The article develops Sartre's remarks on the paradox of the actor in two ways. Firstly, it derives from them an 'existential ontology' of mimetic performance - an 'onto-mimetology'. Secondly, it uses this reconstruction in order to put pressure on Sartre's analogy of the actor with bad faith. In grasping the problem of acting from a Sartrean perspective, I show that this analogy is not as clear cut as he assumes and that a crucial difference exists between the situation of the theatre and that of bad faith. To master the paradox of his own being I argue the actor's technique indeed utilizes the same 'non-persuasiveness-of-belief ' thesis identified by Sartre as the condition of possibility for bad faith, yet in the actor's case it need not necessitate the condition of bad faith. In conclusion, I propose that through the notion of play, the actor sheds intriguing light on Sartre's notion of freedom.
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In Sartre Studies International
- Published (Print):
- 01 Mar 2009
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 74–91 (18 total)
Andrew Ryder
Sartre's play Les Mouches (The Flies), first performed in 1943 under German occupation, has long been controversial. While intended to encourage resistance against the Nazis, its approval by the censor indicates that the regime did not recognize the play as a threat. Further, its apparently violent and solitary themes have been read as irresponsible or apolitical. For these reasons, the play has been characterized as ambiguous or worse. Sartre himself later saw it as overemphasizing individual autonomy, and in the view of one critic, it conveys an “existentialist fascism.” In response to this reading, it is necessary to attend to the elements of the play that already emphasize duty to society. From this perspective, the play can be seen as anticipating the concern with collective responsibility usually associated with the later Sartre of the 1960s. More than this, the play's apparent “ambiguity” can be found to exemplify a didacticism that is much more complex than sometimes attributed to Sartre. It is not only an exhortation about ethical responsibility, but also a performance of the difficulties attendant to that duty.
In Sartre Studies International
- Published (Print):
- 01 Dec 2009
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 78–95 (18 total)
Kathleen Lennon
Sartre’s Imaginary Personages In his early work The Imaginary , 1 Sartre discusses the performance artist Franconay, ‘a small stout brunette woman’ who is imitating Maurice Chevalier. In this performance ‘that black hair we did not see as black
In Sartre Studies International
- Published (Print):
- 01 Jun 2017
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 22–37 (16 total)
Performative and Eidetic Simulations
Three Imaginary Regimes
Elad Magomedov
In a famous section of The Imaginary , Sartre discusses a performance of the French actress Claire Franconnay, a short, plump, dark-haired woman who in imitating the actor Maurice Chevalier becomes ‘possessed’ by this tall, thin, light-haired man
In Sartre Studies International
- Published (Print):
- 01 Jun 2022
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 1–22 (22 total)
John Gillespie and Sarah Richmond
the light of the influence of existentialism and phenomenology. Sartre’s imaginary personages make up his account of individual and social identities. He sees identity as a performance of the individual, whereas Butler sees it as emerging within a
Jean-Paul Sartre
The Russian Teatr Interviews of 1956 and 1962
Dennis A. Gilbert and Diana L. Burgin
thing is to find an audience. All other problems are secondary to this basic one. An audience exists, of course, and if its response to a play is positive, the play can run for two to three hundred performances. However, the overwhelming majority of this
In Sartre Studies International
- Published (Print):
- 01 Dec 2019
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 1–17 (17 total)
Book Review
Mabogo Percy More, Sartre on Contingency: Antiblack Racism and Embodiment
Thomas Meagher
human values. The differences between the two text are more formal than argumentative. Gordon's texts is, in effect, a phenomenological performance utilizing the phenomenon of antiblack racism to demonstrate the phenomenon of bad faith and vice versa
In Sartre Studies International
- Published (Print):
- 01 Dec 2022
- Article Type:
- Book Review
- Pages:
- 98–101 (4 total)
Sartre in Austria
Boycott, Scandals, and the Fight for Peace
Juliane Werner
performance in Paris, at the Théâtre Antoine on 2 April 1948, the play’s anti-Communist reputation snowballed, especially in the United States, where the play, translated as Red Gloves , proved so tendentious that Sartre took legal steps to counter its
In Sartre Studies International
- Published (Print):
- 01 Dec 2017
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 1–18 (18 total)
Nik Farrell Fox and Bryan Mukandi
of what Fanon said, while avoiding the trap of seeking to legitimate that by means of an appeal to the thinking of white, male philosophers. This is not only a work of exegesis but also a literary, philosophic performance that retraces and recites
In Sartre Studies International
- Published (Print):
- 01 Jun 2017
- Article Type:
- Book Review
- Pages:
- 106–112 (7 total)
Jorge Lizarzaburu, Adrian van den Hoven, and Donovan Irven
plays are enacted and embodied in the performance of real people and bodies on the stage. While this may seem a bit obvious when stated so plainly (as many philosophical insights can be when oversimplified), Ekberg has picked up on a philosophically
In Sartre Studies International
- Published (Print):
- 01 Dec 2017
- Article Type:
- Book Review
- Pages:
- 114–124 (11 total)