Lewis George E., Puekut Benjamin (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies

New York, N.Y. ; Oxford, U.K. : Oxford University Press, 2016. — 592 p.Improvisation informs a vast array of human activity, from creative practices in art, dance, music, and literature to everyday conversation and the relationships to natural and built environments that surround and sustain us. The two volumes of the Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies gather scholarship on improvisation from an immense range of perspectives, with contributions from more than sixty scholars working in architecture, anthropology, art history, computer science, cognitive science, cultural studies, dance, economics, education, ethnomusicology, film, gender studies, history, linguistics, literary theory, musicology, neuroscience, new media, organizational science, performance studies, philosophy, popular music studies, psychology, science and technology studies, sociology, and sound art, among others.v. 1.
Introduction: On critical improvisation studies / George E. Lewis and Benjamin Piekut -- Part I. Cognitions. Cognitive processes in musical improvisation / Roger T. Dean and Freya Bailes -- The cognitive neuroscience of improvisation / Aaron L. Berkowitz -- Improvisation, action understanding, and music cognition with and without bodies / Vijay Iyer -- The ghost in the music, or the perspective of an improvising ant / David Borgo -- Part II Critical theories. The improvisative / Tracy McMullen -- Jurisgenerative grammar (for alto) / Fred Moten -- Is improvisation present? / Michael Gallope -- Politics as hypergestural improvisation in the age of mediocracy / Yves Citton -- On the edge: a frame of analysis for improvisation / Davide Sparti -- The Salmon of Wisdom: on the consciousness of self and other in improvised music and in the language that sets one free / Alexandre Pierrepont -- Improvising yoga / Susan Leigh Foster -- Part III. Cultural histories. Michel de Montaigne, or philosophy as improvisation / Timothy Hampton -- The improvisation of poetry, 1750-1850: oral performance, print culture, and the modern Homer / Angela Esterhammer -- Germaine de Staèel's Corinne, or Italy and the early usage of improvisation in English / Erik Simpson -- Improvisation, time, and opportunity in the rhetorical tradition / Glyn P. Norton -- Improvisation, democracy, and feedback / Daniel Belgrad -- Part IV. Mobilities. Improvised dance in the reconstruction of THEM / Danielle Goldman -- Improvising social exchange: African American social dance / Thomas F. DeFrantz -- Fixing improvisation: copyright and African American vernacular dancers in the early twentieth century / Anthea Kraut -- Performing gender, race, and power in improv comedy / Amy Seham -- Shifting cultivation as improvisation / Paul Richards -- Part V. Organizations. Improvisation in management / Paul Ingram and William Duggan -- Free improvisation as a path-dependent process / Jared Burrows and Clyde G. Reed -- Part VI. Philosophies. Musical improvisation and the philosophy of music / Philip Alperson -- Improvisation and time-consciousness / Gary Peters -- Improvising Impromptu, or, What to do with a broken string / Lydia Goehr -- Ensemble improvisation, collective intention, and group attention / Garry L. Hagberg -- Interspecies improvisation / David Rothenberg -- Spiritual exercises, improvisation, and moral perfectionism: with special reference to Sonny Rollins / Arnold I. Davidson -- Improvisation and ecclesial ethics / Samuel WellsV. 2.
Introduction: On critical improvisation studies / George E. Lewis and Benjamin Piekut -- Part I. Cities. Improvisation technology as mode of redesigning the urban / Christopher Dell and Ton Matton -- Lots will vary in the available city / David P. Brown -- Improvising the future in post-Katrina New Orleans / Eric Porter -- Part II. Creativities. Billy Connolly, Daniel Barenboim, Willie Wonka, jazz bastards, and the universality of improvisation / Raymond MacDonald and Graeme Wilson -- A computationally motivated approach to cognition studies in improvisation / Brian Magerko -- A consciousness-based look at spontaneous creativity / Ed Sarath -- In the beginning, there was improvisation / Bruce Ellis Benson -- Part III. Musics. Landmarks in the study of improvisation: perspectives from ethnomusicology / Bruno Nettl -- Saving improvisation: Hummel and the free fantasia in the early nineteenth century / Dana Gooley -- Negotiating freedom and control in composition: improvisation and its offshoots, 1950-1980 Sabine Feisst -- Musical improvisation: play, efficacy, and significance / A.J. Racy -- Improvisation in freestyle rap / Ellie M. Hisama -- Speaking of the I-word / Leo Treitler -- Part IV. $t Writings. Modernist improvisations / Rob Wallace -- Diversity and divergence in the improvisational evolution of literary genres / Jennifer D. Ryan -- Improvisatory practices and the dawn of the new American cinema / Sara Villa -- Brilliant corners: improvisation and practices of freedom in Sent for you yesterday / Walton Muyumba -- Improvisation in contemporary experimental poetry Hazel Smith -- Part V. Media. Subjective computing and improvisation / D. Fox Harrell -- Improvisation and interaction, canons and rules, emergence and play / Simon Penny -- Imposture as improvisation: living fiction / Antoinette LaFarge -- Role-play, improvisation, and emergent authorship / Celia Pearce -- Bodies, border, technology: the promise and perils of telematic improvisation / Adriene Jenik -- She stuttered: mapping the spontaneous middle / Sher Doruff -- Part VI. Technologies. Live algorithms for music: can computers be improvisers? / Michael Young and Tom Blackwell -- Improvisation of the masses: anytime, anywhere mobile music / Ge Wang.