This is a made-up world where people study made-up disciplines and do made-up work and have made-up stress and feel made-up pride. This is what I hate most about academia-- that people act like what they’re doing is a sacrifice, or important, or praise-worthy. if people would just realize that we are incredibly fucking privileged and pampered to get to be here and to be devoting years to nothing more than improving our own minds and building earning power, the whole thing would seem a lot more real.
Unless I chicken out and write something boring, this will be the first page of my last paper ever as a college student:
In his essay “What is Performance Studies?” Richard Schechner says, “The underlying notion [of performance studies] is that any action that is framed, highlighted or displayed is performance.” (2). This seems like an admission rather than a solid theoretical underpinning for the field. Schechner basically admits that the entire field of study cannot exist with out this conscious framing and highlighting of actions as performances. Actions are performances and can be studied and analyzed as such because we say they are.
For example, because people walk about in public (perhaps conscious of being seen by others), we may frame and study the way a person, or group of people, walks as a performance. We can analyze the cultural and social implications of this “performance,” and what this public display says about the culture and individuals involved.
But regardless of whether we frame walking as a performance, people are still going to walk about. Viewing it as performance won’t change that or make it more or less important. No one in the real world cares or has time to think about the way he walks as a performance. While I love the ideas behind avant garde art and enjoy theoretical discussion, I must admit I am rather mystified that people actually commit years upon years to the study of a field that admits that it is-- at its very core-- fictive. Performance studies is a made-up discipline.
Maybe.
Unless I chicken out and write something boring, this will be the first page of my last paper ever as a college student:
In his essay “What is Performance Studies?” Richard Schechner says, “The underlying notion [of performance studies] is that any action that is framed, highlighted or displayed is performance.” (2). This seems like an admission rather than a solid theoretical underpinning for the field. Schechner basically admits that the entire field of study cannot exist with out this conscious framing and highlighting of actions as performances. Actions are performances and can be studied and analyzed as such because we say they are.
For example, because people walk about in public (perhaps conscious of being seen by others), we may frame and study the way a person, or group of people, walks as a performance. We can analyze the cultural and social implications of this “performance,” and what this public display says about the culture and individuals involved.
But regardless of whether we frame walking as a performance, people are still going to walk about. Viewing it as performance won’t change that or make it more or less important. No one in the real world cares or has time to think about the way he walks as a performance. While I love the ideas behind avant garde art and enjoy theoretical discussion, I must admit I am rather mystified that people actually commit years upon years to the study of a field that admits that it is-- at its very core-- fictive. Performance studies is a made-up discipline.
Maybe.
posted by A at
3:38 PM
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