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Schizophrenia and oral history

Photo credit: Painting by Alice Fisher, a SOHP narrator.

By Caitlin Tyler-Richards

It’s been awhile, but the Oral History Review on OUPblog podcast is back! Today’s episode features OHR contributors Drs. Linda Crane and Tracy McDonough answering OHR Managing Editor Troy Reeves’s questions about the Schizophrenia Oral History Project and their article, “Living with Schizophrenia: Coping, Resilience, and Purpose,” which appears in the most recent Oral History Review. This interview sets the record for our shortest podcast, clocking in at 9 minutes, 30 seconds. But what it lack in quantity it makes up for in quality!

Professor Emeritus Lynda L. Crane, PhD, and Associate Professor Tracy A. McDonough, PhD, are in the Department of Psychology at the Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati, Ohio. Over the last several years, they have created an oral history project of life stories of persons with schizophrenia. Their website, Facebook page, and Twitter feed are all ways to learn more about and connect to their work.

The Oral History Review, published by the Oral History Association, is the U.S. journal of record for the theory and practice of oral history. Its primary mission is to explore the nature and significance of oral history and advance understanding of the field among scholars, educators, practitioners, and the general public. Follow them on Twitter at @oralhistreview, like them on Facebook, add them to your circles on Google Plus, follow them on Tumblr, listen to them on Soundcloud, or follow their latest OUPblog posts via email or RSS to preview, learn, connect, discover, and study oral history.

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Countries of the World Cup: Argentina

As we gear up for the conclusion of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, we’re highlighting some interesting facts about the final four competing nations with information pulled right from the pages of the latest edition of Oxford’s Atlas of the World. Argentina and the Netherlands battled it out in a semi-final match on Wednesday 9 July; Argentina pulled through after a penalty shootout. The team will go head-to-head with Germany on Sunday, 13 July to determine the champion.

Argentina, a two-time World cup winner reached its fifth final when it defeated the Netherlands. The last time it had advanced that far was 24 years ago in 1986. To celebrate their achievement, here are a few facts to think about until then next Cup.

In 2007 Cristina Fernández De Kirchner was the first directly elected woman president in Argentina. She succeeded her late husband, Néstor Carlos Kirchner, who had previously served for four years. She was later reelected in 2011.

The country had a large indigenous population prior to European colonization; however 86% of Argentina’s population is now of European ancestry.

Argentina is South America’s second largest nation after Brazil, and the world’s eighth largest country. It is the fourth largest Spanish-speaking nation in the world.

Spain took control of Argentina in the 16th century and continued its reign until 1816, when the country won back its independence. Argentina later suffered from instability and periods of military rule.

The World Bank classifies Argentina as an “upper-middle-income” developing country. Its form of currency is the Argentine Peso which is equivalent to 100 centavos.

In 1991, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay set up an alliance, Mercosur, aimed at creating a common market. The agreement’s main purpose is to facilitate free trade.

Roman Catholicism accounts for a whopping 92% of the country’s population (Pope Francis was born and raised there). Protestantism and Judaism tie at a distant second making up 2% each of the population.

Oxford’s Atlas of the World – the only world atlas updated annually, guaranteeing that users will find the most current geographic information — is the most authoritative resource on the market. The milestone Twentieth Edition is full of crisp, clear cartography of urban areas and virtually uninhabited landscapes around the globe, maps of cities and regions at carefully selected scales that give a striking view of the Earth’s surface, and the most up-to-date census information. The acclaimed resource is not only the best-selling volume of its size and price, but also the benchmark by which all other atlases are measured.

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Image credit: Buenos Aires desde el cielo (Estadio de River). By Elemaki. CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

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Mormon women “bloggers”: a long tradition

By Paula Kelly Harline

Mormon bloggers have been in the news lately, with two bloggers recently being excommunicated from the church. It was Ordain Women founder Kate Kelly’s call-to-action writings, meant to recruit Mormon women to her cause, that recently led to her excommunication from the Mormon Church.

If Kelly is an example, Mormon women are no wimps. Because the Church is staffed by lay members, Mormon women routinely run entire Church organizations numbering up to 200 people; they make up one-third of the current missionary population; they believe in education; and they have a long tradition of writing—both in public and in private—from pioneer beginnings up to the current “Bloggernacle.” Here are some examples of this tradition.

(1)   Between 1872 and 1914, Mormon women published their own periodical called the Woman’s Exponent that early on went to several thousand women throughout the United States and Great Britain and prompted exchanges with other women’s journals. In its early years, a number of writers argued for polygamy. Exponent editor and polygamous wife Emmeline Wells condemned the false notion of the pedestal, and argued in favor of equal pay for equal work and equality in athletic programs.

The September 15, 1880 issue of the Woman’s Exponent. (Volume 9, Number 8.) Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

(2)   More intimately, many nineteenth-century women kept diaries and wrote autobiographies, including some obscure polygamous wives. In the 29 I’ve studied closely, these writers held their heart and faith in one hand, and their guts and hesitations in the other. They explore the chasm between romantic love and triangular love, between resistance to other wives and friendship with them, and between religious belief and lived experience. This tradition of keeping personal writings continues today—for example, my 80-year-old mother has written about 12 journals during her lifetime and is working on her autobiography.

