Jeffrey Rubel | Williams College (original) (raw)

Papers by Jeffrey Rubel

Deleted Journal, Apr 1, 2016

The history of the waffle iron and the waffle in America.

Studies in Musical Theatre, 2021

This article explores how Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Sunday in the Park with George conv... more This article explores how Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Sunday in the Park with George conveys Seurat’s scientific influences, how the show’s Chromolume engages with Seurat and his modernist legacy, and how the 1984 and 2017 Chromolume designs reflect Seurat’s work and legacy. Using original oral history interviews, this article compares the 1984 and 2017 Broadway Chromolume designs to explore how production decisions inform the show’s engagement with pointillism, Seurat and colour theory. By analysing Sunday, this article sets out to provide a case study highlighting how science and technology inform and influence the book, music and theatrical design of a major American musical.

History of the Human Sciences, 2021

This article offers a case study in how historians of science can use musical theater productions... more This article offers a case study in how historians of science can use musical theater productions to understand the cultural reception of scientific ideas. In 1970, Stephen Sondheim and George Furth's musical Company opened on Broadway. The show engaged with and reflected contemporary theories and ideas from the human sciences; Company's portrayal of its 35-year-old bachelor protagonist, his married friends, and his girlfriends reflected present-day theories from psychoanalysis, sexology, and sociology. In 2018, when director Marianne Elliott revived the show with a female protagonist, Company once again amplified contemporary dilemmas around human sciences expertise—this time, the biological fertility clock. Through Company, Sondheim and Furth—and later Elliott—constructed arguments about modern society that paralleled those put forth by contemporary human scientists, including psychoanalytic models of the mind, the lonely crowd phenomenon, and shifting conceptions of mascu...

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2016

The more similar the members of a group are to one another, the less reliable their collective ju... more The more similar the members of a group are to one another, the less reliable their collective judgments are likely to be. One way for individuals to respond to negative feedback from a group may thus be to adjust their perceptions of the group's homogeneity, enabling them to dismiss the feedback as unreliable. We show that individuals appreciate this logic (Study 1) and that they put it to strategic use by regarding the members of a group as more homogenous when the group judges them negatively than when it judges them positively (Studies 2, 3, and 4). We underscore the self-protective nature of this tendency by showing that individuals adjust their perceptions of a group's homogeneity more when they themselves are the target of the group's judgment than when the group judges someone else (Study 4).

Graduate Journal of Food Studies, 2019

The Graduate Journal of Food Studies, 2018

In this Food-Stuffs essay, Jeffrey Rubel explores three stories of fish preservation, separated b... more In this Food-Stuffs essay, Jeffrey Rubel explores three stories of fish preservation, separated by history but bound together by science. He weaves together tales of Mesolithic Scandinavians, eighteenth-century Brits, and personal adventures to explore how people preserve fish and what drives them to do so.

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2016

The more similar the members of a group are to one another, the less reliable their collective ju... more The more similar the members of a group are to one another, the less reliable their collective judgments are likely to be. One way for individuals to respond to negative feedback from a group may thus be to adjust their perceptions of the group's homogeneity, enabling them to dismiss the feedback as unreliable. We show that individuals appreciate this logic (Study 1) and that they put it to strategic use by regarding the members of a group as more homogenous when the group judges them negatively than when it judges them positively (Studies 2, 3, and 4). We underscore the self-protective nature of this tendency by showing that individuals adjust their perceptions of a group's homogeneity more when they themselves are the target of the group's judgment than when the group judges someone else (Study 4).

Petit Propos Culinaire , 2016

The history of the waffle iron and the waffle in America.

Deleted Journal, Apr 1, 2016

The history of the waffle iron and the waffle in America.

Studies in Musical Theatre, 2021

This article explores how Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Sunday in the Park with George conv... more This article explores how Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Sunday in the Park with George conveys Seurat’s scientific influences, how the show’s Chromolume engages with Seurat and his modernist legacy, and how the 1984 and 2017 Chromolume designs reflect Seurat’s work and legacy. Using original oral history interviews, this article compares the 1984 and 2017 Broadway Chromolume designs to explore how production decisions inform the show’s engagement with pointillism, Seurat and colour theory. By analysing Sunday, this article sets out to provide a case study highlighting how science and technology inform and influence the book, music and theatrical design of a major American musical.

History of the Human Sciences, 2021

This article offers a case study in how historians of science can use musical theater productions... more This article offers a case study in how historians of science can use musical theater productions to understand the cultural reception of scientific ideas. In 1970, Stephen Sondheim and George Furth's musical Company opened on Broadway. The show engaged with and reflected contemporary theories and ideas from the human sciences; Company's portrayal of its 35-year-old bachelor protagonist, his married friends, and his girlfriends reflected present-day theories from psychoanalysis, sexology, and sociology. In 2018, when director Marianne Elliott revived the show with a female protagonist, Company once again amplified contemporary dilemmas around human sciences expertise—this time, the biological fertility clock. Through Company, Sondheim and Furth—and later Elliott—constructed arguments about modern society that paralleled those put forth by contemporary human scientists, including psychoanalytic models of the mind, the lonely crowd phenomenon, and shifting conceptions of mascu...

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2016

The more similar the members of a group are to one another, the less reliable their collective ju... more The more similar the members of a group are to one another, the less reliable their collective judgments are likely to be. One way for individuals to respond to negative feedback from a group may thus be to adjust their perceptions of the group's homogeneity, enabling them to dismiss the feedback as unreliable. We show that individuals appreciate this logic (Study 1) and that they put it to strategic use by regarding the members of a group as more homogenous when the group judges them negatively than when it judges them positively (Studies 2, 3, and 4). We underscore the self-protective nature of this tendency by showing that individuals adjust their perceptions of a group's homogeneity more when they themselves are the target of the group's judgment than when the group judges someone else (Study 4).

Graduate Journal of Food Studies, 2019

The Graduate Journal of Food Studies, 2018

In this Food-Stuffs essay, Jeffrey Rubel explores three stories of fish preservation, separated b... more In this Food-Stuffs essay, Jeffrey Rubel explores three stories of fish preservation, separated by history but bound together by science. He weaves together tales of Mesolithic Scandinavians, eighteenth-century Brits, and personal adventures to explore how people preserve fish and what drives them to do so.

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2016

The more similar the members of a group are to one another, the less reliable their collective ju... more The more similar the members of a group are to one another, the less reliable their collective judgments are likely to be. One way for individuals to respond to negative feedback from a group may thus be to adjust their perceptions of the group's homogeneity, enabling them to dismiss the feedback as unreliable. We show that individuals appreciate this logic (Study 1) and that they put it to strategic use by regarding the members of a group as more homogenous when the group judges them negatively than when it judges them positively (Studies 2, 3, and 4). We underscore the self-protective nature of this tendency by showing that individuals adjust their perceptions of a group's homogeneity more when they themselves are the target of the group's judgment than when the group judges someone else (Study 4).

Petit Propos Culinaire , 2016

The history of the waffle iron and the waffle in America.