VISI Faculty: Ellen Dissanayake
Ellen
Dissanayake is currently an Affiliate Professor at the University of
Washington. She synthesizes a wide variety of approaches—from
neuroscience and ethology, physical and cultural anthropology, and developmental
and cognitive psychology—to support her claim that the arts, including
music, evolved to be an inherent part of human nature: normal, natural,
and necessary. Among her many published writings are chapters and articles
in books or periodicals about music: Chamber Music (2006), Music
and Manipulation (2006), The Nordic Journal of Music Therapy (2001), Origins
of Music (2000), and Musicæ Scientiæ and Communicative
Musicality (forthcoming). Her three books, What
Is Art For?, Homo Aestheticus, and
Art and Intimacy, are all published by the University of Washington
Press and in 2003, a Chinese translation of Homo Aestheticus was
published in Beijing. Her work draws upon experiences from more than
fifteen years
residence in non-Western countries, including Sri Lanka, India, Nigeria,
and Papua New Guinea.