(3)   Between 1914 and 1970, the Church’s women’s organization published The Relief Society Magazine to unite and educate women and provide ordinary women with an outlet for their writing, including stories, poems, and plays. Although less polemical than Woman’s Exponent, the Magazine was edited by women, for women, and had a wide readership.

First page of the January 1917 issue of Relief Society Magazine. Pubic Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

(4)   After The Relief Society Magazine was merged with a new church publication for both male and female readers called Ensign, in 1974, a group of northeastern Mormon feminists started the independent Exponent II, which they describe as “a newspaper forum for Mormon women to share their life experiences in an atmosphere of trust and acceptance,” an “exchange” that allows them to “better understand each other” and “shape the direction” of their lives. Exponent II celebrates its 40th anniversary this year, and since 2005, they’ve added a blog.

(5)   The “Bloggernacle,” a nickname for the Mormon blogosphere (a port-manteau of ‘blogger’ and ‘tabernacle’ where Mormons worship on special occasions), is so vast that bloggers are currently organized by Mormon Archipelago into big and small islands and isles of the sea—and among them, one can find the orthodox and the heterodox and everything in between. Here are links to a few popular women bloggers:

Jana Riess, an acquisitions editor in the publishing industry, blogs on religion, history, popular culture, ethics, and biblical studies;
Neylan McBaine, a brand strategist who works for Bonneville Communications, best known for its work on Mormon.org and I’m a Mormon campaign, blogs as “a marketer, writer and mother” who grew up in New York City;
Californian Joanna Brooks’ Ask Mormon Girl focuses on “the ins-and-outs and ups-and-downs of living the ‘it’s complicated’ version of faith”;
Kristine Haglund, editor of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, blogs on By Common Consent and recently wrote about the history of excommunication as a guest blogger;
Kathryn Skaggs blogs about traditional marriage and current events at A Well-Behaved Mormon Woman;
Mormon Church historian Ardis E. Parshall’s ready access to archival materials underpins her mostly humorous posts on LDS history and culture, along with fiction, jokes, and art from past church magazines, found at Keepapitchinin.

(6)   Which brings us back to Kate Kelly, currently the most notorious Mormon woman blogger. In contrast to websites such as Feminist Mormon Housewives that embrace anger (“angry activists with babies to feed”), Kelly’s Ordain Women perhaps attempts to mimic official church publications with its non-threatening word choice and colorful high-quality photographs of church-going Mormons that are similar to church magazine Ensign photos. Her website frequently cites scriptures and male and female Church leaders, concluding that “The fundamental tenets of Mormonism support gender equality.” Her means to reach this goal? She invites Mormons to “coalesce around the goal of women’s ordination” by participating in “public actions”—Mormon versions of civil disobedience such as marching on Temple Square with the goal of attempting to enter all-male meetings. Most recently, her website encourages  Mormon women to host six “discussions” on topics related to women’s ordination. To get started, followers are provided with a downloadable invitation, get advice about who/how to invite, and can watch the “live launch.” The six discussions come with detailed lesson plans and six accompanying sample video discussions that are each at least an hour long.

In the excommunication letter Kelly received from her bishop, he explains to her that it’s not a problem to question or “even that you believe that women should have the priesthood,” but that she “persisted” in an “aggressive effort” to “persuade” others “to join [her] movement,” one he believes undermines the church. Subsequently, the Bloggernacle is straining under the weight of its innumerable bloggers discussing where the Virginia bishop should have drawn the line, or whether he should have drawn it at all.

And so the tradition continues, if in new and much faster, and thus much more public, media.

Paula Kelly Harline has been teaching college writing for over 20 years for the University of Idaho, Brigham Young University, and Utah Valley University. She has also worked as a freelance writer and artist. She currently lives with her husband, Craig, in Provo, Utah, and is the author of The Polygamous Wives Writing Club: From the Diaries of Mormon Pioneer Women.

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Catching up with Mark Johnson, pain science specialist

How is new medical technology changing the treatment of pain? How are views of chronic pain changing? Could England have made it to the World Cup final this Sunday if some players hadn’t gone into pain medicine? We spoke to Mark Johnson, Professor of Pain and Analgesia at Leeds Metropolitan University, about his research into pain medicine, the future of the field, and most importantly, how he almost considered becoming a professional footballer.

When did you first become interested in pain science?

I first become interested in pain science in 1984 whilst studying for a BSc in physiology at the University of Leeds. I have always been fascinated with self-awareness and the physiology of sensations and in the final year of my BSc I was lucky enough to investigate how the brain modulates nerve impulses arising in tissue damage. I remember the thrill of discovering that stimulating neurons in the Periaqueductal Grey of the brainstem stopped activity of ‘pain’ neurons in the spinal cord. This provided indirect evidence that the sensation of pain could be modified by the brain. Nowadays patients with severe intractable pain may receive deep brain stimulation where fine electrodes are implanted into the Periaqueductal Grey to administer weak pulsed electrical currents to reduce the patient’s pain.

