Lecture by Alexis Stanley
Chaired by Benjamin Steege

Focusing on Diderot’s Paradoxe sur le comédien and Le Neveu de Rameau, this talk proposes that his philosophy of acting (in both the theater and everyday life) is most productively understood as a reflection on alienation in which questions of theatricality and embodiment take center stage. The analysis interprets Diderotian alienation as an embodied praxis which allows the body to influence constructively one's ability to think critically and reevaluate dominant practices of social behavior. This talk therefore emphasizes Diderot's inauguration of a dialogue between philosophy and the theater which transforms interpretations of Enlightenment philosophy as a mode of thought based primarily in reason. It furthermore reassesses the “negative” role and function of theatricality for the modern subject. Ultimately, the proposed examination of Diderot's thinking about and through theater–as both an object of study and epistemological paradigm–foregrounds Diderot as a key figure of the French Enlightenment in part due to his unconventional stance on alienation as an inherently positive and intellectually liberating experience predicated on theater, role-playing, and spectatorship as distinctly embodied practices.

Fall Thursday Lecture Series events are open to Columbia-affiliated faculty, students, and invited guests. All others interested in attending, please email the SOF/Heyman at [email protected].

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