TOWARD A SCIENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS

The Tucson Conference 2014 - 20th Anniversary

APRIl 21-26, 2014 Tucson - University Park Marriott

under the direction of the Center for CONSCIOUSNESS STUDIES, University of Arizona

2014 Pre-Conference

Workshop

Consciousness, Theatre and Literature

What inspires a dramatist to write a play? Should actors be involved emotionally with their characters’ emotions? What do Barba, Grotowski, Brook and Mnouchkine mean when they write about experiences of “presence”, “translumination”, “total theatre” and “state”? What happens in spectators when they are watching a play (why does “time fly” while we are watching some productions, and not others)?

We can develop exciting answers to these (and many more) questions about theatre from the perspective of consciousness studies. In this field of studies, a wide range of disciplines come together to help us understand how we think, feel and behave, why we think, feel ad behave as we do, and what it feels like to think, feel and behave as we do. The University of Arizona in Tucson was key in developing this interdisciplinary field, having launched it with its 1994 conference Towards a Science of Consciousness. This conference has been held every two years in Tucson, and will be celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, 2014 April 21-26.

Many insights gained in the field of consciousness studies have been used, over these years, to explore and explain phenomena in literature and the arts, including theatre. This related development was pioneered by Daniel Meyer-Dinkgräfe (Professor of Drama, University of Lincoln, UK) see http://staff.lincoln.ac.uk/dmeyerdinkgrafe) in his own publications and his editorial activities. Daniel is offering a pre-conference workshop on “Theatre, Literature and Consciousness” at the 2014 Towards a Science of Consciousness Conference, in Tucson, on Tuesday 22 April, 9-1.  He is joined in the workshop by Harry Youtt, who has been teaching creative writing at UCLA Extension for the past 20 years. See http://www.consciousness.arizona.edu/ for info and to book.

Daniel Meyer-Dinkgräfe                                                                       Harry Youtt

Presenters:

Professor Daniel Meyer-Dinkgräfe

Lincoln School of Performing Arts

University of Lincoln UK

Harry Youtt (Lecturer/Instructor)

UCLA Extension Writers Program

Date:         Tuesday April 22, 2014      

Session:   9:00 am - 1:00 pm     

Room:        tba

Description, goals and outline

The arts and humanities benefit much from the insights of other disciplines under the umbrella of consciousness studies in developing the understanding and knowledge specific to their own disciplines. The experience of theatre and literature, encompassing both the creation and the reception processes involved, can be understood better on the basis of the insights of consciousness studies. In addition, however, the subjective experience at the core of theatre and literature is able to add to the insights in consciousness studies, in particular in the context of first-person approaches that have become a seminal outcome of research spearheaded by the Tucson conferences and the publications resulting in association with them.

Following welcome and introductions, (9.00 to 9.15 for a morning session) in the first part (9.15 – 9.45), Meyer-Dinkgräfe and Youtt present an overview of the research carried out and published on the relation of theatre and literature and consciousness studies, in the refereed web journal Consciousness, Literature and the Arts, founded in 2000, the book series founded in 2005 Theatre and Consciousness with Intellect (three titles published so far, a further three contracted) and Consciousness, Literature and the Arts with Rodopi (thirty-four titles published so far, ten contracted), and, also launched in 2005, the biannual international conferences on Consciousness, Theatre, Literature and the Arts, which so far have attracted 250 different delegates from more than thirty countries across the world, and in other publication venues.

In the second part of the workshop (10.00 – 11.00), Meyer-Dinkgräfe invites workshop participants to engage in a practical session of creating theatre—a hands-on rehearsal taster session. No prior experience of acting is required. The session aims to enable participants to experience directly the relationship between theatre and consciousness, how one influences the other and vice versa.

In the third part of the workshop (11.15-12.15), Youtt invites workshop participants to engage in an exercise of creating literature—a hands-on creative writing taster session. In doing so, he will utilize several consciousness processes that include the Spinoza/Damasio-derived  Conatus-awareness technique, as well as theory-of-mind and mirror neuronal applications that he regularly implements in his classrooms and workshops. No prior experience in creative writing is required.

The fourth and final part of the workshop (12.30-13.00) allows participants to reflect on their workshop experience with the presenters.

Harry Youtt
Since 1990, Harry has been an instructor in the UCLA (Ext) Writers' Program.  He was granted the distinction of being a co-recipient of the Writers’ Program’s Outstanding Instructor in Creative Writing Award for 2004.  For several years, Harry was an instructor in the Digital Arts Program at the University of California at Irvine, teaching courses in writing for convergent media and information design. He also currently teaches classes in consciousness and creativity at the University of Philosophical Research. Harry is also the creator and writer of the critically acclaimed ABC Television pilot season website for David E. Kelley’s episodic television series: The Practice. He has also been deeply involved in development of practical applications for the internet and the World Wide Web.  He has presented papers on internet and broadcast communication theory in the United Kingdom, Canada and Mexico, as well as the United States. He co-developed UCLA Extension’s original on-line courseware system, in which he taught the first writing courses.  He also worked with UCLA to perfect its live two-way interactive video conference course delivery system, and he taught its first on-line live interactive video courses in creative writing. Harry is a fiction writer and poet whose recent collections of poetry include: Outbound for Elsewhere, I’ll Always Be from Lorain, and Even the Autumn Leaves.. His poetry has appeared in Passager, California State Poetry Quarterly, Squaw Valley Review, Raging Dove, and Bardsong, among other venues. His short fiction and non-fiction appear in numerous other publications. He is a member of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. He has also conducted periodic poetry readings in Ireland and Wales, as well as in the United States. He served for two years as the Poet in Residence at the Philosophical Research Society in Los Angeles, and for several years he conducted poetry workshops at the Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea, Wales.

Daniel Meyer-Dinkgräfe studied English and Philosophy at the Universität Düsseldorf, Germany. In 1994 he obtained his Ph.D. at the Department of Drama, Theatre and Media Arts, Royal Holloway, University of London.  His thesis on Consciousness and the Actor was published by Peter Lang (Frankfurt, 1996). From 1994 to 2007, he was a Lecturer and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies, University of Wales Aberystwyth. Since October 2007 he has been Professor of Drama at the Lincoln School of Performing Arts, University of Lincoln. For Routledge he edited Who’s Who in Contemporary World Theatre, and published Approaches to Acting, Past and Present with Continuum in 2001. He has numerous publications on the topic of Theatre and Consciousness to his credit, including Theatre and Consciousness: Explanatory Scope and Future Potential (Intellect, 2005) and Theatre, Opera and Consciousness: History and Current Debates (Rodopi, 2013). He is founding editor of the peer-reviewed web-journal Consciousness, Literature and the Arts, and of the book series of the same title with Rodopi.