Towards an Epistemology of the Stage?: A Response to Supriya Chaudhuri ("Eyes Wide Shut") (original) (raw)
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Notes toward The Philosophy of Theatre
Anglia
This article draws from the contemporary French thinker François Laruelle to perform a ‘non-philosophical’ analysis of recent literature from the analytic or Anglo-American philosophy of theatre. Much of this literature, I argue, suffers from the problem of application, namely: non- or extra-theatrical assumptions are both brought to bear upon and remain unchallenged by the philosopher’s encounter with theatre – particularly in the form of assumptions as to the nature of philosophy or the role or position of philosophy with respect to other forms of thought, such as theatre and performance. Having sought to articulate some of the problems arising from the conception of the philosophy of theatre as a definitional project, the article then considers – via Laruelle – what kind of ‘stance’ a philosophy of theatre might need to occupy in order not to impose its thought on theatre but to be open to theatre’s thoughts.
Oxford Bibliographies, 2020
organic. Philosophy of theater is also sometimes referred to-or is argued to be subsumed, more broadly, in-"performance philosophy," which also refers to a network of academics and practitioners that publishes a book series and a journal of the same name. Regardless of what it is called or how it is classified, scholarship has coalesced around some fundamental preoccupations, which are not too dissimilar to questions that arise in other philosophies of.. . (e.g., art, film, dance, etc.). The debates in philosophy of theater mostly fall into three of the main branches of philosophy: metaphysics, epistemology, and aesthetics. The major metaphysical debates center on an ontological question: What is theater? Epistemological studies tend to focus on audience reception and/or how meaning is made and/or transmitted. Finally, studies in aesthetics focus on two main questions: (1) What is theater as an art form? (2) What is the relationship between dramatic text and theatrical performance? This article is intentionally narrow in its scope, focusing on philosophy and theater traditions that came out of Greek theater and philosophy, in order to ensure a sufficient amount of depth, not (merely) breadth. General Overviews While the epic work of the history of theater criticism, Carlson 1993, traces many of the lines of thought explored in the philosophy of theater, any self-aware semblance of a field did not really happen until the publication of the edited collection Krasner and Saltz 2006, which seems to have almost singlehandedly put its finger on the pulse of this emergent field. Hamilton 2007 is the first book on theater by a contemporary philosopher, which is based on an earlier work (Hamilton 2001, cited under Dramatic Text and Theatrical Performance). It is in the mid-2010s that reflections on, theorizations of, and major contributions to the field begin to come to prominence: Puchner 2013, Stern 2014, Saltz 2015, Stern 2017). Carlson 2018, the third edition of a classic text on performance theory, which intersects in some key ways with the philosophy of theater, is also released around this time. Hamilton 2019 provides the decade with a retrospective and a future path to inquiry.
The very cunning of the scene’: notes towards a common dispositive for theatre and philosophy
Brazilian Journal on Presence Studies, 2020
The article suggests that eavesdropping scenes contain the key to a fundamental dispositive of the theatre, that reinforces the intricate metatheatrical dimensions of any performance and amplifies its philosophical aspects. In order to make this claim clear, the article discusses the idea of a dispositive, a concept broadly taken from Foucault (1980; 1986) and applies its self-reflexive dimensions to a number of examples from different plays, in order to demonstrate as those work both as scores for performances as well as texts with a philosophical character. Keywords: Eavesdropping. Dispositive. Meta-theatre. Philosophy of Drama. Performance Philosophy.
