Performing Human Consciousness: A Philosophical Investigation Into the Staging of the Mind

Is the mind like a theatrical performance? This comparison has often been used as a conceptual tool by neuroscientists, philosophers and psychologists in trying to understand what constitutes the human mind, and in particular how the comings and goings and the character transformations on the stage and in the scripted text give us visible access to the hidden workings of the human mind.

Performing Human Consciousness makes use of this metaphor to explore the variety of ways in which the private thoughts and feelings we all have bring into play many aspects of persistent philosophical questions over how the essentially private world of personal experiences can relate to and communicate with the common public world. To investigate this generalisation in more detail, the author brings into play her own conscious experiences by making use of an auto-inscribed play Being Me. Through this dramatic medium, she seeks to show in detail how phenomenal consciousness is captured through the dramatic play text and thereby made known to others through performance of that text. Broadening out her argument further, the author then embarks on an enquiry into a selection of play texts from an historical variety of perspectives, from the early Greek and Mediaeval dramas, through to the Symbolist period and onwards to the present day, demonstrating the variety of ways in which they illustrate her argument.

This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of theatre and performance and scriptwriting.

Dr. Vanessa Dodd is a writer, theatre director, drama practitioner and actor who trained initially at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, London. She has had a lifelong interest in philosophy, particularly in the early Romantic philosophers and American transcendentalists and more recently in consciousness studies. She was formerly a senior lecturer in English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of South Wales and at the University of Wales, Newport where she was also Programme Leader for the Applied Drama course.