ABSTRACT
In Teaching to Transgress (1994), bell hooks describes theory as a liberatory practice, but if and only if we ask that theory to do something, to assist in a struggle. “Theory,” she writes, “is not inherently healing or revolutionary. It fulfills this function only when we ask that it do so and direct our theorizing toward this end” (61). hooks is also quick to remind that the hegemon enlists theory in the opposite struggle—the struggle to maintain the status quo and protect hierarchical power structures, particularly in the classroom where autocratic privilege tends to be the reigning model of pedagogy (62). In this chapter, pedagogy enlists the help of cognitive science to reorient the classroom toward greater openness in structure as well as content, for the structures of our classroom teach more than their content. Specifically, I will look at situated cognition, a field founded by Lucy Suchman (a key figure in cognitive science and not frequently cited in cognitive studies within theatre) and the situative approaches to learning in education Suchman has inspired. Furthermore, I will show that using second-generation cognitive science to inform our pedagogy allows for a metacognitive practice that teaches the theory implicitly, while also achieving learning outcomes for teaching dramatic literature. Finally, throughout, situated cognition is positioned as having inherent links with critical theory providing a hermeneutic of continuity between critical theory and second-generation cognitive science, rather than the hermeneutic of rupture posited by early forays into cognitive science within theatre studies.
