James R Hamilton

Art Theater

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Are theatrical performances merely interpretations of works of dramatic literature? Theatrical performances change according to a number of influences, from audience and cast, to time and place. Our actual experiences in viewing theatrical performances reflect this truth: we understand that when we see a play, we are seeing a particular director and cast's vision and artistry. The Art of Theater argues that performance is, and has always been, an art form in its own right, distinct from the literary texts that it uses. It is an affirmation of how we actually encounter theater, and James R. Hamilton gives us the tools to identify the fundamental elements that are needed to grasp the independence of theatrical performance. Examining the competing views of text-performance and performer-audience relationships, The Art of Theater applies a philosophical approach to the understanding, interpretation, and appreciation of theatrical art.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Wiley
• Seitenzahl: 244
• Erscheinungstermin: 30. Juli 2007
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 235mm x 157mm x 19mm
• Gewicht: 569g
• ISBN-13: 9781405113533
• ISBN-10: 1405113537
• Artikelnr.: 21722871

Autorenporträt

James R. Hamilton is a member of the Philosophy Department at Kansas State University. His research is in aesthetics, focusing on theater. He has published articles in the British Journal of Aesthetics, the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, and the Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, has entries in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Aesthetics and the Routledge Companion to Aesthetics, and has received NEH and Big XII Fellowships.

Inhaltsangabe

Prologue.
Part I: The Basics:.
1. The Emergence of the Art of Theater: Background and History.
1.1 The Backstory: 1850s to 1950s.
1.2 The Decisive Influences: Brecht, Artaud, Grotowski.
1.3 The Decisive Years: 1961 to 1985.
1.4 The Final Threads: Absorption of New Practices into the Profession and
the Academy.
2. Theatrical Performance is an Independent Form of Art.
2.1 Theatrical Performance as Radically Independent of Literature.
2.2 Theatrical Performance as a Form of Art.
3. Methods and Constraints.
3.1 Idealized Cases that Help Focus on Features Needing Analysis.
3.2 Three General Facts about Theatrical Performances and the Constraints
they Impose on any Successful Account of Theatrical Performances.
4. Theatrical Enactment: The Guiding Intuitions.
4.1 Enactment: Something Spectators and Performers do.
4.2 The Crucial Concept: "Attending to Another".
4.3 What it is to "Occasion" Responses.
4.4 Audience Responses: Willing Suspension of Disbelief, Acquired Beliefs,
or Acquired Abilities?.
4.5 Relativizing the Account by Narrowing its Scope to Narrative
Performances.
Part II: The Independence of Theatrical Performance:.
5. Basic Theatrical Understanding.
5.1 Minimal General Success Conditions for Basic Theatrical Understanding.
5.2 Physical and Affective Responses of Audiences as Non-Discursive
Evidence of Understanding.
5.3 The Success Conditions for Basic Theatrical Understanding Met by
Moment-to-Moment Apprehension of Performances.
5.4 "Immediate Objects," "Developed Objects," and "Cogency".
5.5 Objects of Understanding having Complex Structures.
5.6 Generalizing Beyond Plays.
5.7 The Problem of "Cognitive Uniformity".
6. The mechanics of basic theatrical understanding.
6.1 The "Feature-Salience" Model of Spectator Convergence on the Same
Characteristics.
6.2 What it is to Respond to a Feature as Salient for Some Characteristics
or a Set of Facts.
6.3 A Thin Common Knowledge Requirement.
6.4 A Plausibly Thickened Common Knowledge Requirement.
6.5 The Feature-Salience Model, "Reader-Response Theory," and
"Intentionalism".
6.6 Generalizing the Salience Mechanism to Encompass Non-Narrative
Performances.
6.7 Some Important Benefits of the Feature-Salience Model: Double-Focus,
Slippage, "Character Power," and the Materiality of the Means of
Performance.
6.8 The Feature-Salience Model and Explaining How Basic Theatrical
Understanding Occurs.
7. What Audiences See.
7.1 Identifying Characters, Events, and Other Objects in Narrative
Performances.
7.2 Re-identification of Characters and Other Objects in Narrative
Performances.
7.3 The Special Nature of Theatrical (Uses of) Space: Performances and
Performance Space.
7.4 Cross-Performance Re-identification.
7.5 Identifying and Re-identifying Objects in Non-Narrative Performances.
7.6 Added Benefits of the Demonstrative and Recognition-Based Approach to
Identification and Re-identification.
7.7 Theatrical Performance as a Fully Independent Practice.
Part III: The Art of Theatrical Performance:.
8. Deeper Theatrical Understanding.
8.1 General Success Conditions for Deeper Theatrical Understanding.
8.2 More Precise Success Conditions: Two Kinds of Deeper Understanding.
8.3 Some Puzzles about the Relation Between Understanding What is Performed
and Understanding How it is Performed.
8.4 Deeper Theatrical Understanding and Full Appreciation of a Theatrical
Performance.
9. What Performers Do.
9.1 What Performers Do and What Audiences Can Know.
9.2 The Features of Performers and Choices That Performers Make.
9.3 Theatrical Conventions as Sequences of Features having Specific
"Weight".
9.4 What is Involved in Reference to Theatrical Styles.
9.5 More about Styles, as Produced and as Grasped.
9.6 Grasp of Theatrical Style and Deeper Theatrical Understanding.
10. Interpretive Grasp of Theatrical Performances.
10.1 Success Conditions for Interpreting What is Performed and Interpreting
How it is Performed.
10.2 Eschewing Theories of "Work Meaning".
10.3 Interpretation and Significance.
10.4 Interpreting Performers.
11. Full Appreciation of a Theatrical Performance.
11.1 The Case of the Culturally Lethargic Company.
11.2 Broader Implications of the CLC Problem.
11.3 The "Imputationalist" Solution.
11.4 Solving the CLC Problem Without Resorting to Imputationalism.
11.5 Full Appreciation of a Theatrical Performance and the Detection of
Theatrical Failures.
Epilogue.
A. The Idea of a Tradition and Tradition-Defining Constraints.
B. Constraints Derived from Origins in Written Texts.
C. What Really Constrains Performances in the Text-Based Tradition.
D. The Myth of "Of".
Glossary.
Index

Rezensionen

"Hamilton's clarity of style and focused argument make his study anengaging change from the predominance of continental thought inmany texts on contemporary theatre and performance. ... The Artof Theater returns us to basic questions where they seem mostcertain: like any good work of philosophy, it shows how theapparently obvious came to be the case." (Theatre ResearchInternational, March 2009)

"Hamilton's book has many merits. He has written a timely bookthat would repay close study by any philosopher interested inperformance in general and theater in particular." (The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism)

"Hamilton presents a bold new thesis in his first book:theatrical performances are an independent form of art. Hamiltonpresents meticulous arguments both for the independence ofperformance as an art form and its status as art. This is acompelling book. Recommended." (CHOICE)"James R. Hamilton's The Art of Theater is acompelling and original work of analytic philosophy applied toperformance. Readers will enjoy the rigorous philosophicaldiscussion and illuminating theatrical analysis."
David Krasner, Yale University

"This groundbreaking book argues for theatrical performance asan independent form of art. Philosophically astute, historicallyinformed, and filled with wonderful examples, it will set thestandard for work in the area for years to come." Susan Feagin,Temple University

"A book that has virtues worth recommending ....Hamilton's project [is] aimed at bringing our theoreticalbeliefs ... in line with our theater-going practices."Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews