This spring I will be headed into my 18th semester teaching at Rutgers.
This semester I will be teaching Research in the Disciplines. Students in these classes engage in independent research about a topic of their choosing under the headings of 'Music, Dance, and Performance'. Before our students begin their research, we explore the process by examining various readings under a topic of my choosing. In the Music, Dance, and Performance class we will explore the intersection of mental illness and music. My current reading lists are below.
MUSIC, DANCE, AND PERFORMANCE
"The Things We Already Know and the Things We’re Set Up Not to See: Folkloristics, COVID-19, and the Traps of Amplification" by Phillips & Tolbert
"Playing Dead in Videogames: Trauma in Limbo" by Smethhurst
"Temporal Looping and Pleating in Spring Breakers" by Harmony Korine
"Silent Alarm: The Mosquito Youth Deterrent and the Politics of Frequency" by Mitchell Akiyam
"Re-traumatization Cycle: Sexual Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Sexual Risk Behaviors among Club Drug Users" by Narvaez et. al.
"Change in Blink Rate in the Metaverse" by Jungho Kim, et. al.
"Killer Culture: Classical Music and the Art of Killing in Silence of the Lambs and Se7ev" by Thomas Fahy
"Primary Biological Motivators in Music Media: Motivated Processing of Sex and Violence" by Yianjiao Wang and Rachel Bailey
"The Lonely Raver: Music Livestreams during COVID-19 as a Hotline to Collective Consciousness?" by Femke Vandenberg, et. al.
"Air Guitar Styles" by Alva Noë (From Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature)
"When Creators Meet the Metaverse" by Lik-Hang Lee, et. al.
MUSICAL EXPRESSION & PERFORMANCE
"Creativity and Psychopathology" by Felix Post
"Audience Members' Hearts Beat Together at the Theatre" by Joe Devlin
"Music and Madness: Neuropsychiatric Aspects of Music" by Marco Mule and Michael R. Trimble
"Killer Culture: Classical Music and the Art of Killing in Silence of the Lambs and Se7ev" by Thomas Fahy
"Streaming Violent Genres Online" by Debashis Aikat
NUTRITION & EXERCISE SCIENCE
"Cannibalism, Vegetarianism, and Narcissism" by William B. Irvine
"Feasting on People: Eating Humans and Animals in Amazonia" by Carlos Fausto
"Foot in Mouth: Animals, Disease, and the Cannibal Complex" by Helen Tiffin
"Images of Sub-Humanity and their Realization" by Stephen Feuchtwang
EPIDEMICS
"Haitian Zombie, Myth, and Modern Identity" Kette Thomas
"Slaves, Cannibals, and Infected Hyper-Whites: The Race and Religion of Zombies" by Elizabeth McAlister
"Zombies, Drugs, and Florida Weirdness" by Robert E. Gutsche Jr.
"Metaphysics and Horror, or Relating to Fictions" by Noel Carrol (from The Philosophy of Horror)
"The Zombie Saints: The Contagious Spirit of Christian Conversion Narratives" by Sarah Juliet Lauro