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Loose Coordinations: Theater and Thinking in Gertrude Stein

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2012

Adam Frank
Adam Frank*
Affiliation:
University of British Columbia E-mail: adafrank@mail.ubc.ca
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Argument

This essay offers a reading of Gertrude Stein's lecture “Plays” (1934) alongside the work of several thinkers on emotion, William James, Silvan Tomkins, and Wilfred Bion. The problem of what Stein calls “emotional syncopation” at the theater is understood in the context of James’ theory of emotion. The essay proceeds to unfold Stein's emphasis on varieties of excitement by way of Silvan Tomkins’ writing. It then turns to Wilfred Bion's theory of thinking to argue that the main problem with theater, for Stein, is the difficulty it poses to learning or arriving at genuinely new knowledge. The essay concludes with the suggestion that Stein's plays address the further difficulties of analyzing group dynamics or numbers of individuals, especially in the context of modernist mass media.

Type
Research Article
Information
Science in Context , Volume 25 , Issue 3: The Varieties of Empathy in Science, Art, and History , September 2012 , pp. 447 - 467
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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