Over the years my interests diversified and I currently lead a team of researchers undertaking programmes of research on:

Factors influencing response to electrophysical agents including, TENS (Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation), low-level laser therapy, acupuncture, massage, manipulation, and mobilization
Factors influencing pain sensitivity response, including sex/gender, ethnicity, and obesity
The epidemiology of pain in developing countries
Pain, motor imagery, and perceptual embodiment
Patient experiences of pain

For me the attraction of researching the science of pain is that it is multidisciplinary. Our research involves physics, chemistry, genetics, physiology, pharmacology, medicine, psychology, sociology, and spirituality. What a mix!

What do you think has been the biggest change in pain medicine in the past 10 years?

It really depends on which discipline within pain medicine you are studying. I am particularly interested in the increased use of high tech treatments such as electrical stimulators that can be implanted into various parts of the body including the spinal cord and brain to relieve severe intractable pain. Yet I am also interested in low tech treatments such as using mirrors to create visual illusions to reduce pain, such as mirror box therapy. Over the last decade insights into the genetics and physiology of pain have informed clinical practice. Routine screening for neuropathic pain, which is managed using different medication to non-neuropathic pain has vastly improved care for these patients. The understanding that the body may exist in a persistent pain state despite the absence of tissue damage has altered the way we manage chronic pain and made us realize that the pain system itself may became dysfunctional. In other words pain may exist as a disease entity in its own right. A programme of research conducted by our team on genetic profiling codeine non-responders will help to tailor pain treatment more effectively for individuals.

What is the most pressing or controversial issue in your field right now?

Perhaps the most pressing issue is the need to address the burden of chronic pain. Our research has shown that the prevalence of chronic pain worldwide is over 25% dwarfing many well-known conditions such as heart disease and diabetes. There is a debate about the best way to deal with this problem as medical and psychosocial models of care are only partially effective. Generally, there has been a shift to psychosocial models of care for many types of chronic pain in recent years. I believe far more attention needs to be given to environmental factors that contribute to chronic pain, especially in modern societies where there is a lack of physical activity due to sedentary lifestyles.

Why did you decide to write a book about this topic?

I have been researching into TENS since 1987 and during that time there has been an on-going debate about whether TENS is clinically effective (i.e. superior to placebo). There is a vast research literature on TENS with over 500 clinical studies but findings have been inconsistent. This has resulted in the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommending TENS for some painful conditions but not for others. Practitioners and patients are confused about whether they should use TENS and if they do how best to administer it. I wrote the book to provide comprehensive coverage of research findings to inform safe and appropriate TENS technique. I also wanted to synthesize evidence about effectiveness and offer solutions to overcome the challenges faced when designing good clinical studies. The last book on TENS was published over 15 years ago.

How might your current research have an impact on the wider world?

The research on TENS conducted by our team over a 15 year period has furthered our understanding of how best to administer TENS. Importantly, we have demonstrated that patients and practitioners are satisfied with TENS and they can use it in combination with other pain treatments helping to reduce medication, which may have unpleasant side effects. TENS is relatively inexpensive, can be self-administered by patients as needed and can be purchased by patients without prescription. We have found that TENS is used widely in resource rich countries but less so in resource-limited countries. Recently, we published the findings of some surveys that found that TENS was not being used to its full potential in India and Sri Lanka so we are looking at ways of trying to integrate TENS into pain management strategies in these countries.

Which person has been most influential to the way you do your job?

That’s a difficult question. The most influential people would be my PhD supervisors, Professor John Thompson and Professor Heather Ashton. They taught me the importance of academic rigor by being diligent in the design, execution, analysis, and dissemination of research investigations. They instilled in me the importance of publishing research findings — it is pointless doing research if nobody finds out about it. I guess the author Scott Adams must also get a mention because his book “The Dilbert Principle” helped me to survive the day to day nonsense that goes on at the workplace!

What advice would you give to someone wanting to specialize in your field?

Be inquisitive and reflective. Be open minded to allow your perspective to be changed but not so open minded that your brain falls out and you start to act on hearsay rather than evidence. Be humble in your views as you will be wrong from time to time. Most of all be passionate and have fun.

What do you see as being the future of research in your field in the next decade?

Research into the genetics of pain and the genetics of treatment response will enable therapies to be tailored more precisely to individuals. Our investigations on the prevalence and genetic profile of codeine non-responders in chronic pain patients has a long term goal of developing a simple screening test so practitioners will know whether a patients is likely to respond to analgesic medication at the point of care. Recent technological developments in multi array electrodes for TENS will provide more precise and effective stimulation.

If you weren’t working in pain medicine, what would you be doing?

I love writing, teaching, and finding things out so I couldn’t imagine myself working outside of academia. If I were not researching in pain science then I would like to work in the field of neuropsychology on self-awareness. If I weren’t an academic, I would probably have ended up as a sports coach. I have played competitive sports all of my life and enjoy helping others reach their full potential. As a teenager I played soccer at Wallsend Boys Club, famous for fostering Peter Beardsley, Steve Bruce, Alan Shearer, and Michael Carrick. I briefly contemplated becoming a professional soccer player but I much preferred science . . . and I wasn’t a good enough footballer to make the big time. For the last 15 years I have cycle raced, and have developed a chronic back pain problem as a consequence. I could not see myself as professional racing cyclist because it involves far too much suffering — I prefer my pain to be intellectual rather than physical.

Mark I. Johnson is Professor of Pain and Analgesia at Leeds Metropolitan University. He is the author of Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS): Research to support clinical practice. You can find Leeds Metropolitan University’s Pain Science department on Facebook.

