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28 May 2026 - 28 May 2026

6:00PM - 7:30PM

IMH (Confluence Building)

  • Free

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Join Roger Smith, Irina Sirotkina, and Anna Furse for the launch of two books.

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This interdisciplinary work examines the significant though often implicit role of soul in modern psychological discourse and human experience, challenging belief in its obsolescence in contemporary scientific contexts.
This is a valuable analysis and overview for professional and academic psychologists, philosophers, theologians, anthropologists, and researchers interested in human nature, subjectivity and consciousness studies. It is also a useful and accessible resource for anyone exploring the intersection of spirituality, human values and scientific understanding of human experience.
This book looks in particular at Isadora Duncan and her impact on Stanislavsky's methods, as well as on the ballet choreographer Michel Fokine. It throws light on Duncan’s Moscow School, biomechanics and many modern dance studios of the time, their role in creating new systems of training - different from ballet, and their creation of a modern dance 'body'.
The author discusses the subsequent introduction of a 'rationalisation' of movement, including biomechanics and machine dances, aimed at controlling the body and underplaying the erotic very present in modern dance.
Finally, the book follows free dance into the years of Stalin's Cultural Revolution, where choreographers had to adapt to the new ideological environment, with modern dance choreographers then staging sport parades showcasing the ideal Soviet body - athletic, vigorous and disciplined. A far cry from the freedom of modern dance. But the story includes an account of the passing down into the present, through generations of ‘mothers’ and ‘daughters’, of which the author is one, of the original ideals and practices.
About the speakers
Roger Smith is Reader Emeritus in History of Science, Lancaster University, UK, and Honorary Professor, School of Modern Languages and Cultures, Durham University, UK. He took early retirement from Lancaster in 1998 and then lived in Moscow, Russia, until the outbreak of war in 2022, where he was an Honorary Researcher of the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He has published academic books in the history of science, and edited others, on topics related to the history of mind-brain and the intellectual history of human nature and the human sciences. He has also published books for wider audiences, including Kinaesthesia in the Psychology, Philosophy and Culture of Human Experience (Routledge 2023).
Irina Sirotkina is Honorary Professor, School of Modern Languages and Cultures, Durham University, UK. She is a cultural historian who has published on the history of psychiatry and on free dance and a practitioner of early modern dance. She is the co-author (with Roger Smith) of The Sixth Sense of the Avant-Garde: Dance, Kinaesthesia and the Arts in Revolutionary Russia (Methuen Drama, 2017).
Anna Furse (discussant) is Professor Emeritus in Performance at Goldsmiths, University of London. An award-winning director and published author of theoretical and creative works, her many productions have been commissioned and performed internationally in a 40-year career funded by ACE, AHRC, British Academy, British Council, the EU Collaborative Arts Partnership Programme and Awards from the Wellcome Trust for her research that braids medicine and performance. 

This event is organised by the Institute for Medical Humanities.

Nibbles and wine will be provided at the event. If you have any accessibility/dietary requirements, please get in touch with us at imh.events@durham.ac.uk.

This event is free to attend - and all are welcome!

Pricing

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