Taking the recent coronavirus pandemic as a starting point, this book presents and analyzes new research around medical clowning in hospitals, from social media use to the impact on the hospitalized child in later life. This innovative book begins with an overview of the work of medical clowns. It discusses the idea of humor as a mechanism related to the revolution in language and human consciousness, and makes a connection between humor and anxiety, exploring how this can be mobilized to support hospitalized patients. There is extensive examination of medical clowning to strengthen coping skills and promote wellbeing in the time of Covid-19, where loneliness and isolation loomed large and anxieties were high. Subsequent chapters explore the role of medical clowning in wartime and at time of natural disasters, the experiences of children some time after their experience of hospitalization and clowning, and the role of social media and medical clowns in community building. This book is a fascinating contribution to the literature on medical clowning. It is of interest to researchers, practitioners, and lecturers in medical clowning, play in healthcare, nursing, medicine, and performance studies.

Clowns are not just the stuff of backyard children's parties anymore. These days, clown doctors see patients--especially children--to introduce humor and imagination into an anxiety-filled and painful experience. The origins of medical clowning can be traced to the Big Apple Circus Clown Care Unit at the Infants and Children's Hospital of New York, established about thirty years ago. Since that time, the practice has developed extensively and medical clowns now work in hospitals around the world. Over the past ten years, the number of scientific studies on medical clowning has increased, with findings showing the important contribution of medical clowns to children and adults suffering from mild to incurable illnesses. Medical Clowning is the first guide to this phenomenon, summing up decades of research, education, and practice to give readers a comprehensive look into this innovative field. Amnon Raviv analyzes the performance of medical clowns, looking at research and case studies, and goes on to propose a training and evaluation model, including hands-on exercises to train experienced clowns for work in hospitals.

This book discusses the tradition of clowning from an educational perspective, highlighting the resonant philosophies between the two professions and asking what one can learn from the other. Modern day clowning follows an age-old tradition, with a set of principles and beliefs expounded by proponents of the profession. Throughout the principles of clowning, themes of subversion, inversion, play and challenge recur. These same ideas have a place in the classroom, not as everyday practice but perhaps as a leitmotif. The book is therefore a call for educators to consider their position within the learning environment and to embody the clown spirit. By looking outside of traditional pedagogical thinking and training, this book demonstrates ideas and techniques from which educators can borrow or learn, allowing them to enhance their own methods and practices. It offers an opportunity to revisit the dynamics of the classroom through the recognition of the important role that the clown can play in society.

Send in the Clowns presents interviews with twenty-four pioneering humanitarian and activist clowns and thought leaders working in hospitals, refugee camps, orphanages and war zones, and at the sites of street protests and locations of social unrest across the world. This book is built around interviews with some of the world’s leading practitioners of clowning for change, justice, and health outside of the entertainment mainstream, featuring artists and organizations including Patch Adams (US), the Dream Doctors Project (Israel), Clown Me In (Lebanon), and Doutores da Alegria (Brazil). Situating the topic in relation to indigenous and ritual clowning, investigating the various functions of the clown in early societies, and centering the discourse around interviews with key practitioners, the book explores a wide range of clown applications across the globe. This includes the special significance of the clown archetype in socially, politically, and culturally challenging situations, the successes and challenges of the art activists who are at the forefront of this movement, and the modern humanitarian clown’s relationship to original forms of clowning that can be traced back through history. This is a vital resource for anyone studying, teaching, or practicing clown work in applied contexts, from health care to conflict resolution.

Issues in Sociology and Social Work: Aging, Medical, and Missionary Research and Application: 2011 Edition is a ScholarlyEditions™ eBook that delivers timely, authoritative, and comprehensive information about Sociology and Social Work—Aging, Medical, and Missionary Research and Application. The editors have built Issues in Sociology and Social Work: Aging, Medical, and Missionary Research and Application: 2011 Edition on the vast information databases of ScholarlyNews.™ You can expect the information about Sociology and Social Work—Aging, Medical, and Missionary Research and Application in this eBook to be deeper than what you can access anywhere else, as well as consistently reliable, authoritative, informed, and relevant. The content of Issues in Sociology and Social Work: Aging, Medical, and Missionary Research and Application: 2011 Edition has been produced by the world’s leading scientists, engineers, analysts, research institutions, and companies. All of the content is from peer-reviewed sources, and all of it is written, assembled, and edited by the editors at ScholarlyEditions™ and available exclusively from us. You now have a source you can cite with authority, confidence, and credibility. More information is available at http://www.ScholarlyEditions.com/.

This rich collection of readings offers a wide-ranging and authoritative survey of clown practices, history and theory, from the origins of the word clown through to contemporary clowning. Covering clowns in theatre, circus, cinema, TV, street and elsewhere, the author's stimulating narrative challenges assumptions and turns orthodoxy on its head.

Few individuals have positioned their work more controversially or consequently than Richard Schechner within the pivotal debates that define Performance Studies. The Rise of Performance Studies is the first collection of essays to critically examine the profound contributions that Schechner has made to Performance Studies as a discipline.