Ariel Gratch
Biographic Data
| ID | 701201 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ariel Gratch |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ariel |
| FAMILY NAME | Gratch |
| SIGNATURE | GRATCH A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Utica College |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1914-0236 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 10 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 2 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 9 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Communication Activities for the Classroom: Embodied Pedagogy Across the Communication Curriculum
The Haunted Classroom
Through critical autoethnography and personal narrative, this essay traces the academic and professional path of a first-generation student who grew up in an abusive household. The metaphor of “haunting” is used to explain the long-term psychosocial effects of intimate abuse. The author posits that teaching activities that acknowledge the ghosts of the past can help students recognize within themselves and others their own complex personhood. By …
Liars, Damn Liars, and Storytellers: Essays on Traditional and Contemporary Storytelling
I can see him standing there, tall and lanky, with the hospital robe just making it past his knees: Ray Hicks, one of the most prominent tellers of traditional “Jack” tales and a veritable icon of the storytelling revival movement. He doesn't have much time left, and he knows it as he approaches the young girl on his ward. Hicks draws on his inimitable storyteller magic, peers deep into the girl's soul, and presents her with a tale she needs to h…
Introduction to the Special Issue: Storytelling in the Uncanny Valley
Storytelling, Self, Society, Vol. 17, No. 1 (2021), pp. 1–9. Copyright © 2022 by Wayne State University Press, Detroit, MI 48201 Introduction to the Special Issue Storytelling in the Uncanny Valley Joseph Sobol and Ariel Gratch I n September 2017, the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival was held for the first time at a spectacular new site, along the serpentine footpaths of Ashton Gardens in Lehi, Utah, in the suburbs of Salt Lake City. Now indisput…
Tour guide performances: Four modes of framing tourist experience
This essay identifies four performance frames tour guides employ to orient tourists to the site. Each frame is presented through a composite character, constructed through participant observation of over 60 guided tours at Masada National Park in Israel. Guides can tell intimate stories, directing tourists towards the guide’s ideological vision of the site; they can engage in activist rhetoric, moving tourists to act; they can create ritual-like …
A Path to Masada
This essay, based on six months of participant observation fieldwork at Masada National Park, offers an experimental tour of the site. The main text is an amalgamation of Youth Israel Experience Tours while the footnotes serve as a dialectical response, commenting on and critiquing the tour structure and post-tourist practice. This essay suggests that the meaning and significance of place, particularly while on tour, is found in the relationship …
The angel of living history: Theatricality and representations of the past
Living history performances attempt to create “authentic reproductions,” presentations that aim to present the past in the present as accurately as possible. Such performances have a tendency to present a single interpretation of history as the only interpretation possible. This article analyzes the performance Masada Live by the Asphalt Theatre company as an alternative living history performance. Masada Live uses theatricality to call attention…
The Storyteller, Novelist, and Charlatan: Forms of Performance in the Age of Digital Reproduction
In this essay, we look at how three traditional forms of performance identified by Walter Benjamin function in the digital age. With greater accessibility to the means of production, digital performances can be created by just about anyone. The performances we analyze show how Benjamin's conception of the storyteller, the novelist, and the charlatan can thrive in online environments. While the performances of the storyteller and the novelist sugg…
Scotch & Soda
Scotch & Soda was a collaborative performance, written and produced in April 2013. Inspired by the scientific principles of “carbonation” and/or “heat of solution”—both of which come into play when making a scotch and soda—this version of the script includes full and partial scenes, along with recipes for performance composition based on prompts used to create the 2013 version of the production. The recipes are invitations for further adaptation,…
Places of the imagination: Media, tourism, culture
Introduction to the Special Issue: Storytelling in the Uncanny Valley
Storytelling, Self, Society, Vol. 17, No. 1 (2021), pp. 1–9. Copyright © 2022 by Wayne State University Press, Detroit, MI 48201 Introduction to the Special Issue Storytelling in the Uncanny Valley Joseph Sobol and Ariel Gratch I n September 2017, the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival was held for the first time at a spectacular new site, along the serpentine footpaths of Ashton Gardens in Lehi, Utah, in the suburbs of Salt Lake City. Now indisput…