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Images: (1) Doctor consults with patient by National Cancer Institute. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons. (2) TENS (Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulator) by Yeza. CC-BY-SA-3.0 via Wikimedia Commons via Wikimedia Commons.

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Practical wisdom and why we need to value it

By David Blockley

“Some people who do not possess theoretical knowledge are more effective in action (especially if they are experienced) than others who do possess it.”

Aristotle was referring, in his Nicomachean Ethics, to an attribute called practical wisdom – a quality that many modern engineers have – but our western intellectual tradition has completely lost sight of. I will describe briefly what Aristotle wrote about practical wisdom, argue for its recognition and celebration and state that we need consciously to utilise it as we face up to the uncertainties inherent in the engineering challenges of climate change.

Necessarily what follows is a simplified account of complex and profound ideas. Aristotle saw five ways of arriving at the truth – he called them art (ars, techne), science (episteme), intuition (nous), wisdom (sophia), and practical wisdom – sometimes translated as prudence (phronesis). Ars or techne (from which we get the words art and technical, technique and technology) was concerned with production but not action. Art had a productive state, truly reasoned, with an end (i.e. a product) other than itself (e.g. a building). It was not just a set of activities and skills of craftsman but included the arts of the mind and what we would now call the fine arts. The Greeks did not distinguish the fine arts as the work of an inspired individual – that came only after the Renaissance. So techne as the modern idea of mere technique or rule-following was only one part of what Aristotle was referring to.

Episteme (from which we get the word epistemology or knowledge) was of necessity and eternal; it is knowledge that cannot come into being or cease to be; it is demonstrable and teachable and depends on first principles. Later, when combined with Christianity, episteme as eternal, universal, context-free knowledge has profoundly influenced western thought and is at the heart of debates between science and religion. Intuition or nous was a state of mind that apprehends these first principles and we could think of it as our modern notion of intelligence or intellect. Wisdom or sophia was the most finished form of knowledge – a combination of nous and episteme.

Aristotle thought there were two kinds of virtues, the intellectual and the moral. Practical wisdom or phronesis was an intellectual virtue of perceiving and understanding in effective ways and acting benevolently and beneficently. It was not an art and necessarily involved ethics, not static but always changing, individual but also social and cultural. As an illustration of the quotation at the head of this article, Aristotle even referred to people who thought Anaxagoras and Thales were examples of men with exceptional, marvelous, profound but useless knowledge because their search was not for human goods.

Aristotle thought of human activity in three categories praxis, poeisis (from which we get the word poetry), and theoria (contemplation – from which we get the word theory). The intellectual faculties required were phronesis for praxis, techne for poiesis, and sophia and nous for theoria.

Sculpture of Aristotle at the Louvre Museum. Photo by Eric Gaba, CC-BY-SA-2.5 via Wikimedia Commons

It is important to understand that theoria had total priority because sophia and nous were considered to be universal, necessary and eternal but the others are variable, finite, contingent and hence uncertain and thus inferior.

What did Aristotle actually mean when he referred to phronesis? As I see it phronesis is a means towards an end arrived at through moral virtue. It is concerned with “the capacity for determining what is good for both the individual and the community”. It is a virtue and a competence, an ability to deliberate rightly about what is good in general, about discerning and judging what is true and right but it excludes specific competences (like deliberating about how to build a bridge or how to make a person healthy). It is purposeful, contextual but not rule-following. It is not routine or even well-trained behaviour but rather intentional conduct based on tacit knowledge and experience, using longer time horizons than usual, and considering more aspects, more ways of knowing, more viewpoints, coupled with an ability to generalise beyond narrow subject areas. Phronesis was not considered a science by Aristotle because it is variable and context dependent. It was not an art because it is about action and generically different from production. Art is production that aims at an end other than itself. Action is a continuous process of doing well and an end in itself in so far as being well done it contributes to the good life.

Christopher Long argues that an ontology (the philosophy of being or nature of existence) directed by phronesis rather than sophia (as it currently is) would be ethical; would question normative values; would not seek refuge in the eternal but be embedded in the world and be capable of critically considering the historico-ethical-political conditions under which it is deployed. Its goal would not be eternal context-free truth but finite context-dependent truth. Phronesis is an excellence (arête) and capable of determining the ends. The difference between phronesis and techne echoes that between sophia and episteme. Just as sophia must not just understand things that follow from first principles but also things that must be true, so phronesis must not just determine itself towards the ends but as arête must determine the ends as good. Whereas sophia knows the truth through nous, phronesis must rely on moral virtues from lived experience.

In the 20th century quantum mechanics required sophia to change and to recognise that we cannot escape uncertainty. Derek Sellman writes that a phronimo will recognise not knowing our competencies, i.e. not knowing what we know, and not knowing our uncompetencies, i.e. not knowing what we do not know. He states that a longing for phronesis “is really a longing for a world in which people honestly and capably strive to act rightly and to avoid harm,” and he thinks it is a longing for praxis.

In summary I think that one way (and perhaps the only way) of dealing with the ‘wicked’ uncertainties we face in the future, such as the effects of climate change, is through collaborative ‘learning together’ informed by the recognition, appreciation, and exercise of practical wisdom.

