"Corporealities" vivifies the study of bodies through a consideration of bodily reality, not as natural or absolute given but as tangible and substantial category of cultural experience. The essays in this volume summon up bodies engaged in practices as diverse as pageantry, physical education, festivals and exhibitions, tourism, social and theatrical dance, and post-colonial and psychoanalytic encounters. They bring these bodies to life, quivering with all the political, gendered, social, racial, sexual, and aesthetic resonances of which bodily motion is capable.
Dancing wends its way through this volume as subject matter and as theoretical framework for understanding embodiment. Dancing also prompts these essays to grapple with the body's ephemerality, the non-substantial history of its habits and accomplishments, and to persevere in the task of translating its movement into words, bodily phrasing into syntactical structure, movement qulaity into metaphor, and choreography into theory.
These essays work to resurrect bodies in all their fulsome cultural significance, but they also move bodies across disciplinary boundaries so as to enable a rethinking of previously stable categories of knowledge. As they examine the body's participation in the production of narrative, the construction of collectivity, the articulation of the unconscious, the generation of post-coloniality, and the economies of gender and expression, they contour new relations between history and memory, aesthetics and politics. These epistemic relations inspire unconventional formulations of human agency that promise to move us past current modes of academic and political stasis.

Corporealities refuses to let bodies be seen as merely vehicles for the expression of something else. This collection of essays explores the study of bodily reality - not as a natural or given, but as a substantial, vital constituent of cultural experience. Contributors look at bodies engaged in practices as varied as pageantry, physical education, festivals and exhibitions, tourism, and social and theatrical dance. They succeed in bringing these bodies to life with all the political, gendered, racial and aesthetic resonances of which bodily motion is capable.
Dance is used in this volume as a theoretical framework to assist the reader in understanding the body's permanent transience, and in the task of transposing movement into words; choreography into theory.
Corporealities is an important and exciting development in dance studies. As a bridge to other disciplines that have neglected dance for too long, it demands to be read by all who have an interest in cultural studies, gender or performance.

How children first acquire language is one of the central issues in linguistics. This book draws on a wide range of research, including work in developmental psychology, anthropology and sociology, to explore the processes behind child language acquisition to the preschool period.

"This is an urgently needed book - as the question of choreographing behavior enters into realms outside of the aesthetic domains of theatrical dance, Susan Foster writes a thoroughly compelling argument." - Andre Lepecki, New York University "May well prove to be one of Susan Foster's most important works." - Ramsay Burt, De Montford University, UK What do we feel when we watch dancing? Do we "dance along" inwardly? Do we sense what the dancer's body is feeling? Do we imagine what it might feel like to perform those same moves? If we do, how do these responses influence how we experience dancing and how we derive significance from it? Choreographing Empathy challenges the idea of a direct psychophysical connection between the body of a dancer and that of their observer. In this groundbreaking investigation, Susan Foster argues that the connection is in fact highly mediated and influenced by ever-changing sociocultural mores. Foster examines the relationships between three central components in the experience of watching a dance - the choreography, the kinesthetic sensations it puts forward, and the empathetic connection that it proposes to viewers. Tracing the changing definitions of choreography, kinesthesia, and empathy from the 1700s to the present day, she shows how the observation, study, and discussion of dance have changed over time. Understanding this development is key to understanding corporeality and its involvement in the body politic.

This book provides a snapshot of the field of language acquisition at the beginning of the 21st Century. It represents the multiplicity of approaches that characterize the field and provides a review of current topics and debates, as well as addressing some of the connections between sub-fields and possible future directions for research.

