Tag Archives: UVic Alumni

The Alchemy of Astonishment by Will Weigler

Each year UVic faculty, staff, students, alumni, and retirees produce an incredible amount of intellectual content reflecting their breadth and diversity of research, teaching, personal, and professional interests. A list of these works is available here.

Combining theory with application, The Alchemy of Astonishment: Engaging the Power of Theatre by Will Weigler is a new book that anyone can use to powerfully express the stories they want to tell through theatre.

About the Book

When stage director Will Weigler analyzed nearly 100 stories from people about their most unforgettable experiences at the theatre, he realized that even though the plays were very different, they all had one thing in common. After discovering just what it was that made them so astonishing, he turned the results of his research into a vocabulary of staging strategies that anyone can access to powerfully express the stories they want to tell through theatre. Combining theory with application, “The Alchemy of Astonishment” is a useful resource for scholars, educators, students, theatregoers, and theatre artists of every kind. For those who facilitate devised theatre with communities, this book and its supplementary deck of teaching cards offer professional artists and the people with whom they work a shared language that will allow them to meet as equitable partners in the creative co-authorship and staging of dynamic and compelling plays.

The Alchemy of Astonishment is available for sale from the UVic Bookstore.

About the Author

Will Weigler has been an Applied Theatre director, teacher, and playwright for over twenty-five years. He is the author of several books including Strategies for Playbuilding: Helping Groups Translate Issues into Theatre, From the Heart: How 100 Canadians Created an Unconventional Theatre Performance about Reconciliation, and Laughing Allowed! – A How-to Guide for Making a Physical Comedy Show to Build Neighbourhood Resilience. Will completed his PhD in Applied Theatre here at the University of Victoria.

Praise for the Book

“With this book and its supplementary deck of teaching cards, Will offers direct access to creating… images [of magnificence] on stage. Beautifully observed and meticulously explained, community performers and trained professionals will treasure it.” – Richard Owen Geer, PhD, Community Performance Director

“Reading along, I experienced something of the feeling of being let in on a magician’s secret knowledge, and also the pleasure of engaging with a vivid storyteller who enables the reader to see and feel as well as hear what is being told. I can imagine so many uses for this book as a teaching aid, an inspirational instruction manual for artists, even a creative spur for sermons, speeches, and conversations having nothing much to do with theatre.” – From the foreword by Arlene Goldbard

Sanctuary City: A Suspended State by Jennifer Bagelman

Each year UVic faculty, staff, students, alumni, and retirees produce an incredible amount of intellectual content reflecting their breadth and diversity of research, teaching, personal, and professional interests. A list of these works is available here.

Sanctuary City: A Suspended State is a recent title by UVic Geography Alumna Jennifer Bagelman.

About the Book

Sanctuary City: A Suspended State traces the ancient concept of sanctuary up to the present day, revealing how the contemporary and supposedly hospitable ‘sanctuary city’ inadvertently entrenches a hostile asylum regime. This book specifically explores the UK-based sanctuary movement with a focus on Glasgow, host to the largest population of asylum seekers in the UK. Based on ethnographic research, Sanctuary City examines how sanctuary renders intractable the serious problem of protracted waiting, indefinitely deferring the rights of asylum seekers. Whilst illuminating how sanctuary functions as a technology that suspends many lives, this book also explores a myriad of subversive practices that politically challenge this waiting state. It is a timely and critical contribution to the study of hospitality and asylum.

About the Author

Dr. Jen Bagelman is currently a lecturer in human geography at the University of Exeter. She grew up on Coast Salish territories (Vancouver Island) and completed both her BA and MA at UVic. After finishing her PhD at the Open University, she lectured at Durham University then completed a two-year SSHRC funded postdoctoral fellowship at UBC. Her research specialisms include: citizenship; migration and displacement; asylum and sanctuary; food security; participatory research methods and creative outputs. Her twitter feed is @bagel_woman.

Dr. Bagelman will be taking part in this year’s Author Celebration, March 9, 2017. Other members on this year’s panel include: Donald Galloway (Law), Simon Springer (Geography), and Serhy Yekelchyk (Germanic & Slavic Studies). For more information about this and other IdeaFest events, please check out the website.

Troy Wilson – The Duck Says

Each year, UVic faculty, staff, students, aPicturelumni and retirees produce an incredible amount of intellectual content reflecting their breadth and diversity of research, teaching, personal and professional interests.

UVic Alumnus Troy Wilson’s latest book, The Duck Says, is a fun read for the kids – and the parents will enjoy it too!  Troy Wilson recently recently appeared as a panelist at the Spring 2016 UVic Author Celebration event and spoke about the process of creating this book.

About the Book

Follow the duck in this madcap romp around the farmyard, which will have kids delighting in his clueless antics and witty wordplay. Bouncing rhymes are perfectly paired with colourful, exuberant art full of visual gags that will have readers laughing along and anticipating what will happen next.  A little absurd, a lot slapstick, and all good fun, this is one to keep within arms reach at storytime.

About the Author0317165126

Troy Wilson is the author of the acclaimed picture book Perfect Man, as well as numerous kids’ stories for magazines like chickaDEE, Chirp, and Highlights for Children. You can check in with Troy Wilson on his website – Troy Story.

Praise for the Book

“A fun ride.” –National Post

“This storytime crowd pleaser will have children saying ‘Read it again.'” –The National Reading Campaign

The Duck Says is a highly entertaining, laugh-out-loud, story of the madcap adventures of a white duck.” –Resource Links

“The Duck Says, by Troy Wilson, is an entertaining parody of an animal sounds book that works seamlessly with Mike Boldt’s bright comic illustrations to create a humourous story with a surprising level of depth….Highly Recommended.” –CM: Canadian Review of Materials