical context, this thesis reconstructs the play-experience not only through the plays, but also through a study of how plays were described in Star Chamber records, ambassadorial records, eye-witness accounts, and other records. It clarifies early drama’s most fundamental characteristic to be an intervention in society, and as such always relating to non-dramatic issues, and inevitably carrying risk with it.

In this thesis, an investigation into how visualisation and manipulation tools can provide better support for learners of Modal logic is described. Problems associated with learning Modal logic are also researched. Seven areas topics in Modal logic are investigated, as is the influence of domain independent factors (e. g. motivation) on learning. Studies show that students find concepts such as Modal proofs and systems difficult to learn, whilst possible worlds and Modes are fairly straightforward. Areas such as reference, belief and accessibility relations fall between these extremes. Two roles for representations in reasoning are identified: providing a concrete domain for students to reason about, and supporting the process of reasoning. Systems which make use of these complementary representations were found to be more effective for learners than either the syntactic or the diagrammatic representations traditionally used to teach Modal logic. A review of software used to support students learning logic highlights two important features: the use of examples, and automation of routine tasks. A learning environment for Modal logic was designed which incorporated these. The environment was developed using an adapted version of Smalltalk's Model-View-Controller mechanism, and incorporates complementary representations, enhance by direct manipulation. A further study investigates the added benefits of using this tool, as opposed to using the same representation but working with pen and paper. This confirms the importance of using 'concrete' content representations and minimising learners' cognitive load. Performance measures show that software users learnt more, had a deeper style of learning, and found the topics less abstract than their counterparts working with pen & paper. This research shows that complementary representations are an effective way of supporting students studying Modal logic, and that visualisation and manipulation tools which incorporate these systems will provide additional benefits for learners.

This thesis investigates the representation of African dance in the United States, particularly through African dance classes and public performances. It chronicles the motivations that catalyze participation for students and instructors and studies the effects of practice on Americans' understanding of Africa as an imagined place. My findings are based on ethnographic field research in community dance classes and dance troupes in Eugene, Oregon and southern New Hampshire and Vermont from 2009-2012. The project details dance practices produced for the stage in West Africa that are reinterpreted and re-produced in American dance class settings and then subsequently retranslated for the stage by Americans. It illustrates how West African griot culture, economic realities, and audience demand influence transnational dance instruction and suggests alternative ways of understanding concepts of representation, agency, and authorship. Further, it explores how American dance students apply narratives about African dance they learn in class to forge new communities that provide fulfillment absent in their daily lives. Ultimately, the thesis demonstrates how intersections between personal and social histories and performance and performativity in African dance communities in the United States can both reaffirm and disrupt official discourses about race, ethnicity, and artistic expression.

Dr Mary Douglas' anthropological modal of Cultural Bias offers an opportunity to examine social artefacts in terms of both their active social function and their own internal structure, promising to offer a fresh perspective on old dilemmas. This study applies the Cultural Bias model to several classical Tragedies in an attempt to assess the viability of the model as a basis for a structural Poetics and an interpretive model. Elaborative analysis is concentrated on the two major Tragedies of Christopher Marlowe. The model encouragingly casts new light on areas in the plays conventionally considered "problematic" while offering a positive reassessment of Marlowe's capacities and intentions. Further issues implied by the model are examined in the context of Shakespeare's Macbeth and two representative Greek Tragedies. Questions of structural definition and categorisation demand relative comparison. Death of a Salesman and The Crucible, representatives of modern dramas whose definition has often been linked with classical Tragedy are examined and compared with the classical form through the criteria of the model. The modern plays are revealed to have a distinctly different form and implicit social function than the classical plays, highlighting the advantages, if not the necessity for a significant process of categorisation and confirming the viability of the model as a delineating source. The final part of this study examines four plays from the 20th century which have presented critical and interpretive problems. Detailed analysis through the model provides a coherent interpretation as well as solutions to their problematic elements and suggests that these plays, despite their stylistic differences, share a formal structure with classical Tragedy. This analysis implies a possible reassessment of contemporary plays in a more extensive, formal context. In the process of this investigation, the model of Cultural Bias has proved a stimulating and revealing interpretive tool. Its interpretations work as both intellectual and performance models, are capable of resolving textual problems, and offer fresh perspectives. It also offers evidence of a coherent active social function inherent in the Arts. Numerous further avenues of study have also been uncovered and are suggested here.

