This was quite the busy weekend for yours truly. Very busy. I am one dog-tired puppy . . . but . . . even so, it was a pretty good weekend.

Red Badge of Courage

I started off the weekend on Friday, presenting a solo paper to the Thirteenth International Symposium and Book Fair hosted by the English Teacher’s Association. My paper is titled "Putting Literature into Context: The Red Badge of Courage through the Stereoscope (Creating Historical, Cultural, and Language Contexts of Literary Works for the English as a Foreign Language Classroom through Stereoscopic Presentation)" and deals with ways one can increase student interest and knowledge and understanding of a literary work by placing it into historical and cultural context through stereophotographic exhibtion.

I use a number of actual 3D photographs (actually, more than a number, there are over two hundred) of battles and historical events of the American Civil War to help students appreciate and understand what was happening in the novel.

While Stephen Crane was born after the American Civil War, his research and descriptions carry a very real flavor of the conflict and events. So much so that a number of veterans of the day claimed to have served with him at Antietem. The battle of the novel is based largely upon the battles of Antietem and Chancellorville.

Since I use actual photographs displayed in very real depth, the nature of 3D photography is to capture the virtual space of a scene, the program is rather powerful . . . particularly the scenes of battles and deaths. I provide background to the events depicted with commentary related to the events of the novel.

There is a rich history of 3D stereophotography so that one could do similar projects could easily be repeated for the novels of Pearl Buck or Dickens or even the stories and novels set in World War One which was very heavily stereophotographed.

If you would like to take a peek at the photographs used for the paper, take a look here.

Interactive Drama

On Saturday, Michael Cheng and I co-presented our co-written paper to the same conference. This time, our paper and workshop was on Interactive Drama: Freeform Live Action Role Playing Games for the Classroom (Adapting Unscripted Theatre Methods to Language Learning).

This is a topic that is very familiar to me as I have presented a number of papers on the subject, published on it, and it was even the focus of my doctoral dissertation.

Basically, Michael and I presented our standard approach to using interactive dramas in the classroom. We talked about the differences between thse sort of role plays and other more traditional language simulations and the like. We followed up with an actual scenario for the participants to play . . . something basic and simple to get their feet wet.

On a high point for me, one of my former in-service students was present and she told me she uses the various games I provided her class regularly in her own classes. Nice to know that your adult students really appreciate what you have done with them.

For more on my interactive drama interests and work, go here (my troupe in Taipei), here (the scenario archive), and see the photographs here.

Eroticatrance

Sunday morning, I conducted a webinar for the Hypnosis Technique Exchange on EROTICATRANCE REDUX: Advanced Guided Imagery Scripted Meditations for Couples, Intimacy, and Fantastikal Exploration.

During this web-based seminar, I reviewed basic principles for building guided imagery scripts for adult consenting couples to share and explore fantasies as well as to develop intimacy. We also went a bit further from the material covered previously in my other webinars on the subject. I introduced the participatns to a standard format, with variations, that can be adapted to a wide variety of uses for contexts ranging from relationship development to fantasy and erotic experiences from straightforward vanilla to more esoteric flavors. The webinar and the techniques discussed within were intended for consenting adults over the age of majority only and we had quite a productive session.

I really enjoy doing these webinars and this particular subject is very near and dear to me as any of our regular readers know full well.

As a few folks have asked . . . yes . . . I do have initial notes for a book on the subject which eventually really will see the light of day. In the meantime, feel free to contact me for any information or to schedule a session for recreational, entertainment, or therapeutic reasons.

Yes . . . it was a busy, busy, weekend . . . but it was all worth it . . . I quite enjoyed the whole experience . . . albeit, I don’t fancy having quite so heavy a load any time soon . . . of course, I do have a workshop scheduled just two short weeks away and am already working on revisions to an interactive drama for my students to perform and a number of papers . . . not to mention, the book. Back to the grind.