Professor Blockley is an engineer and an academic scientist. He has been Head of the Department of Civil Engineering and Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Bristol. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Institution of Civil Engineers, the Institution of Structural Engineers, and the Royal Society of Arts. He has written four books including Engineering: A Very Short Introduction and Bridges: The science and art of the world’s most inspiring structures.

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Scenes from the Odyssey in Ancient Art

The Ancient Greeks were incredibly imaginative and innovative in their depictions of scenes from The Odyssey, painted onto vases, kylikes, wine jugs, or mixing bowls. Many of Homer’s epic scenes can be found on these objects such as the encounter between Odysseus and the Cyclops Polyphemus and the battle with the Suitors. It is clear that in the Greek culture, The Odyssey was an influential and eminent story with memorable scenes that have resonated throughout generations of both classical literature enthusiasts and art aficionados and collectors. We present a brief slideshow of images that appear in Barry B. Powell’s new free verse translation of The Odyssey.




Aigisthos kills Agamemnon.
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In Book 1, the “father of men and gods,” Zeus, speaks of Aigisthos who the son of Agamemnon had killed. He says, “men suffer pains beyond what is fated through their own folly! See how Aigisthos killed Agamemnon when he came home, though he well knew the end” (1.33-37). In this image, Aigisthos holds Agamemnon, covered by a diaphanous robe, by the hair while he stabs him with a sword. Apparently, this illustration is inspired by the tradition followed in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, where the king is caught in a web before being killed. Klytaimnestra stands behind Aigisthos, urging him on, while Agamemnon’s daughter attempts to stop the murder (she is called Elektra in Aeschylus’ play). To the far right, a handmaid flees. Athenian red-figure wine-mixing bowl, c. 500-450 BC. Photograph © 2014 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Penelope at her loom with Telemachos.
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Telemachos (Odysseus’s son), stands to the left holding two spears, reproaching his mother. She sits mournfully on a chair, anguished by the unknown fate of her husband. Her head is bowed and legs are crossed in a pose canonical for Penelope. Athenian red-figure cup, c. 440 BC, by the Penelope Painter.

Telemachos and Nestor.
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Telemachos, holding his helmet in his right hand and two spears in his left, a shield suspended from his arm, greets Nestor (the king of Pylos), who has no information about Odysseus. The bent old man supports himself with a knobby staff, and his white hair is partially veiled. Behind him stands his youngest daughter (probably), Polykastê, holding a basket filled with food for the guest. South-Italian red-figure wine-mixing bowl, c. 350 BC.

Odysseus and Kalypso.
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The goddess presents a box of provisions for the hero’s voyage. The box is tied with a sash. The bearded Odysseus sits on a rock on the shore holding a sword and looking pensive. Athenian red-figure vase, c. 450 BC.

Odysseus, Athena, and Nausicaä.
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Odysseus asks for the assistance of the Phaeacian princess Nausicaä while she and her handmaidens are bathing by a river. Nausicaa gives Odysseus directions to the palace and advice on how to approach Aretê, queen of the Phaeacians. In this image, the naked Odysseus holds a branch in front of his genitals so as not to startle Nausicaä and her attendants. On the right, near the edge of the picture, Nausicaä half turns but holds her ground. Athena, Odysseus’ protectress, stands between the two figures, her spear pointed to the ground. She wears a helmet and the goatskin fetish (aegis) fringed with snakes as a kind of cape. Clothes hang out to dry on a tree branch (upper left). Athenian red-figure water-jar from Vulci, Italy, c. 460 BC.

Maron gives the sack of potent wine to Odysseus.
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Books 9 through 12 are told as flashbacks, as Odysseus sits in the palace of the Phaeacians telling the story of his journeys, from Troy, to the land of the Lotus-Eaters, to the land of the Cyclops. Here we see the beardless Kikonian priest Maron give a sack of wine to Odysseus by which Cyclops is overcome. In his left hand, he holds a spear pointed downwards. His crowned wife stands behind him with a horn drinking cup. The very long-haired Odysseus wears high boots, a traveler’s cap (pilos), and holds a spear over his shoulder with his right hand. To the far left stands a Kikonian woman. South Italian red-figure wine-mixing bowl by the Maron Painter, 340-330 BC.

Laestrygonians attack Odysseus’ ships.
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Without any wind to guide them, the Achaeans row to the land of the Laestrygonians, a race of powerful giants. In this somewhat dim Roman fresco there are ten of Odysseus’ oared ships with single masts in the middle of the narrow bay, three near the shore, half-sunk, and a fourth half-sunk near the high cliffs on the right. Five of the Laestrygonian giants stand on the shore and spear Odysseus’ men or throw down huge rocks. A sixth giant has waded into the water on the left and holds the prow of a ship in his mighty hands. From a house on the Esquiline Hill decorated with scenes from the Odyssey, Rome, c. AD 90.

