The concept of drama: A Politzerian and Vygotskian perspective
Theme:
1.3 Learning, knowledge and agency
What:
Paper in a Symposium (Symp)
When:
1:30 PM, Tuesday 29 Aug 2017
(40 minutes)
Where:
Convention Center
- 2104 B
How:
This paper presents a critical examination of the Marxist underpinnings of Georges Politzer and Lev Vygotsky’s materialist psychology with particular reference to the concept of drama. Politzer and Vygotsky’s Concrete Human Psychology is the study of “le drame vécu” (drama of human’s everyday life - doing and acting). It finds fruition in drama of everyday human life rather than through the abstract gradual increase of academic knowledge. We need a psychology of the concrete, argue Politzer and Vygotsky. Human’s drama means the study of concrete human existence both in singular individual and collective social totality. Both Politzer and Vygotsky continued to explore the possibility of a new psychology constructed around the dramatic life (la vie dramatique). Concrete is defined as the singular individual, conceptualized as a conscious actor within social reality. Vygotsky elaborated his concrete psychology on Politzer’s concept of drama. Drama is the object of psychology and “psychology must be developed in the concepts of drama, not in the concepts of processes” (1989, p. 71). He also stated that “The dynamic of personality is drama (p. 67). This project advanced by Politzer and Vygotsky remained “an immature germ” (Yaroshevsky, 1989, p. 125). Vygotsky’s concrete psychology means the psychology as a drama which Politzer put forward. Politzer and Vygotsky’s ideas on the concept of drama will be developed further.