Conversation1
Eric: Hi, Professor Mason, do you have a minute?
Pro: Yeah, of course, Eric. I think there was something I wanted to talk to you about too.
Eric: Probably my late essay.
Pro: Ah, that must be it. I thought maybe I’d lost it.
Eric: No, I'm sorry. Actually it was my computer that lost it, the first draft of it. And, well, anyway, I finally put it in your mail box yesterday.
Pro: Oh,and I haven't checked the mail box yet today. Well, I'm glad it's there. I will read it this weekend.
Eric: Well, sorry again. Say, I can send it to you by email too if you like.
Pro: Great. I'll be interested to see how it all came out.
Eric: Right. Now, ah, I just have overheard some graduate students’ talking, something about a party for De Adams?
Pro: Retirement party, yes, all students are invited. Wasn't there notice on the Anthropology Department's bulletin board?
Eric: Ah, I don't know. But I want to offer help out with it. You know whatever you need. De Adams, well, I took a few anthropology classes with her and they were great, inspiring. That's why I want to pitch in.
Pro: Oh, that's very thoughtful of you, Eric, but it will be pretty low key, nothing flashy. That's not her style.
Eric: So there's nothing?
Pro: No, we'll have coffee and cookies, maybe a cake. But actually a couple of the administrative assistants are working on that. You could ask them but I think they've got covered.
Eric: Ok.
Pro: Actually, oh, no, never mind.
Eric: What's it?
Pro: Well, it's nothing to do with the party and I'm sure there are more exciting ways that you could spend your time. But we do need some help with something. We’re compiling a database of articles the anthropology faculty has published. There is not much glory, but we are looking for someone with some knowledge of anthropology who can enter the articles. I hesitate to mention it. But I don't suppose it's something you would.
Eric: No, that sounds kind of cool. I would like to see what they are writing about.
Pro: Wonderful. And there are also some unpublished studies. Do you know De Adams did a lot of field research in Indonesia? Most of them haven’t been published yet.
Eric: No, like what?
Pro: Well, she is really versatile. She just spent several months studying social interactions in Indonesia and she's been influential in ethnology. Oh, and she's also done work in south of America, this is closer to biology, especially with speciation.
Eric: ah, not to seem uninformed
Pro: Well, how's species form? You know, how two distinct species form from one. Like when population of the same species are isolated from each other and then developed into two different directions and ended up with two distinct species.
Eric: Interesting.
Pro: Yes, while she was there in the south of America, she collected a lot of linguistic information and songs, really fascinating.
Eric: Well. I hate to see her leave.
Pro: Don't worry. She'll still be around. She's got lots of projects that she's still in the middle of.
TPO 7 Lecture 1 Theater History
Lecture1
Pro: The 19 century was the time that saw what we called: Realism developing in the European theater. Um… to understand this though, we first need to look at an earlier form of drama known as the well-made play, which basically was a pattern for constructing plays, plays that the beginning with some early 19 century comedies in France proved very successful commercially.
The dramatic devises used here weren’t actually anything new. They have been around for centuries. But the formula for a well-made play required that the certain of these elements being included in a particular order. And most importantly, that everything in the plays be logically connected. In fact, some of these playwrights would start by writing the end of a play. And were “backward” toward the beginning, just to make sure each event led logically from what had gone before. Ok, what are the necessary elements of a well-made play?
Well, the first is logical exposition. Exposition is whatever background information you have to review to the audience. So, they‘ll understand what is going on. Before this time, exposition might have come from actors simply giving speeches. Someone might walk out on the stage and see(say): “lyric quotation”. And then tell all about the feuding family of Romeo and Julie, but for the well-made play, even the exposition had to be logical, believable. So, for example, you might have two servants gossiping as they are cleaning the house. And one says, Oh, what a shame the master’s son isstill not married. And the other might mention a rumor about a mysterious a gentle men who just moved into the town with his beautiful daughter. These comments are parts of the play’s logical exposition.
The next key element of the a well-made play refer to as the inciting incident. After we have the background information, we need a king moment to get things moving, that really makes the audience interested in what happens to the characters we just heard about. So, for example, after the two servants review all this background information, we meet the young man. Just as he first lays eyes on the beautiful young woman, and he immediately falls in love. This is the inciting incident. It sets off, the plot of the play.