Kirkê enchants the companions of Odysseus.
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From there, Odysseus and his men travel to Aeaea, home of the beautiful witch-goddess Kirkê. Shown here is a seductive Kirkê standing naked in the center, stirring a magic drink and offering it to Odysseus’ companions, already turning into animals—the man in front of Kirkê into a boar, the next to the right into a ram, and the third into a wolf. A dog crouches beneath Kirkê’s bowl. The figure behind Kirkê has the head of a boar. On the far left is a lion-man beside whom Odysseus comes with sword drawn (but in the Odyssey they turn only into pigs). On the far right, Eurylochos escapes. Athenian black-figure wine cup, c. 550 BC. Photograph © 2014 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

The suitors bring presents.
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Penelope sits on a chair at the far right, receiving the suitor’s gifts. The first suitor seems to offer jewelry in a box. The next suitor, carrying a staff, brings woven cloth. The third suitor, also with a staff, carries a precious bowl and turns to speak to the fourth suitor, who brings a bronze mirror. Athenian red-figure vase, c. 470 BC.

Death of the suitors.
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This is the other side of the cup from Figure 22.1. All the suitors, situated around a dining couch, are in “heroic nudity” but carry cloaks. On the left a suitor tugs at an arrow in his back. In the middle a suitor tries to defend himself with an overturned table. On the right a debonair suitor, with trim mustache, holds up his hands to stop the inevitable. Athenian cup, c. 450-440 BC.

Melian relief with the return of Odysseus.
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In this “Melian relief” (compare Figure 19.1), Penelope sits on a chair, her legs demurely crossed and her head buried in sorrow. The hatless Odysseus, disguised as a beggar, takes her by the forearm. He is in “heroic nudity” but with a ragged cloak over his arms and back. He holds a staff in his left hand from which his pouch is suspended. Behind Penelope is the beardless Telemachos, and at his feet probably Eumaios the pig herder, seated on the ground and holding a staff, his hat tossed back. The last figure on the left is probably Philoitios, the cow herder from Kephallenia. Terracotta plaque, c. 460-450 BC, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Art Resource, NY.

Eurykleia washing Odysseus’ feet.
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The old woman, wearing the short hair of a slave, is about to discover the scar on Odysseus leg. The bearded Odysseus, dressed in rags, holds a staff in his right hand and a stick supporting his pouch in his left. He wears an odd traveler’s hat with a bill to shade his eyes. Attic red-figure drinking cup by the Penelope Painter, from Chiusi, c. 440 BC; Museo Archeologico, Chiusi, Italy; Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.

Melian relief with Penelope and Eurykleia.
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After the fight against the suitors, Eurykleia tries to persuade Penelope that her husband has returned. Shown here, the mourning Penelope sits in a traditional pose with her hand to her forehead and her legs crossed. Her head is veiled. She stares gloomily downwards, seated on a padded stool beneath which is a basket for yarn. The purpose of these terracotta reliefs, found in different parts of the Roman world, is unclear. Roman Relief, AD 1st century. Museo Nazionale Romano (Terme di Diocleziano), Rome; Erich Lessing / Art Resource, NY.

Barry B. Powell is Halls-Bascom Professor of Classics Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His new free verse translation of The Odyssey was published by Oxford University Press in 2014. His translation of The Iliad was published by Oxford University Press in 2013. See previous blog posts from Barry B. Powell.

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William Mathias (1934-92) by his daughter, Rhiannon

By Rhiannon Mathias

My father was a man of exceptional energy. Warm and generous in character, he lived several different kinds of musical lives. First and foremost, of course, as a composer, but also conductor, pianist, public figure, Professor of Music at Bangor University (1970-88) and Artistic Director of the North Wales Music Festival (1972-92). All these different strands amounted to a phenomenal workload, and took up a great deal of time, but he felt that he couldn’t write music 24 hours a day, and that he could give something meaningful to society and move it on. It did mean that he had to be extremely well organized, but I think that he found that all the different aspects of his life helped him to produce the music he wanted to write in the end. Much of his music was composed in our family home in the town of Menai Bridge on the beautiful island of Anglesey, and our house was also ‘mission control’ when he was planning his Music Festival.

His working day usually started at 9 a.m., and he often drove me to school in the mornings in his ‘English red’ (actually, bright orange) Mercedes on his way to the University. I think he quite enjoyed his time at the University. There was not as much paperwork as there is these days, and he enjoyed the lecturing and was very popular with his students. He was affectionately known as ‘Prof’, and my mother, who was head of singing at the Department, was ‘Mrs. M’. His office took up the entire top floor of the music building. I recall a grand piano (model D, of course), bookshelves weighed down with the history of Western music, and an enormous desk bearing scores and papers.

There is a story about him which dates from his time when he was a young lecturer at Bangor in the 1960s. He would begin his lecture, and after about ten minutes would reach for his pipe and light a match while still enthusing about his subject. The students would watch the match burn down, whereupon he would put it out and place it in his jacket pocket. Without breaking his speech, he would reach for another match, light it, and the process would repeat until, by the end of the lecture, he was left with one unlit pipe and a pocket of spent matches. Later, when he became a Professor, he rarely made negative comments about concerts given at the University, but if he was not, how shall I say, fully musically engaged, he would take his glasses off and wipe them with his tie. We all came to realise that this was the ultimate critical comment!

When he got home from the University, my mother would have a delicious meal ready for him. His day was far from over, however. Unless my parents were hosting a dinner party – my mother is an excellent cook – he would go to his studio after supper and compose until the early hours of the morning. These regular, ‘golden’ hours, enabled him to compose nearly 200 published works, including three symphonies, several concertos, chamber music, a great deal of choral music, and a full-scale opera, The Servants. Such a routine seems extraordinary, but it is important to understand that music was an ever-present force for my father. I was aware from a very early age that the creative process was something always present for him — even when he was doing something else — and that it was a force which he could turn in any desired direction or channel at a given time. Hence his ability to compose a wide variety of orchestral, choral, instrumental or chamber music, as well as music for the church and for young people.

