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The contributors gathered here revitalize "ethnographic performance"-the performed recreation of ethnographic subject matter pioneered by Victor and Edith Turner and Richard Schechner-as a progressive pedagogy for the 21st century. They draw on their experiences in utilizing performances in a classroom setting to facilitate learning about the diversity of culture and ways of being in the world. The editors, themselves both students of Turner at the University of Virginia, and Richard Schechner share recollections of the Turners' vision and set forth a humanistic pedagogical agenda for the future. A detailed appendix provides an implementation plan for ethnographic performances in the classroom.
List of contents
Chapter 1: "The Foundations of Experiential Performance Pedagogy".- Chapter 2 "Points of Contact Between Anthropological and Theatrical Thought".- Chapter 3: "Performing Ethnography".- Chapter 4: "Revisiting the Past for the Present: The Wedding Ritual Performance in the Turners' Seminar".- Chapter 5: "Structure, Anti-structure, and Communitas in the Classroom: Notes on Embodied Theory".- Chapter 6: "Bridges to the Ancestors: Engaging Students with Ethnographic Performances in the Classroom".- Chapter 7: "The Smell of Smudge and the Work of Smoke: Reenacting Native American Ritual in an Anthropology Course".- Chapter 8: "Grotto Water and Potato Chips: Classroom Ritual Reenactments as Forms of Pedagogical Resistance".- Chapter 9: "Dance Lessons: Performance as Engaged Experiential Embodiment".- Chapter 10: "Pedagogies of the Imagination: Toward a New Performative Politics".- Chapter 11: "Cultivating Empathy Through a Migration Simulation".- Chapter 12: "Moving Forward".
About the author
Pamela R. Frese is Professor of Anthropology at the College of Wooster, USA. A graduate student of Victor Turner, she has continued to use ethnographic performance in her teaching.
Susan Brownell is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, USA. As an undergraduate student of Victor Turner, she learned the value of ritual reenactments in education; she traces these foundational experiences through to her current research on sport and ritual.