Now, the plot of a well-made play is usually driven by secrets. Things that the audience knows, but the characters often don’t know. So, for example, the audience learns through a letter or through someone else’s conversation. Who is this mysterious gentle man is, and why he left the town many years before. But the young man doesn’t know about this. And the woman doesn’t understand the ancient connection between her family and his. And before the secrets are reviewed to the main characters, the plot of the play proceeds as a series of sorts of up and down moments. For example, the woman first appears not to even notice the young man, and it seems to him like the end of the world. But then, he learns that she actually wants to meet him too. So, life is wonderful. Then, if he tries to talk with her, maybe her father get furious, for no apparent reason. So, they cannot see each other. But, just as the young man has almost lost all hope, he finds out, well you get the idea, the reversal of fortune continue, increasing the audience’s tension and excitement. Making them wonder if everything is going to come out okay or not.
Next comes in, element known as the: obligatory scene. It’s a scene, a moment in which all the secrets are reviewed. In generally, things turn out well for the hero and others we care about, a happy ending of some sorts. This became so popular that the playwright almost had to include it in every play which is why is called: the obligatory scene. And that’s followed by the final dramatic element---the denouement or the resolution, when all the lucents have to be tied up in the logical way. Remember, the obligatory scene gives the audience emotional pleasure. But the denouement offers the audience a logical conclusion. That’s the subtle distinction we need to try very hard to keep in mind.
So, as I said, the well-made play, this form of playwriting, became the basis for realism in drama, and for a lot of very popular 19 century plays. And also, a pattern we find in plots of many later plays, and even movies that we see today.
TPO 7 Lecture 2 Biology
Pro: So, that is how elephants use infrasound. Now, let’s talk about the other end of the acoustic spectrum, sound that is too high for humans to hear---ultrasound. Ultrasound is used by many animals that detect and some of them send out very high frequency sounds. So, what is a good example? Yes, Kayo.
Kayo: Well, bats, since they are all blind, bats have to use sound for, you know, to keep them from flying into things.
Pro: That is echolocation. Echolocation is pretty self-explanatory; using echoes reflected sound waves to locate things. As Kayo said that’s used for navigation and orientation. And what else. Make.
Make: Well, finding food is always important, and I guess not becoming food for other animals.
Pro: Right, on both accounts. Avoiding other predators, and locating prey, typically insects that fly around it at night. Now before I go on, let me just respond something Kayo was saying--- this idea that bats are blind. Actually, there are some species of bats, the ones that don’t use echolocation that do rely on their vision for navigation, but it is true for many bats, their vision is too weak to count on. Ok, so quick some rays summary of how echolocation works. The bat emits these ultrasonic pulses, very high pitch sound waves that we cannot hear. And then, they analyze the echoes, how the waves bounce back. Here, let me finish the style diagram I started before the class. So the bat sends out these pulses, very focused verses of sound, and echo bounce back. You know, I don’t think I need to draw any echoes, your reading assignment for the next class; it has a diagram that shows this very clearly. So, anyway, as I were saying, by analyzing these echoes, the bat can determine, say, if there is wall in a cave that needs to avoid, and how far away it is. Another thing uses the ultrasound to detect is the size and the shape of objects. For example, one echo they quickly identify is the one they associated with moth, which is common prey for a bat, particularly a moth beating its wings. However, moth happened to have a major advantage over most other insects. They can detect ultrasound; this means that when a bat approaches, the moth can detect the bat’s presence. So, it has time to escape to safety, or else they can just remain motionless. Since, when they stop beating their wings, they will be much hard for the bat to distinguish from, oh… a leaf or some other object. Now, we have tended to underestimate just how sophisticated the abilities of animals that use ultrasound are. In fact, we kind of assume that they were filtering a lot out. The way a sophisticated radar system can ignore echoes from a stationary object on the ground. Radar does this to remove ground clutter, information about hills or buildings that it doesn’t need. But bats, we thought they were filtering out this kind of information, because they simply couldn’t analyze it. But, it looks as we were wrong. Recently there was this experiment with trees and specific species of bats. A bat called: the lesser spear nosed bat. Now, a tree should be a huge acoustic challenge for bat, right? I mean it’s got all kinds of surfaces with different shapes and angles. So, well, the echoes from a tree are going to be massive chaotic acoustic reflections, right, not like the echo from a moth. So, we thought for a long time that the bat stops their evaluation as simply that is a tree. Yet, it turns out that bats or at least this particular species, cannot only tell that is a tree, but can also distinguish between, say, a pine tree, and a deciduous tree, like a maple or oak tree, just by their leaves. And when I say, leaves, I mean pine needles too. Any ideas on how we would know that?
Stu: Well, like with the moth, could be their shape?