Tour guide performances: Four modes of framing tourist experience
This essay identifies four performance frames tour guides employ to orient tourists to the site. Each frame is presented through a composite character, constructed through participant observation of over 60 guided tours at Masada National Park in Israel. Guides can tell intimate stories, directing tourists towards the guide’s ideological vision of the site; they can engage in activist rhetoric, moving tourists to act; they can create ritual-like …
Places of the imagination: Media, tourism, culture
The Storyteller, Novelist, and Charlatan: Forms of Performance in the Age of Digital Reproduction
In this essay, we look at how three traditional forms of performance identified by Walter Benjamin function in the digital age. With greater accessibility to the means of production, digital performances can be created by just about anyone. The performances we analyze show how Benjamin's conception of the storyteller, the novelist, and the charlatan can thrive in online environments. While the performances of the storyteller and the novelist sugg…
Scotch & Soda
Scotch & Soda was a collaborative performance, written and produced in April 2013. Inspired by the scientific principles of “carbonation” and/or “heat of solution”—both of which come into play when making a scotch and soda—this version of the script includes full and partial scenes, along with recipes for performance composition based on prompts used to create the 2013 version of the production. The recipes are invitations for further adaptation,…
The angel of living history: Theatricality and representations of the past
Living history performances attempt to create “authentic reproductions,” presentations that aim to present the past in the present as accurately as possible. Such performances have a tendency to present a single interpretation of history as the only interpretation possible. This article analyzes the performance Masada Live by the Asphalt Theatre company as an alternative living history performance. Masada Live uses theatricality to call attention…
A Path to Masada
This essay, based on six months of participant observation fieldwork at Masada National Park, offers an experimental tour of the site. The main text is an amalgamation of Youth Israel Experience Tours while the footnotes serve as a dialectical response, commenting on and critiquing the tour structure and post-tourist practice. This essay suggests that the meaning and significance of place, particularly while on tour, is found in the relationship …
Tour guide performances: Four modes of framing tourist experience
This essay identifies four performance frames tour guides employ to orient tourists to the site. Each frame is presented through a composite character, constructed through participant observation of over 60 guided tours at Masada National Park in Israel. Guides can tell intimate stories, directing tourists towards the guide’s ideological vision of the site; they can engage in activist rhetoric, moving tourists to act; they can create ritual-like …
Introduction to the Special Issue: Storytelling in the Uncanny Valley
Storytelling, Self, Society, Vol. 17, No. 1 (2021), pp. 1–9. Copyright © 2022 by Wayne State University Press, Detroit, MI 48201 Introduction to the Special Issue Storytelling in the Uncanny Valley Joseph Sobol and Ariel Gratch I n September 2017, the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival was held for the first time at a spectacular new site, along the serpentine footpaths of Ashton Gardens in Lehi, Utah, in the suburbs of Salt Lake City. Now indisput…
The Haunted Classroom
Through critical autoethnography and personal narrative, this essay traces the academic and professional path of a first-generation student who grew up in an abusive household. The metaphor of “haunting” is used to explain the long-term psychosocial effects of intimate abuse. The author posits that teaching activities that acknowledge the ghosts of the past can help students recognize within themselves and others their own complex personhood. By …
Liars, Damn Liars, and Storytellers: Essays on Traditional and Contemporary Storytelling
I can see him standing there, tall and lanky, with the hospital robe just making it past his knees: Ray Hicks, one of the most prominent tellers of traditional “Jack” tales and a veritable icon of the storytelling revival movement. He doesn't have much time left, and he knows it as he approaches the young girl on his ward. Hicks draws on his inimitable storyteller magic, peers deep into the girl's soul, and presents her with a tale she needs to h…
Communication Activities for the Classroom: Embodied Pedagogy Across the Communication Curriculum
Art (9 works) · Aesthetics (7 works) · Sociology (6 works) · History (5 works) · Literature (5 works) · Archaeology (4 works) · Philosophy (4 works) · Epistemology (3 works) · History (3 works) · Linguistics (3 works)