I could always tell when a piece was gestating in his mind because he would become intensely thoughtful and preoccupied. When the time was right, he would roughly sketch the piece, trying out a few ideas on one of the two pianos in his studio, and then attend to the detailed work of producing his meticulously tidy manuscripts — always in black ink (this was in the days before Sibelius). The majority of his works were written to commission, and from as far back as I can remember, he usually had to plan two, often three years in advance in order to meet the demand of commissions he wanted to fulfil. He told me that sometimes, after finishing his composition in the early hours, he used to pop into my bedroom when I was very young and find me standing up in my cot, waiting for him to come and say goodnight.

His enormous work commitments meant that we, as a family, rarely went on holiday during the summer. There were, however, regular trips to Whitland in South Wales, my father’s home town, to visit my grandmother Marian, and I recall a wonderful holiday in Greece – impressions of which partly became the inspiration for his Melos for flute, harp, percussion and strings (1977) and Helios for orchestra (1977). In 1982, we went to America where my father embarked on an immensely successful tour of the East coast involving lectures, performances, and workshops in Boston, New York, Athens in Georgia, and San Antonio in Texas. The connection with the States was a lasting one and, after my father’s retirement from Bangor University in 1988, it became usual for him to visit America twice, often three times a year.

At the beginning of 1992, my father was commissioned to write a symphony (his fourth) by the Santa Fe Symphony Orchestra. Sadly, the new symphony was not to come to fruition — he passed away in July 1992 — but the true, creative artist has an uncanny ability to transcend mortality. He would have been 80 in November, and it is wonderful that his anniversary is being celebrated this year by a series of concerts, festivals, and new publications. His vibrant character – full of vitality, optimism, and joy – very much lives on in his music.

Rhiannon Mathias is a musicologist, broadcaster, and flautist. She is the author of a book about the music of Elisabeth Lutyens, Elizabeth Maconchy, and Grace Williams (Ashgate 2012) and lectures on Twentieth-Century Women Composers at Bangor University. She is also a Trustee of the William Mathias Music Centre in north Wales.

William Mathias was born in Whitland, Dyfed. He studied at the University College of Wales, and subsequently at the Royal Academy of Music. From 1970-1988 he was Head of the Music Department at the University College of North Wales, Bangor. Mathias musical language embraced both instrumental and vocal forms with equal success, and he addressed a large and varied audience both in Britain and abroad. He was also known as a conductor and pianist, and gave or directed many premières of his own works. He was made CBE in the 1985 New Year’s Honours. In 1992, the year of his death, Nimbus Records embarked upon a series of recordings of his major works.

Oxford Sheet Music is distributed in the United States by Peters Edition.

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Countries of the World Cup: Brazil

As we gear up for the conclusion of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, we’re highlighting some interesting facts about the final four competing nations with information pulled right from the pages of the latest edition of Oxford’s Atlas of the World. If you’re one of the few who hasn’t caught onto World Cup fever, the winner of the World Cup is near! Brazil and Germany faced off on Tuesday, 8 July. The shocking game left Germany the victor, with Argentina and the Netherlands battling it out on Wednesday 9 July. Argentina pulled through after a penalty shootout. The third place finalist will be determined on Saturday, 12 July with the final two teams going head-to-head on Sunday, 13 July to determine the champion.

The Federative Republic of Brazil, also known by the spelling Brasil, is the world’s fifth largest country with a population of over 199 million It has the honor and distinction of hosting the World Cup this year, a fact that had this fútbol-centric nation even more hyped than usual.

A large country of over 3 million square miles, the area contains three main regions. Manaus, one of the host cities, has high temperatures throughout the year. A tropical climate, rainfall is normally heavy, but lucky for players and cheering fans, the weather tends to be a bit drier from June through September.

Brazil is a leading economy in South America, described as a “rapidly industrializing economy.” You might not know that it’s the world’s top producers of products including cars, paper, aircrafts, and even materials ranging from diamonds to tin. With coffee as its leading export, agriculture employs 16% of the population. A major farming nation, products also include bananas, coca, rice, sugarcane, and maize.

With the Amazon, the world’s second largest river, in its backyard, forestry is a major industry although the fear that destroying the rainforests can accelerate global warming is a real concern. On a positive environmental note, Brazil is the second highest producer of hydroelectricity in the world, accounting for 12.3% of total world production.

Politically, the nation sets an example for progress in gender equality, having elected its first female president, Dilma Rousseff of the Workers Party, in 2010. Its government is a Federal Republic, having first declared itself an independent empire in 1822 after originally being claimed by Portugal in 1500. After periods of martial rule from the 1930s, civilian rule was restored in 1985 with a new constitution adopted in 1988.

Oxford’s Atlas of the World – the only world atlas updated annually, guaranteeing that users will find the most current geographic information — is the most authoritative resource on the market. The milestone Twentieth Edition is full of crisp, clear cartography of urban areas and virtually uninhabited landscapes around the globe, maps of cities and regions at carefully selected scales that give a striking view of the Earth’s surface, and the most up-to-date census information. The acclaimed resource is not only the best-selling volume of its size and price, but also the benchmark by which all other atlases are measured.

