Doing Life Is That Which We Must Think

Declaration of belief:Performance Philosophers seek to think anew, not only for the fun of it but also to destroy (or at least artfully ignore) the well-tended perception that thinking must unfold in a certain way, through specific channels, and with the legitimacy bequeathed to thought (i.e., commodified thought; a kind of thought that might be trademarked) through validated keywords and slogans. For these reasons, Performance Philosophers seek to think the doing of life, with the expectation that to do so would mean to live a life worthy of the name. This manifesto elaborates on these claims and calls for the creation of an Invisible College through which we might express the potential of performance philosophy

Crisis and the Im/possibility of Thought

The ubiquity of "crisis" and its sheer pervasiveness as a description of the contemporary world means that we do not so much write about crisis as much as we write from crisis. What type of thought is possible within crisis? If crisis extends to thought itself, insofar as we find ourselves in a crisis of thought (i.e., the crisis of not being able to think beyond the crisis of thought), then what kind of thinking is possible anymore? These are the questions raised by this special issue of Performance Philosophy, introduced here by the issue's co-editors

Pitch and Revelation

Pitch and Revelation is the first book-length study of the poetry, prose, and dramatic literature of the African American poet Jay Wright (1934–). The authors premise their reading on joy as foundational philosophical concept. In this, they follow Spinoza, who understood joy as that affect necessary for the construction of intellectual love of God, leading into the infinite univocity of everything. Similarly, with Wright, joy leads to a visceral sense of what the authors call the great weave of the world. This weave is akin to the notion of entanglement made popular by physicists and contemporary scholars of Science Studies, such as Karen Barad, which speaks of the always ongoing, mutually constitutive connections of all matter and intellectual processes. By exhibiting and detailing the joy of reading Wright, Pitch and Revelation intends to help others chart their own paths into the intellectual, musical, and rhythmical territories of Wright’s world so as to more fully experience joy in the world generally. Although the exhibitions of meaning making presented are instructive, but they do not follow the “do as I do” or “do as I say” model of instructional texts. Instead,they invite the reader to “do along with us” as the authors make meaning from selections across Wright’s erudite, dense, rhythmically fascinating, endlessly lyrical, highly structured, and seemingly hermetic body of work

The Open Field of Performance Philosophy

This editorial introduces issue 4.2 of the Performance Philosophy journal. As a culmination of an "open call" for proposals, this edition prompts the reflection, "What is open?" The editorial pursues that question in order to map the open field of Performance Philosophy as it currently presents itself in this historical moment

What Acceptance Is

This is a personal and philosophical reflection on the theme of acceptance as it relates to my grief journey following the deaths of my son and father (among others) in recent years. Its main premise is that acceptance is a state of being given, and, as such, we would do well to stop not accepting. To learn how to do this, I draw on a wide range of sources, from Christian and Persian mystics (Marguerite Porete, Simone Weil, Rumi, Hāfez), to rock singers (Jeremy Enigk, Eddie Vedder, Chris Cornell, Kurt Cobain, Maynard James Keenan), to architects (Rem Koolhaas). I also dive into the Ancient Greek etymology of the word “acceptance.” The overall result is a philosophical guide into acceptance

Introduction: Crisis and the Im/possibility of Thought

The ubiquity of "crisis" and its sheer pervasiveness as a description of the contemporary world means that we do not so much write about crisis as much as we write from crisis. What type of thought is possible within crisis? If crisis extends to thought itself, insofar as we find ourselves in a crisis of thought (i.e., the crisis of not being able to think beyond the crisis of thought), then what kind of thinking is possible anymore? These are the questions raised by this special issue of Performance Philosophy, introduced here by the issue's co-editors

Performance Philosophy 7(2): Imagining the Open

This is the editorial for Performance Philosophy 7(2) (2022

Review: The Journal of Dramaturgy, volume 23, issue 1

Contents include: Editor\u27s Note; Dramaturgy and Risk in Pakistan; A conversation about The Process of Dramaturgy; Emancipating Dramaturgy: From Pedagogy to Psychagogy; Directing Like a Dramaturg: The Art of Being a Whale. Issue editors: Sydney Cheek-O\u27Donnell, Debra Cardona, Janine Sobeckhttps://soundideas.pugetsound.edu/lmdareview/1045/thumbnail.jp

To Grieve

“Your Face”, Rumi You may be planning departure, as a human soul leaves the world taking almost all its sweetness with it. You saddle your horse. You must be going. Remember you have friends here as faithful as grass and sky. Have I failed you? Possibly you're angry. But remember our nights of conversation, the well work, yellow roses by ocean, the longing, the archangel Gabriel saying So be it. [Finlay], your face, is what every religion tries to remember. I've broken through to longing now, filled with a grief I have felt before, but never like this. The center leads to love. Soul opens the creation core. Hold on to your particular pain That too can take you to God. My work is to carry this love as comfort for those who long for you, to go everywhere you've walked and gaze at the pressed-down dirt. Pale sunlight, pale the wall. Love moves away. The light changes. I need more grace than I thought

Doing Life Is That Which We Must Think

Declaration of belief: Performance Philosophers seek to think anew, not only for the fun of it but also to destroy (or at least artfully ignore) the well-tended perception that thinking must unfold in a certain way, through specific channels, and with the legitimacy bequeathed to thought (i.e., commodified thought; a kind of thought that might be trademarked) through validated keywords and slogans. For these reasons, Performance Philosophers seek to think the doing of life, with the expectation that to do so would mean to live a life worthy of the name. This manifesto elaborates on these claims and calls for the creation of an Invisible College through which we might express the potential of performance philosophy