This study offers new insights to the knowledge of Venice`s history and theatre historiography. It is the outcome of an interdisciplinary research investigating the visual and performative culture of this unique context though its representations with dramatic figures from the beginning to the end of its history as a republic. The first chapter offers an insight into Medieval Venice focusing on liturgical drama, mystery plays, and civic ritual with display of movable sculptures and puppets. The second chapter sheds light on the relation between puppetry, the commedia, and different forms of spectacle with mechanised or indirectly controlled figures. Presented in the third chapter are the theatrical festivals with wondrous figures that were staged in the outskirts of Padua by two illustrious patrons of the arts, the Paduan Pio Enea II degli Obizzi and the Venetian Marco Contarini. The fourth chapter is dedicated to the debut of puppet opera, and the performances of this genre that were staged in the private and public theatres of Venice during the seventeenth century. The history of puppet opera in Venice continues in the fifth chapter, also making comparisons with performances held in cultural areas that absorbed the Venetian legacy. Critical analysis of the repertory of puppet theatre broadly defined and reflection on the aesthetics and operating techniques of the figures that were used has been made relating texts to specific objects, many of which are unpublished or little known. Shedding light on the Venetian eighteenth century marionette theatres that are extant, attention has also been drawn of the role that these objects played in the history of collecting. In the sixth chapter the chronological account is suspended for a moment to leave room for some reflection on the intertwining between Venice and the Orient based on research findings. Cross-cultural analysis has been made comparing Venice’s puppet theatre traditions not only with those of the near East, but also with China based on material evidence. The seventh and last chapter investigates the relation between puppet theatre and the rising passion for views of the world as a stage, or animated microcosm to capture through observation. There is inevitably much overlap across all these aspects, and yet attempts have been be made to keep them separate in the discussion, either relating them to the time related phenomenon within which they assume greater significance. Following a chronological thread, critical analysis of the puppet theatre manifestations originating in Venice has been carried out placing this genre within the frameworks of other arts, drawing comparisons with other traditions, and bringing to the fore reminiscences from the past at different times in history. All this making every possible effort not to turn the memory of an entertaining art form into the sterile analysis of its ‘faint reflection’.

Drawing on autobiographical material related to the author of this thesis, Natasha Davis, and using her own performance practice within relevant artistic and theoretical contexts, the thesis focuses on practice-as-research (PaR) as a means of exploring questions around the trauma of displacement due to migration. It investigates how the creative work of a performance artist, who uses body and memory as critical performance tools, reveals the logic of exilic subjectivity and materiality, as well as the political status of performance as a medium dealing with this complex theme. It does this in three distinct stages. First, it provides brief autobiographical and historical background to the civil war in former Yugoslavia (in the 1990s), which centrally informs the performance works analysed here. Second, it sets up an initial encounter with the reader, Encounter One, in which Davis’ trilogy of works Rupture, Asphyxia and Suspended is examined, making use of practice-based research findings to identify useful methodologies such as repetitive returns to the source of trauma, placing the body out of balance and fragmentary composition. Third, in Encounter Two, a brief overview is provided of current PaR theory as it pertains to the project in question. The thesis then applies these combined findings from the trilogy and PaR theory to the new intermedial PaR project Internal Terrains, which represents in live and documented form half of the thesis overall, to generate new discourses around the trauma of displacement and notions of home and belonging. Starting the investigation with objects rather than the body of the performer, Encounter Two pays attention to methodologies applied in previous research and sources new tools useful in illuminating displacement as rooted both in loss and liberation. At the same time it explores ways that PaR can be written about, which includes investigating how practice can perform on the page. Examining the original impact of the trauma of migration through to the ways traumatic pasts can be put to rest, the thesis argues that one of the ways the latter can be achieved is through repetitive and structured returns to the past and through recognising and embracing a state of being ‘out of balance’.

No description available.

My thesis examines the production practices of the Propeller Theatre Company, an all-male ensemble under the direction of Edward Hall. To date, Propeller has worked exclusively on Shakespeare’s plays, staging eighteen full-length productions of eleven plays. The critical attention Propeller has received remains centered on its all-male casting, but my project goes beyond this aspect of Propeller’s work to analyze how Propeller engages practically with Shakespeare’s scripts and to what ends. As a touring company, Propeller has broad popular and commercial appeal, yet there exists little scholarship on the company. In addressing this gap, I demonstrate how Propeller offers something unique in Shakespearean performance as well as investigate the process by which the company produces Shakespeare’s plays. The first chapter begins the work of examining Propeller specifically through its director, Edward Hall, focusing on the way in which Hall’s personal opinions regarding theatre and Shakespeare led to Propeller’s evolution from a one-off production (Henry V, 1997) into an established company. Chapter two concentrates on how designer Michael Pavelka works with Hall in creating the conceptual framework for a production and how he creates scenic and costume designs for the company. The next chapter explores the effect of the Watermill Theatre’s relative isolation on the company's early working practices, the consequences of the first-refusal policy, casting across and within productions (including cross-gender casting and the personation of women), the collaborative rehearsal process, music, and Propeller’s approach to Shakespearean verse speaking. In the fourth chapter, I examine two productions — The Taming of the Shrew (2006) and The Merchant of Venice (2008) — as case studies of how the company performs Shakespeare. The concluding chapter examines the challenges facing Propeller as it attempts to balance a defined reputation with a desire to grow artistically as a company.