Playing with Purpose: Adventures in Performative Social Science [Hardcover]

Distilling decades of work spanning their prestigious careers, Mary M. and Kenneth J. Gergen make a strong case for enriching the social sciences through performative work. They present a unique exploration of the origins of performative social science and provide an intellectually rich overview of its significance in the field, as well as its evolving potential. Many of their own performance pieces are included in the volume. The authors envision a broadening of the social sciences, making it more accessible to non-experts and opening up new dialogues between society and science—and changing the world in the process. Social scientists and researchers will gain a valuable new perspective from this insightful tome.

Mary M. and Kenneth J. Gergen make a strong case for enriching the social sciences through performative work, establishing a framework for performative research and including many of their own performance works.

“This long awaited and eagerly anticipated book by two of social psychology’s most illustrious and adventurous innovators erases the divisions between the social sciences and the arts that have blocked the development of a truly unified arts-based human science. Introducing a dizzying array of diverse aesthetic forms that widen the space available for social research aimed at social justice and the good life, the Gergens don’t just talk about what the human sciences can become, they show it. Charming, playful, and fresh, Performing Social Science reveals the promise of an embodied, emotional, and ethical social science that situates the performance arts at the center of inquiry aimed at understanding the fullness of what it means to be human."

—Arthur P. Bochner, Distinguished University Professor of Communication, University of South Florida

Mary M. and Kenneth J. Gergen are among the originators of performative social science. Working both together and separately, thlC0