The ethics of imagining and the dramaturgy of spectatorship | Intellect Skip to content
1981
Ethical Dramaturgies
  • ISSN: 1757-1979
  • E-ISSN: 1757-1987

Abstract

This article will address the ethical aspects of imagination and spectating. Since Plato’s denunciation of imagination in and Aristotle’s judgement in that ‘imaginings are for the most part false’, the notion of the human imagination has been controversial. In relation to theatrical performance, key issues concern how performance acts on the imagination of the spectator – and what actions of the spectator’s imagination might perform in return. In this article, I will address the ethics of imagination: as an examination of truth and falseness, as an issue of responsibility and choice, as a social imaginary and a narrative imagination that allows one to relate to the other, and finally as an exploration of the embodied basis of imagination, which again involves a questioning of the line between the real and the imaginary. In conclusion, I will take Sarah Kane’s and Tim Crouch’s as examples of two plays that explicitly address the ethics of imagining.

Funding
This study was supported by the:
  • Imagining Imagination in Philosophy and Drama
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2020-12-01
2024-04-29
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  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): dramaturgy; ethics; imagination; Sarah Kane; spectator; Tim Crouch
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