Drama, Politics, and Evolution: Cliodynamics in Play

by Bruce McConachie

Overview

This book outlines the evolution of our political nature over two million years and explores many of the rituals, plays, films, and other performances that gave voice and legitimacy to various political regimes in our species’ history. Our genetic and cultural evolution during the Pleisene Epoch bestowed a wide range of predispositions on our species that continue to shape the politics we support and the performances we enjoy. The book’s case studies range from an initiation ritual in the Mbendjela tribe in the Congo to a 1947 drama by Bertolt Brecht and include a popular puppet play in Tokugawa Japan. A final section examines the gradual disintegration of social cohesion underlying the rise of polarized politics in the USA after 1965, as such films as The Godfather, Independence Day, The Dark Knight Rises, and Joker accelerated the nation’s slide toward authoritarian Trumpism.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783030813796
Publisher:	Springer International Publishing
Publication date:	10/25/2021
Series:	Cognitive Studies in Literature and Performance
Edition description:	1st ed. 2021
Pages:	295
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Since retiring from the University of Pittsburgh, Bruce McConachie has published Theatre Histories: An Introduction (3^rd edn) with three co-authors and The Routledge Companion to Theatre, Performance and Cognitive Science, co-authored with Rick Kemp. Previous single-authored books include: Melodramatic Formations: American Theatre and Society, 1820-1870 (1992), American Theatre in the Culture of the Cold War (2003), Engaging Audiences: A Cognitive Approach to Spectating in the Theatre (2008), Theatre and Mind (2013), and Evolution, Cognition, and Performance (2015). A past President of the American Society for Theatre Research, he also continues to serve as an editor and reader for several academic publishers.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Genes, Culture and History in Coevolution.- Chapter 2: Cultural Performatives in History.- Chapter 3: Coevolution in the Pleisene.- Chapter 4: Destructive Creation in World History.- Chapter 5: Post-war Hegemony and the Reagan Reversal, 1945-1985.- Chapter 6: Neoliberalism and Political Realignment, 1980-2015.- Chapter 7: The Better Angels of Our Nature or the Age of Trump, 2000-2020.