Copyright by Arthur L. Wright 2002
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Copyright by Arthur L. Wright 2002 PERFORMING TEACHING: IN SEARCH OF THE PROFOUND by Arthur Lawrence Wright, B.A., M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2002 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This project has gone on for several years, and I have many people to thank for their contributions. My wife has always assured me that, no matter how elusive my task sometimes seemed, I could do it. My mother-in-law, Dorothy, has helped us through the rough times. And my father has shown me confidence and support for which I can never adequately thank him. I appreciate the help and freedom offered me by my committee members, Lynn C. Miller, Larry Browning, Joni Jones, Pat Witherspoon, and Robert Jensen. They have made significant contributions to my graduate education and to this project. The faculty and staff of the Department of Communication Studies have always been interested and helpful partners in the pursuit of this degree. In particular, I want to thank someone who I cannot – Robert Hopper. He taught me not only his chosen field of expertise but how to be a graduate student and how to be a teacher. He was a fine man and I am much the poorer for his loss. I also want to thank Elizabeth Bell, who during my master’s work at the University of Florida introduced me to performance as a way of being, and more importantly as a way of knowing. iv PERFORMING TEACHING: IN SEARCH OF THE PROFOUND Publication No. _____________ Arthur Lawrence Wright, Ph.D. University of Texas at Austin, 2002 Supervisor: Lynn C. Miller This study is a contribution to the ongoing project of scholars and practitioners of performance studies in particular and students of communication and teaching in general to understand something more about what it is to be human. Specifically, it examines the phenomenon variously described as ecstasy, flow, jouissance, nirvana, rapture, Zen, the Tao, grace, or simply the ineffable. Performance as it is understood in communication is a special case of communication, and I understand teaching as a special case of performance. But performance in my experience is more, and that is what I have set out here to explore. Performance cannot be completely situated in this discussion without exploring the philosophy of experience itself, without exploring how performance creates self and generates narrative, how performance mystically opens a window of opportunity to act, perhaps only now and then, in that liminal space of peace, wholeness, integrity, unity. v Performance is attractive in the study of the phenomenon variously described above because it offers one way I know to predictably recreate it. Teaching is attractive because it offers a yardstick to assess what audience members think and feel while the performer – the teacher – operates within the phenomenon. It is simultaneously a worthy project to seek to improve the process of teaching by dissolving the subject/object relationship of teacher/student that is the ultimate tyranny of pedagogy. Principles of subversive pedagogy ably describe this circumstance of the teacher- as-performer and the students-as-audience and suggest that several fundamental human values – love, humility, surrender – form the backbone of an enlightened pedagogy. Though several branches of performance theory ably set the stage to consider teaching as a performing act, no performance theory I have encountered explains or addresses either the mystical phenomena that can arise in teaching or how that phenomena relates to satisfaction of the audience – in this case students. But I have found an explanation of sorts in the work of Gregory Bateson. He offers a framework that explains how application of these values through communication has the potential to elevate the conversation to a level where the inadequacies of self fade and all things become possible. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER ONE: THE PLEASURE OF PERFORMANCE ...........................................1 The question..................................................................................................................4 An opportunity..............................................................................................................7 Performer/audience, teacher/student...........................................................................10 The answer..................................................................................................................12 Performance defined...................................................................................................14 Method ....................................................................................................................18 Literature.................................................................................................................18 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................31 CHAPTER TWO: PEDAGOGY AND PERFORMANCE: GENESIS, EVOLUTION, AND RELATIONSHIP ............................................................................................33 The roots of pedagogy ................................................................................................33 A philosophy of education..........................................................................................35 The roots of performance............................................................................................37 Performance is synonymous with life.....................................................................39 Performance is synonymous with society...............................................................41 Performance is synonymous with self ....................................................................45 Performance is synonymous with language itself...................................................45 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................47 CHAPTER THREE: PERFORMANCE AS autobiography, AS SELF .........................49 History of autobiographical performance...................................................................50 Why self performance.................................................................................................63 vii Conclusion ..................................................................................................................86 Chapter FOUR: Performance as narrative ......................................................................87 Labov’s study of black vernacular..............................................................................88 Five forms of personal narrative.............................................................................95 The power of narrative..............................................................................................100 Narrative’s literary tradition .....................................................................................102 The vanishing narrator ..........................................................................................107 The implied author................................................................................................109 Evaluating representation......................................................................................111 The implied listener ..............................................................................................115 Relationship with the process itself ..........................................................................117 Narrative as inquiry ..................................................................................................119 Conclusion ................................................................................................................128 Chapter FIVE: A Mystical Sense of Performance........................................................130 Flow as shamanism...................................................................................................132 The shaman’s tool kit................................................................................................134 Conclusion ................................................................................................................137 Summary...................................................................................................................138 Inadvertently subversive pedagogy ..........................................................................138 What’s going on here............................................................................................139 The awesome power of language..........................................................................145 Performance as transcendence ..............................................................................153 viii Spirituality defined through leadership.................................................................158 Practical aspects of leadership ..............................................................................162 Sites of struggle.....................................................................................................164 Conclusion ................................................................................................................166 CHAPTER SIX: BATESON, THE 12 STEPS,