Philosophy. Study the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality and existence.

Join us for this ten-week philosophy of drama course, as we explore the role that dramatic theatre has played in human story. We will cover historical periods including: the Ancient Greek playwrights, particularly Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides; the early to late 20th century, discussing Ibsen, Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller; and Contemporary film with Terrence Malick as the focus writer/director.

Course themes:

• The relation between the conscious ‘story’ of the play/film and the embedded (unconscious) structures of thought and emotion, which are enacted in the drama.
• The way in which drama arises out of social/political needs and then feeds back into society, to either reinforce or transform those structures.
• How dramatic language and performance interact to make the drama in theatre and film a different aesthetic experience from other artforms such as literature.

Outcomes

By the end of this course, you should be able to:

• describe what makes ‘drama’ different to other art forms
• discuss the ideas and themes in some of the Ancient Greek plays
• better understand modern theatre and contemporary film
• apply the philosophical ideas presented in the course to other examples of contemporary plays and film.

Content

Introduction