Pro: You are on the right track---it is actually the echo of all the leaves as whole that matters. Now, think, a pine tree with others’ little densely packed needles. Those produce a large number of faint reflections in which what’s called as: a smooth of echo. The wave forms were very even, but an oak which has fewer but bigger leaves with stronger reflections, produces a jagged wave form, or what we called: a rough echo. And these bats can distinguish between the two, and not just with trees, but with any echo comes in a smooth or rough shape.
TPO 7 Conversation
Stu: Hi, I am a new here and I couldn't come to the student orientation and I'm wondering if you can give me a few quick points just about the library. I’d really appreciate it.
Pro: Sure. I will be glad to. What's your major area of study?
Stu: Latin American Literature.
Pro: OK. Well, over here's the section where we have language, literature and the arts. And if you go down stairs you will find history section. Generally, the students who concentrate in Latin American literature find themselves research in the history section a lot.
Stu: Hum, you are right. I am a transfer student and I've already done a year in another university so I know how the research can go I’ve spent a lot of time on the history section. So how long can I borrow books for?
Pro: Our loan period is a month. Oh I should also mention that we have an inter-library loan service. If you need to get to hold a book that’s not in our library, there is a truck that runs between our library and a few public and university libraries in this area. It comes around three times a week.
Stu: Hey, that's great! At my last school, it’d take a really long time to get the materials I needed. So when I had a project, I had to make a plan away in advance. This sounds much faster. Another thing I was wondering is: is there a place where I can bring my computer and hook it up?
Pro: Sure. There is a whole area here on the main floor where you can bring a laptop and plug it in for power but on top of that we also have a connection for the internet at every seat.
Stu: Nice, so I can do the all research I need to do right here in the library. I’ll have all the resources, all the books and the information I need right here in one place.
Pro: Yeah. That's the idea. I am sure you'll need photo copiers too. There is down the hall to the left.(they are down the hall way to your left) We have system where you have to use a copy card so you'll need to buy a card from the front desk. You insert it into the machine and you are ready to make copies.
Stu: How much do you get charge?
Pro: Seven cents a copy.
Stu: Hum, that is not too bad. Thanks. Hum, where is the collection of rare books?
Pro: Rare books are found on the second floor. They are in the separate room where the temperature is controlled, to preserved old paper in them. You need to get special permission to access them, and then you have to wear gloves to handle them because the oil in our hands, you know, can destroy the paper. And gloves prevent that so we have a basket of gloves in the room.
Stu: Ok. Thanks. I suppose that’s all I need to know. You've been very helpful. Thanks.
Pro: Anytime. Bye
Stu: Bye.
TPO 7 Lecture 3 Anthropology
Pro: So we've been discussing 16th century Native American life, and today we're going to focus on the Iroquois and Hooray peoples. They lived in the northeastern great lakes region of North America. Now, back then, their lives depended on the natural resources of the forests, especially the birch tree. The birch tree can grow in many different types of soils and it's prevalent in that area. Now can anyone here describe the birch tree?
Stu: They are tall and white, the bark, I mean.
Pro: Yes. The birch tree has white bark, and this tough protective outer layer of the tree, this white bark, is waterproof. And this waterproof quality of the bark, it made it useful for making things like cooking containers, a variety of utensils. And if you peel birch bark in the winter, we call it “the winter bark”, another layer a tougher inner layer of the tree adheres to the bark, producing a stronger material. So the winter bark was used for larger utensils and containers.
Stu: I know people make utensils out of wood, but utensils out of tree bark?
Pro: Well, birch bark is pliable and very easy to bend. The Native Americans would cut the bark and fold it into any shape they needed, then secure with cords until it dried. They could fold the bark into many shapes.
Stu: So if they cooked in bowls made of birch bark, wouldn't that make the food taste funny?
Pro: Oh, that's one of the great things about birch bark. The taste of the birch tree doesn't get transferred to the food. So it was perfect for cooking containers. But the most important use of the bark, by far, was the canoe. Since the northeastern region of North American is interconnected by many streams and waterways, water transportation by vessels like a canoe was most essential. The paths through the woods were often over-grown, so water travel was much faster. And here's what the Native Americans did. They would peel large sheets of bark from the tree to form light-weight yet sturdy canoes. The bark was stretched over frames made from tree branches, stitched together and sealed with resin. You know that sticky liquid that comes out of the tree? And when it dries, it's watertight. One great thing of these birch bark canoes was that they could carry a large amount of cargo. For example, a canoe weighing about 50 pounds could carry up to nine people and 250 pounds of cargo.