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Image credit: Photo by Digo_Souza>, CC BY 2.0 via Flickr

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OK Go: Is the Writing on the Wall?

By Siu-Lan Tan

When I saw OK Go’s ‘The Writing’s on the Wall’ video a few days ago, I was stunned. If you aren’t one of the over eight million people that has seen this viral music video yet, you’re in for a visual treat.

OK Go is known for creative videos, but this is the band’s richest musical collage of optical illusions so far. The most amazing part is that it was done … in one take!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Over 7.5 million viewers saw this extraordinary video in the first week it was posted.

And just newly released, OK Go uploaded this equally splendid video that gives us a ‘Behind-the-Scenes’ look.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Just a lucky coincidence?

OK Go posted ‘The Writing’s on the Wall’ on 17 June 2014. I wonder if they knew this is a significant date for Gestalt psychology? Important enough to be in the APA’s historical database for 17 June:

“June 17, 1924. Robert M. Ogden of Cornell University wrote to German psychologist Kurt Koffka, inviting him to become a visiting lecturer. This was the first step… that brought Gestaltists Koffka, Köhler, Wertheimer, and Lewin to America” (Street, 2007)

Wertheimer, Koffka, and Köhler are key figures in Gestalt psychology who laid the groundwork for what we know about perception, especially how we organize visual elements into meaningful wholes. Central to their work is the idea of ‘figure’ versus ‘ground’ – or how we distinguish the main focus (or figure) from the background or landscape in which it is set (ground).

They were also interested in perceptual illusions, influenced by psychologist Edgar Rubin who created many figure/ground illusions such as the Rubin vase, which now appears in every introductory psychology book.

Here’s a modern version: Are these columns or five tall standing figures with bowed heads? That depends on what you take to be figure vs. ground.

OK Go’s ‘The Writing on the Wall’ plays with figure/ground relations. Many illusions in this brilliant music video ambiguate, and then disambiguate, what is foreground versus background.

This is especially well illustrated in the illusion that “the writing’s on the wall” — as it never really is. In every appearance of the written word == in the title, the blurbs in the middle, and the amazing reveal at the end — the writing’s never on the wall.

Instead, the words blend figure and ground into single alignment. The illusion works — and then is dismantled before our eyes — as the movement of objects or camera disentangle what is foreground and background.

Figure and ground seem to dissolve into each other as the musicians emerge from the red, blue, yellow shapes.

Ambiguity of where figure and ground separate is pushed even further with single images that blend foreground with distant surfaces (floors, walls): blue spots, a network of cubes, a ladder, green checkered tiles, and a row of people that appear to stand together. It’s brilliantly captured at 02:47, in the aerial image of a multi-layered apparatus that “flattens out” into a representation of drummer Tim Nordwind’s bearded face (screenshot below).

The walkthrough also takes us through the development of art: from basic shapes, to patterns (dots, stripes), to 3D (or not) cubes, geometric sculptures, and finally to representations of the human face and full body figures.

The music is not just an accompaniment to the collage of optical illusions and paradoxes, but an integral part of the work. The song is about miscommunication that can go on in a relationship. (Or is the idea of two people really ‘getting each other’ merely an illusion?)

The result is wonderfully perplexing, a delicious trick of the senses. And a fitting tribute to the 17 June landmark in Gestalt psychology.

Siu-Lan Tan is Associate Professor of Psychology at Kalamazoo College in Michigan, USA. She is primary editor of The Psychology of Music in Multimedia (Oxford University Press 2013), the first book consolidating the research on the role of music in film, television, video games, and computers. A version of this article also appears on Psychology Today. Siu-Lan Tan also has her own blog, What Shapes Film? Read her previous blog posts.

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Image Credit: Optical illusion. Image by Sha Sha Chu. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 via shashachu Flickr.

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Free speech, reputation, and the Defamation Act 2013

Freedom of expression is a central tenet of almost every modern society. This freedom however often comes into conflict with other rights, and can be misused and exploited. New media – especially on the internet – and new forms of media intrusion bring added complexity to old tensions between the individual’s rights to reputation and privacy on the one hand, and freedom of expression and the freedom of the press on the other.

How should free speech be balanced with the right to reputation? This question lies at the heart of defamation law. In the following videos, Lord Neuberger and Dr Matthew Collins QC discuss current challenges in defamation law, and the implications of recent changes to legislation enacted in the Defamation Act 2013. Lord Neuberger highlights urgent issues including privacy, confidentiality, data protection, freedom of information, and the Internet.

In this video, he draws attention to recent high-profile events such as the Leveson Inquiry and the phone-hacking trials, and points up key features of the new legislation.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Dr Matthew Collins QC outlines his perspective on the likely long-term impact of the 2013 Act.

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The Rt Hon the Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury Kt PC is President of the Supreme Court of the United Court of the United Kingdom. Dr Matthew Collins QC is a barrister based in Melbourne, Australia. He is also a Senior Fellow at the University of Melbourne, a door tenant at One Brick Court chambers in London, and the author of Collins on Defamation .

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