Performance and Cognition Theatre Studies and the Cognitive Turn [Paperback]

This anthology is the first of its kind. In addition to opening up fresh perspectives on theatre studies  with applications for dramatic criticism, performance analysis, acting practice, audience response, theatre history, and other important areas  the book sets the agenda for future work, helping to map the emergence of this new approach.

Following a comprehensive introduction, the contributors examine:

• the interfaces between cognitive studies and Lacanian psychoanalysis, phenomenology and communication theory
• different ideas from cognitive studies that open up the meanings of several plays
• the process of acting and the work of Antonio Damasio
• theatrical response: the dynamics of perception, and the riots that greeted the 1907 production of The Playboy of the Western World.

This original and authoritative work will be attractive to scholars and graduate students of drama, theatre, and performance.

Introduction Bruce McConachie and F. Elizabeth HartSection 1: Performance Theory and Cognition1. Performance, Phenomenology, and the Cognitive Turn F. Elizabeth Hart2. Cognitive Studies and Epistemic Competence in Cultural History: Moving Beyond Freud and Lacan Bruce McConachie3. Performance Strategies, Image Schemas, and Communication Frameworks Tobin Nellhaus Section 2: Drama and Cognition4. Essentialism and Comedy: A Cognitive Reading of the Motif of Mislaid Identity in Drydens Ampitryon(1690) Lisa Zunshine 5. `It Is Required/You Do Awake Your Faith: Learning to Trust the Body through Performing The Winters Tale Naomi RokotnitzSection 3: Acting and Cognition6. Neuroscience and Creativity in the Rehearsal Process John Lutterbie7. Image anlƒg