Language learners come in all sizes. Children learn one language; they learn many. Older children and adults add languages. Some children learn language against the odds, faced as they are by developmental difficulties of many kinds. How do learners meet these different language acquisition challenges?
What role does the ability to read the minds of others play in the development of syntax? Do children know they are learning words when they do it? Are children more or less conservative than adults when they understand words like 'some' and 'and'? Do we really know the impact of the language we speak to children? Can we really talk about one language being more dominant than another in a child's repertoire? How do cultural patterns of language use impact on the development of language?
We may have moved beyond the conception of language development as nature versus nurture, but we remain uncertain of the exact roles played by the nature of the human animal and the nature of the language environment that learners develop in. We are also by no means in agreement about the important questions to ask and the theoretical frameworks within which to ask or answer them
This volume provides a snapshot of the field of language acquisition at the beginning of the 21st Century. It represents the multiplicity of approaches that characterize this energetic sub field of linguistics and provides readers with a review of current topics and debates, as well as addressing some of the connections between sub-fields and possible future directions for research in first language, second language, bilingualism, and language disorder in languages that are spoken, manual, and written.

"This is an urgently needed book - as the question of choreographing behavior enters into realms outside of the aesthetic domains of theatrical dance, Susan Foster writes a thoroughly compelling argument." - Andre Lepecki, New York University "May well prove to be one of Susan Foster's most important works." - Ramsay Burt, De Montford University, UK What do we feel when we watch dancing? Do we "dance along" inwardly? Do we sense what the dancer's body is feeling? Do we imagine what it might feel like to perform those same moves? If we do, how do these responses influence how we experience dancing and how we derive significance from it? Choreographing Empathy challenges the idea of a direct psychophysical connection between the body of a dancer and that of their observer. In this groundbreaking investigation, Susan Foster argues that the connection is in fact highly mediated and influenced by ever-changing sociocultural mores. Foster examines the relationships between three central components in the experience of watching a dance - the choreography, the kinesthetic sensations it puts forward, and the empathetic connection that it proposes to viewers. Tracing the changing definitions of choreography, kinesthesia, and empathy from the 1700s to the present day, she shows how the observation, study, and discussion of dance have changed over time. Understanding this development is key to understanding corporeality and its involvement in the body politic.

The fluid nature of performance studies and the widening embrace of the idea of performativity has produced in this volume a collection of great interest that crosses disciplinary lines of academic work. The essays move from the local to the global, from history to sport, from body parts to stage productions, and from race relations to global politics. In the title essay, Elizabeth Wood writes about a basic human relation cast around the question of performance and triangulated by the role a great performer took within it. In this unnatural act of somatic and sonic decomposition of the maternal body's soundscape, "she seeks to liberate herself and us from the last refuge of patriarchal order and compulsory heterosexuality, the subordinating myth of maternal omnipotence. The decomposition of such myths is a binding force in this volume. Together these essays pursue critical understanding of performance in our post-modern world, embodying perspectives that help us understand the historical and cultural issues that underpin it".

Through a series of imaginative approaches to movement and performance, choreographer Deborah Hay presents a profound reflection on the ephemeral nature of the self and the body as the locus of artistic consciousness. Using the same uniquely playful poetics of her revolutionary choreography, she delivers one of the most revealing accounts of what art creation entails and the ways in which the body, the center of our aesthetic knowledge of the world, can be regarded as our most informed teacher.
My Body, The Buddhist becomes a way into Hay's choreographic techniques, a gloss on her philosophy of the body (which shares much with Buddhism), and an extraordinary artist's primer. The book is composed of nineteen short chapters ("my body likes to rest," "my body finds energy in surrender," "my body is bored by answers"), each an example of what Susan Foster calls Hay's "daily attentiveness to the body's articulateness."

This is a comprehensive resource on the pandemics that threaten our world.Throughout history, pandemics have rapidly spread across national and continental borders to inflict an insurmountable toll on human life and suffering. From the Black Death in Asia and Europe to the smallpox and polio outbreaks that decimated the Americas, to the contemporary concerns over HIV/AIDS and the avian flu, epidemics have been a continous threat to society and the world.""Pandemics and Global Health"" begins with an introduction that reviews major types of infectious agents and modes of transmission and then provides a historical overview of infectious diseases and our attempts to control epidemics. The introduction is followed by detailed case studies of the United States, China, Africa, and India. Each of these case studies outlines a recent outbreak and the government's response, demonstrating the need for transparency, government commitment, and adequate financing in the fight against major diseases. Gathering key information on many contemporary international public health issues, this is a valuable resource for anyone wanting to become more informed on global health concerns.