Stu: Wow! But how far could they drive that way?
Pro: Well like I said, the northeastern region is interconnected by rivers and streams and the ocean at the coast. The canoes allow them to travel over a vast area that today it would take a few hours to fly over. You see, the Native Americans made canoes of all types, for travel on small streams or on large open ocean waters. For small streams, they made narrow, maneuverable boats, while a large canoe was needed for the ocean. They could travel throughout the area only occasionally having to portage, to carry the canoe over a land short distance to another nearby stream. And since the canoes were so light, this wasn't a difficult task. Now how do you think this affected their lives?
Stu: Well if they could travel so easily over such a large area, they could trade with people from other areas which I guess would lead them to form alliances?
Pro: Exactly. Having an efficient means of transportation, well, that helps the Iroquois to form a federation linked by natural waterways. And this federation expanded from what is now Southern Canada all the way south to the Dalever River. And this efficiency of the birch bark canoe also made an impression on newcomers to the area. French traders in the 17th century modeled their...well they adopted the design of the Iroquois birch bark canoes, and they found they could travel great distances more than 15 kilometers a month. Now besides the bark, Native Americans also used the wood of the birch tree. The young trees were used to support for loggings with the waterproof bark used as roofing. Branches were folded into snow shoes and the Native American people were all adept at running very fast over the snow in these birch branch snow shoes which if you ever tried walking in snow shoes you‘d know it wasn't easy.
TPO 7 Lecture 4 Geology
Last time, we started to talk about glaciers and how these masses of ice form) from crystallized snow, and some of you were amazed at how huge some of these glaciers are. Now, even though it may be difficult to understand how a huge mass of ice can move or flow, it’s another word for it, it’s really known that no secret that the glaciers flow, because of gravity. But how they flow, and the way they flow needs some explaining. Now, the first type of the glaciers flow is called: basal slip. Basal slip or sliding as it’s often called, basically refers to the slipping or sliding of glacier across bedrock, actually across the thin layer of water, on top of the bedrock. So, this process shouldn’t be too hard to imagine. What happens is that the ice of the base of the glacier is under a great deal of pressure-- the pressure coming from the weight of the overlaying ice. And you probably know that under pressure, the melting temperature of water, of the ice I mean, is reduced. So, ice at the base of the glacier melts, even though it’s below zero degree Celsius. And this results in thin layer of water between the glacier and ground. This layer of water reduces friction is... is like a lubricant. And it allows the glacier to slide or slip over the bedrock. Ok, now the next type of movement we will talk about is called: deformation. You’v already known that the ice is brittle, if you hit it with hammer, it will shatter like glass. But ice is also plastic, it can change the shape without breaking. If you leave, for example, a bar of ice supported only at one end, they end, the unsupported end will deform under its own way due---kind of flatten out one into get stored it deformed it. Think deformation as a very slow oozing. Depending on the stresses on the glacier, the ice crystal was in the re-organized. And during this re-organization the ice crystals realign in a way that allows them to slide pass each other. And so the glacier oozes downhill without any ice actually melting. Now, there are a couple of the factors that affect the amount of deformation that takes place or the speed of the glaciers movement for example. Deformation is more likely to occur the thicker the ices, because of the gravity of the weight of the ice. And temperature also plays part here, in that cold ice does not move as easily as ice that is close to the melting point, in fact, it is not too different from… the way oil is, thicker at lower temperatures. So, if you had a glacier in a slightly warmer region, it will flow faster than the glacier in a cooler region. Ok, um… Now, let’s touch briefly on extension and compression. You textbook includes these as type as a particular type of glacier movement, but you will see that these are … cause many textbooks that omitted as type of movement as included. And I might not include right now, if there won’t in your textbooks. But, basically, the upper parts of glaciers have less pressure on them. So, they don’t deform easily, they tend to be more brittle. And crevasses can form in this upper layer of the glacier. When the glacier comes into contact with bedrock walls or is otherwise under some kinds of stress, but can’t deform quickly enough. So, the ice would expand or constrict, and that can cause big fissures big cracks to form in the surface of the layer of ice, and that brittle surface ice moving is sometimes considered a type of glacier movement depending on which source you can thaw to. Now, as you probably know, glaciers generally move really slowly. But sometimes, they experience surges, and during these surges, in some places, they can move its speeds as high as 7000 meters per year. Now, a speeds like that are pretty unusual, 100 of times faster than the regular movement of glaciers, but you can actually see glacier move during these surges, though it is rare.