Thinking Through Tragedy and Comedy: Some Provocations on Genre Matters

Abstract

Following the inaugural symposium entitled Thinking Through Tragedy and Comedy - Performance Philosophy and the Future of Genre hosted by the Performance Philosophy Working Group “Genres of Dramatic Thought” which took place at the Institute for Cultural Inquiry ICI Berlin in December 2014, this contribution is a series of attempts to both recapture the debates of the symposium and stake out the field of inquiry for our Working Group’s engagement within Performance Philosophy. By tracing philosophy’s dramatic heritage within the history of genre theory and pointing to its current and future developments, this piece suggests how attention to genre can work to deepen and expand the emerging landscape of Performance Philosophy.

Keywords

• genre, tragedy, comedy