By Katherine Privatt
Assistant professor of theatre and drama
Lawrence Today magazine, Spring 2002
"It's wanting to know . . ."
The quotation above is from Hannah in Tom Stoppard's Arcadia, a play that depicts a contemporary generation searching for information about ancestors from a previous century (who also appear in the play). Arcadia was the basis for a student seminar at Björklunden that brought together students from the mathematics, theatre and drama, and classics departments, as well as math professor Eugénie Hunsicker; classics professor Randall McNeill; Keith Howard, a guest mathematician from Kenyon College; and myself.
Arcadia contains references to chaos theory, entropy, and fractals and mirrors these math theories in its structure. Math-poor as I am, I knew of the connections because I played Hannah while obtaining my doctorate at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Understanding the math is crucial to understanding that role.
The weekend at Björklunden, titled "Et in Arcadia ego: The Intersection of Math and Drama," was the fruitful and collegial mixing of the two disciplines, with vital support from classics. Nineteen students voluntarily attended, and, as one would hope at a liberal arts institution, the groups never segregated themselves but truly embraced the opportunity to make new connections.
We began with presentations on math history to explain allusions in the script, followed by an examination of classical influences on estate gardening through the 19th century (an integral conflict in the story). We staged a scene in which the two generations appear together in a very "entropic" conclusion to the play. Keith Howard's presentation on fractals encapsulated the weekend, as he combined math formulas with aesthetic choices to create a landscape that changed according to the seasons. We hiked around Björklunden, noting examples of fractals in nature and evidence of formal gardening techniques. By the time I offered my analysis of the script's structure, noting the parallels with math theory, several students had already begun to discern those same conclusions for themselves.
All this was possible because Björklunden exists. We used its quiet and solitude to allow us to focus together. Björklunden became our Arcadia -- a place set apart from the usual demands. Where else would I have the privilege of sharing a math student's breakthrough on a homework challenge? Where else would theatre students see math students choose to fill their free time with collaborative efforts at descriptive equations? Where else would math students share the stage with theatre students for an impromptu scene?
In Arcadia, Hannah contends: "It's wanting to know that makes us matter. Otherwise we're going out the way we came in." At Björklunden, I discovered that, at the intersection of math and drama, our fields definitely have something in common: we're both trying to describe phenomena so we can better understand our world and ourselves. Dramatists use plays; mathematicians use equations -- but we both focus on the process, not just on an answer. Björklunden gave us the time, place, and mental space to ask the questions and indulge in that oh-so-liberal-arts desire: wanting to know.
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