Play, Performance, and the Teaching of the Humanities

FAIN: FB-12572-75

David M. Landon
University of the South (Sewanee, TN 37383-2000)

To work toward an understanding on one problem encountered in conveying "humanistic understanding to students." Many students encounter the sorts of things which engage humanists, literature and the arts, for the first time in an academic setting rather than in the culture at large. Teaching needs to ground its discussion of the humanities, and perhaps its method of presentation, in at least a preliminary understanding of the "experience" and of its function within culture. Reading will include literature about the play element in culture; a study of the literature on the actor and actor training; a study of the relationship of theatrical action, or play, and the imitation of actio in the works of Feydeau and Genet.