Trusting Performance / Cognitive Studies in Literature and Performance (PDF)

Dr. Naomi Rokotnitz explores the intersections between literature, philosophy, and science, investigating the relations between knowledge acquisition, inter-personal communication, moral accountability and bodily modes of reception and perception. She teaches at Tel-Aviv University, Israel and can be reached at naomirokotnitz@gmail.com.

"Insightful and exciting . . . a significant contribution to the relatively new field of cognitive approaches to literature and theatre." - Theatre Survey

"Rokotnitz's tremendously engaged and engaging depiction of the emotional sensitivity, caring responsibility, and sincerely educational basis of Sentimentalism, persuasively reinvigorates a singularly unfashionable rationale for behaviour and rule. The result is, at points, an exuberant exultant writing style that empathetically echoes the celebratory positivity of the play, but also the motivations of The Politics of American Actor Training, and carries the reader along in its wake. The strengths of Rokotnitz's writing style in this and the other chapters is founded in neatly interwoven precise examples and rigorous and thoughtful dissection of illuminating textual detail." - The Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory

"The dexterity with which Rokotnitz structures her work, each chapter tightly interlocking with its companions to produce a fertile ground for cross-comparison and later developments of earlier ideas, evinces a sincere commitment to rigorously test the hypothesis that originally drove her inquiry ... That her analysis of embodied experience of primary emotions leads to an explication of spiritual experience undoubtedly indicates that Rokotnitz has produced a significant contribution to the body of literature on performance and cognition." - Style