The vertical axis and the agôn between theatre and philosophy
Journal of Aesthetics & Culture, 2024
This article explores the controversy between ancient Greek dramatists and their fellow philosophers over the vertical axis, with special reference to Socrates. I begin with a discussion of the vertical axis in Greek theatre, and turn to Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus to discuss the vertical as a manifestation of the tragic preference ascribed to our "divine" upper body over our "bestial" lower body. Then, I discuss the deus ex machina as an image of divine vertical intervention in the horizontal human plot, and claim that Plato's and Aristotle's philosophical critique of this theatrical convention fails to notice that the dramatists made a subversive use of the illogicality of this convention. The second part of the article is dedicated to the vertical as an expression of man's desire to transcend the boundaries of the human sphere. I discuss the negative treatment of this desire by Greek dramatists, who regard it as an unworthy aspiration, compared to its positive treatment by Greek philosophers, who presents it as a worthy aspiration, since it is only through such an ascent that one can get a glimpse of the eternal. In this context, I examine two representations of Socrates: his deus ex machina appearance in Aristophanes' Clouds, implying the hubristic stance of philosophers; and his habit of long immobile standings as introduced in Plato's Symposium, implying the philosophers' superiority over the dramatists. However, the publicly-visible nature of Socrates' standstills also turns them into a display of philosophizing, meaning that Socrates of the Symposium is a philosopher who (perhaps unfairly) theatricalizes his verticality so as to challenge the art of theatre.
The Question of the Scene: On the Philosophical Foundations of Theatrical Anthropocentrism
Theatre Research International, 2009
The article consists of two interrelated arguments: First, all theoretical or everyday talk on theatre implies a certain scenic understanding, related to the phenomenon of human action and speech. Second, this understanding has been concealed by an anthropomorphic conception of the human phenomenon, based on the givenness of the human figure. The article tries to deconstruct this figure by analysing classical philosophical texts where the link between the human appearance and the theatrical mode of representation is theoretically established. By questioning this link, new ways to exercise the critique of theatrical anthropocentricism, both in theory and in practice, are established.
Philosophy and Theatre in the Century of Enlightenment
2021
The theatrical performance has always been a continual concern during all the history of humanity, because it performs an art where people have certain stories that arouse many feelings and insights to the spectators. It highlights the fact that the theatrical performance has special importance for philosophical reflection, especially in the characteristic illustration of the philosophy of the eighteenth century. In this context, several thinkers participated intensely of the political reality of this time, using the theatrical practice on several occasions, both for the contribution to the intellectual framework and to portray the daily life of the rising class, namely the bourgeoisie. Among these thinkers, this paper will highlight the Voltaire conceptions of representation of the aristocratic theater, establishing it as a powerful means of education; Diderot about the genesis of the drama, where art had the function of refining and instructing individuals, representing the aspira...
Apocryphal theatre: practicing philosophies
2009
Apocryphal Theatre: Practicing Philosophies is a practice-based research project that consists of examples of my theatre practice (as research) and a written thesis. In this thesis, I argue that theatre can be seen to be an act of philosophy, by tessellating Maurice Merleau-Ponty's definition of philosophy as consisting of relearning to look at the world and Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's proposition that philosophy is the creation of concepts, and pointing to post-WWII theatre artists whose work both fulfill this definition of philosophy and have informed Apocryphal Theatre's work. Included is an analysis of interviews with three contemporary theatre artists, Richard Foreman, Chris Goode and Ivana MUller, which explore their relationship with philosophical ideas in their work and how that informs their ability to create acts of philosophy. In practice, the research questions that underpin Apocryphal Theatre's research in labs, rehearsals and performance, are philosophical and create the potential for collective acts of philosophy. Apocryphal's practice as research as manifest in its ongoing lab and in the two productions included as part of this thesis, The Jesus Guy and Besides, you lose your soul or the History of Western Civilisation, will be analyzed for the historical and philosophical bases of the primary concepts we have created through our research and the tools with which we embody them. The concepts and tools, which are used to address the research questions, are the witness, the grid, cutting up, levels of address and levels of presence. This thesis concludes that theatre and philosophy whilst separate disciplines can overlap in such a way that acts of philosophy can occur in the theatre, and that Apocryphal's theatrical project, which is collaborative, polyvocal and in performance invites the audience to be active witness/participants in the creation of the event, can be viewed as a collective act of philosophy. 2 B. Apocryphal Theatre: what's in a name? C. Methodologies of Witnessing: where do you stand? D. Habitus/Situation: an American theater/re artist in the British academy