Center for Research Fellows 2006-2007

Aziza Braithwaite Bey
Creative Arts in Learning

Description: This research project began in the Fall of 2005 with a Fellowship Research Award from the Graduate School of Arts and Social Sciences to explore the works and philosophies of fashion designers of African ancestry, who worked during the periods 1960's through 1990's in the U.S.A. What emerged from this conversation, were new questions and new directions of inquiry. One important theme that has been consistent throughout was the important role that mentoring played in the transmission of knowledge, and visibility for designers of African ancestry.
 
As I searched to find my own mentor Arthur McGee, I learned that his studio, his equipment, his patterns and his samples have been lost. I want to find Arthur's work, to make sure his legacy will be preserved, to make sure his enormous contributions will not be forgotten. So what in part began as a desire to curate, photograph and eventually house my own designs in a museum's Costume Collection, (the second part of my current Fellowship Award), has now been expanded by a burning desire to search for, photograph and when ever possible acquire Arthur's designs for the purpose of finding a Costume Collection where researchers and students can study the design elements, such as balance, proportion, emphasis, focal point, embodied in Arthur's creations. Many important lessons can be learned from this inquiry that contribute to the ascetic value of this art form (Apparel Design).

Semester:  Fall 2006

Arlene Dallalfar
Interdisciplinary Inquiry

Description: I propose to co-edit a book on the scholarship of inclusive teaching, drawing on contributions from faculty who participated in the NECIT conferences and seminars. At present, all members of the Lesley seminar group have expressed interest in publishing an article and in addition to my role as co-editor I will also write an article in this proposed book project.

Semester:  Fall 2006

Lisa Donovan
Creative Arts in Learning

Description: A dramatic script will be created highlighting the implications of a dissertation research study investigating the question, "How theater education can develop a sense of voice and identity in adolescents?" This piece will be performed at conferences and at schools to bring the research to life before educators, researchers and administrators from schools and institutions of higher education. The script will highlight themes in critical pedagogy, critical ethnography, drama education, arts-based-research, and the need for students' voices to be heard.

Semester:  Summer 2006

Karen Frostig
Creative Arts in Learning

Description: This project entails translating 70 or so letters written in German by my grandmother to my father between 1938 and 1942. The letters were written while in hiding, before my grandparents and 17 members of my extended family perished in death camps. These letters and the one surviving photograph constitute the primary sources for an artistic investigation and production of new work entitled The Legacy of War: Embracing my grandmother's voice with my own.

Semester:  Spring 2007

Danielle Georges
Creative Arts in Learning

Description: The project is a series of contextual and historical essays based on the research and collection of images of women in 20th-century Caribbean visual art. I received a 2004 Fellowship which allowed me to research and collect these images. The essays would build on this research, and contribute to my larger project (manuscript) of analyzing and comparing the visual images to literary representations of women in the Caribbean and the Caribbean diaspora.

Semester:  Spring 2007

Mitchell Kossak
Expressive Therapies

Description: This research focuses on the relationship between attunement, improvisation and embodied somatic experience. It is my hope to formulate clear interdisciplinary definitions that lay out broader implications for therapeutic practice and toward the training of expressive therapists. I will present my findings to the greater Lesley community, and at the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association conference, and write an article based on my findings.
 
Semester:  Fall 2006

Louise Pascale
Creative Arts in Learning

Description: This project is inspired by my work that I began in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1967 when I was in the Peace Corps.  This fellowship is intended to support a small but essential portion of the larger project, which is the production of a CD/booklet of Afghan children's songs which will be distributed to Afghan children living in the United States and Afghanistan. My work will include translating songs, researching musicians and history of music in Afghanistan, and layout of CD and accompanying booklet.

Semester:  Fall 2006
 
Nancy Waring
Interdisciplinary Inquiry

Description: My book, Turning Toward the Bandaged Place: A Brain Tumor Odyssey, is part memoir, about my experience as a brain tumor patient and survivor, and part research-based inquiry. I try to let the tumor be my teacher, and to make sense of the hand dealt to me, through self-investigation, and primary and secondary research. I interview my entire medical/surgical team, and other brain tumor experts, caregivers, and survivors. I interweave history of science research covering neuroscientific, technological, medical, and surgical advances that have led to modern neurosurgery, and have thus made possible many people's survival, including my own. While this is an interdisciplinary project, I believe it falls squarely in the emerging field of medical humanities.

Semester:  Fall 2006