Commoning Through the Curriculum: Pedagogical Lessons From Dramatic Improvisation

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 29
  In Roundtable Session: Critical Issues in Culture, Curriculum, and Justice

Abstract

The paper explores how the practices of commoning that have gained recent attention in social and environmental activism might be encouraged in mainstream educational spaces through dramatic improvisation. Drawing on auto-ethnographic study and interviews with improvisational artists and instructors, the article argues that improvisation fosters commoning by strengthening social relationships, encouraging collective creation, and enabling sustained practices of sharing knowledge, art, ideas, stories, and experiences that present possibilities for more collective modes of social life. The study additionally reports upon the specific activities and pedagogical moves that encouraged commoning among groups of novice improvisers. The paper finally considers how commoning activities might be adapted for classrooms and other educational institutions, along with implications for theory, pedagogy, and policy.

Author

• Laura Carter-Stone, Vanderbilt University