Theatrical dialogue in teaching the classics

This article addresses some fundamental affinities between theatre and teaching and is based on emerging work in a long-term experiment which we began in the conference ‘Weber/Simmel Antagonisms: Staged Dialogues’, held at the University of Edinburgh on December 2015. Aimed at exploring the possibilities of the theatrical and dialogical forms for teaching the classics of social and cultural theory, it is a risky experiment whose initial results are presented in this special issue. In order to introduce the dialogues and situate them in the context of the broader project, the article does three things: first, it expounds the process of subjectivation at work in both theatre
and teaching and explores some of the modalities of the subjective shift sought for in the public and students. Second, it explains the specificity of this experiment by contrasting it with other uses of theatrical dialogue in teaching. Finally, before briefly introducing each of the dialogues, the article clarifies the fundamental difference between the dialogical form and debate, as radically separating them is at the heart of any experiment in subjectivation, away from the stirring of opinions.