Drama and Intelligence: A Cognitive TheoryDrama, as defined by Courtney, encompasses all kinds of dramatic action, from children's play to social roles and theatre. He shows not only that teachers have found educational drama and spontaneous improvisation to be an invaluable learning tool but that many skills required for work and leisure reflect the theatrical ability to "read" others and see things from their point of view. The main thrust of Drama and Intelligence is that drama can enhance and develop various aspects of intelligence. Courtney suggests that the "costumed player" must bring into play many levels of intelligence in the rehearsal and execution of dramatic acts and that such acts offer unsurpassed opportunities to practice and develop these cognitive skills. He uses the term intelligence to refer to the potential for specific types of mental activity and employs a theoretic-analytic method to view cognition and intelligence in a post-structuralist and semiotic mode. Courtney examines such issues as the relation of the actual to the fictional; the dramatic creation of meaning; signs, symbols, and practical hypotheses; and experi-mental logic, intuition, and tacit modes of operation. Drama and Intelligence will interest not only scholars and students of developmental drama, but also those in the fields of dramatic and performance theory, educational drama, and drama therapy. |
Contents
Introduction | 3 |
Drama and Fiction | 11 |
Drama and Cognitive Processes | 22 |
Cognitive Worlds | 35 |
The Dramatic World | 50 |
The Dramatic Metaphor | 65 |
Drama and Logic | 81 |
Drama and Intuition | 94 |
Drama and Symbol | 109 |
Drama and Performance | 126 |
Drama and Human Learning | 138 |
Drama and Dialogue | 149 |
In Conclusion | 159 |
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Common terms and phrases
A.J. Greimas ability abstract activity actors actual world aesthetic Anthony Wilden artistic audience believe Carl Gustav Jung chapter communication complex concepts contemporary context creative drama criteria culture deixis Derrida dialogue drama therapy dramatic action dramatic acts dramatic events dramatic learning dramatic metaphor dramatic world dramaturgical perspective educational drama elements environment example existence experience expressed external feeling fictional worlds function Greimas human hypothesis ideas images imagining improvisation inferences inherent intellectual interaction interpretation intuition Jacques Derrida kinds knowing language linguistic live logic Macbeth medium mental structures metalanguage metonymy mode objective ontological operate pace paradox particular performance perspective play protagonist quaternity re-play reality relation Richard Courtney ritual role semiotic square signifier signs similar skills social specific speech spontaneous drama structures and dynamics tacit teachers theatre theatrical theory thinking thought transformation Umberto Eco unconscious University Press whole
Popular passages
Page 166 - Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narratives," in Image - Music Text, cited above, page 94.