ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the evolution of theories on the impact of artistic experiences, literary and theatrical in particular, on the human psyche. In the chapter, it is argued that crossing interdisciplinary boundaries is a logical consequence of the cognitive turn in drama, theatre, and performance research. Questions regarding the transformative potential of art have long been asked by literary scholars, and attempts to answer them have given rise to seminal paradigms, such as Felski’s ideas of recognition, enchantment, knowledge, and shock, theories of literary experience as simulation, and Mack’s theory of literature as a tool in social change to enhance the development of individual and social coping strategies. Theoretical approaches to theatre’s influence on the human mind include Aristotle’s articulation of catharsis; Artaud’s shock tactics as spiritual therapeutics; Brook’s and Grotowski’s ideas of Holy Theatre; Stanislavski’s emotion memory implemented by actors; and current reiterations of Brecht’s Verfremdungeffekt as cognitive catharsis. Turner’s liminality of the experience resonates in Fischer-Lichte’s approach to the subject of transformation in the audience. The cognitive turn in drama, theatre, and performance studies brings with it notions of embodied cognition and important conceptualisations, such as Lakoff and Johnson’s Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), Fauconnier and Turner’s Conceptual Blending Theory, and Gallese’s Mirror Neuron Theory (MNT). Applications of cognitive science to drama, theatre, and performance are discussed. The chapter concludes with a demonstration that the integration of research from social sciences, neuroscience, and medicine with the humanities may yield interesting results in all those fields. It also describes the methodology used in this book.
