W. M. Calder

Bio: W. M. Calder is an academic researcher. The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 1 publications receiving 18 citations.

The Neolithic great goddess: a study in modern tradition

Abstract: Modern belief in the veneration of a single Great Goddess in the European Neolithic is often accompanied by the notion that those cultures of ‘Old Europe’ were woman-centred in society as well as religion. What is the long history which precedes these contemporary notions? What is the complex history of their political development? A chain runs from Classical times to Marija Gimbutas (Meskell 1995) and our own day.

Reconfiguring the Chorus: Adaptations of the Greek Tragic Chorus Since World War II

Abstract: This study is an investigation of adaptations of the Greek tragic chorus since World War II, including the historical, political, and aesthetic contexts that gave rise to these adaptations. Influenced by recent work in the field of Classical Performance Reception and Linda Hutcheon’s work on adaptation, this thesis is designed not around a set of case studies, but around a variety of research questions, including: the current definition of “the chorus” and how it might include the “one-person chorus”; the techniques of mediation used by modern choruses and how they might relate to techniques of the ancient chorus; the connection between political adaptations and the encouragement of audience “complicity”; and the complexities involved in the production and reception of intercultural choruses. I begin by arguing that although August Wilhelm Schlegel’s conception of the chorus as an “ideal spectator” remains the most persistently popular model of understanding the chorus, it should be replaced with a new model based on the concentric frames of performance described by Susan Bennett. Through the use of this model, the chorus is revealed as a liminal, oscillating figure that mediates the action for the audience, and I argue that these qualities have made the chorus an attractive element of tragedy to modern adapters. In the case studies that are offered throughout, I further develop this model in order to analyze the ways in which modern choruses

Still Life: Modernism's Turn to Greece

Abstract: Hellenism is a way of seeing ghosts and contemplating inanimate objects. Normally associated with the Gothic, these shadowy visions persist in modernist writings in a variety of forms, representative of distinctive and often conflicting positions on art and life. The concern with cultural legacy and the presumed license of the modern artist and intellectual to energize the present by reanimating the past amounts to more than a mere exercise in classical allusion for a learned audience. Through meditations on mythical motifs, magical objects and staged encounters between ancient rituals and contemporary crises, writers and thinkers such as Pound, Eliot, Harrison, Woolf, Freud, H.D. and Heidegger turn to Greece as the site of haunting continuities.

Being in the zone and vital subjectivity: On the liminal sources of sport and art

Abstract: With the aim of re-contextualising the social dimensions of Being in the Zone whilst retaining its psychological resonance, this contribution thinks Bitz alongside van Gennep's notion of liminality and Turner's notion of the liminoid. Bitz research centres around the liminoid spheres of sport and art, and it is in these social contexts that it has its primary meaning. This move enables the articulation of a critical distance from the role the ‘being in the zone’ concept is coming to play in new forms of governance and corporate activity which aim towards a super-productive 'vital subjectivity'. In these contexts, Bitz does not address people as thinking subjects who must self-manage by making decisions, but as unified and (ideally) unconscious mind/bodies seeking experiences composed of an optimal balance of feelings. This optimal balance, at the same time, promises something interesting to the manager: an individual operating at full-capacity and yielding maximum productivity with no need of extrinsic reward. Situating Bitz in relation to liminality contributes to the task of tracing the genealogy of the vital subject back to a set of social practices directly concerned with the incitement and management of affectivity and emotion.

In liminal tension towards giving birth Eros, the educator

Abstract: The discussion on the nature of eros (love as sexual desire) in Plato’s Symposium offers us special insights concerning the potential role played by love in social and political life. While about eros, the dialogue also claims to offer a true image of Socrates, generating a complex puzzle. This article offers a solution to this puzzle by reconstructing and interpreting Plato’s theatrical presentation of his argument, making use of the structure of the plays of Aristophanes, a protagonist in the dialogue. The new image of Socrates, it is argued, signals Plato’s move beyond the way he envisioned so far his master, best visible in his introducing Diotima, a prophetess who takes over the role of guide from Socrates; and by his presenting the truth about Socrates through Alcibiades, cast into the role of a boastful intruder, a central figure in Aristophanes’ comedies. Eros and Socrates are both ‘in-between’ or liminal figures, indicating that Socrates is still entrapped in the crisis of Athenian democracy. The...