Turn the Table: an Analyzation of Emotions in Just Us.

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Turn the Table: An analyzation of emotions in Just Us. This essay attempts to explore the best way an emotional connection can be achieved between performer and audience in the context of the play Just Us. Thomas Preece 5618894 Wednesday, April 22, 2009 Prof. Mark Sussman The Nature of Emotion There are several factors that make it extremely hard to settle on a universal definition for emotions but from a performance view it is comforting to know that one does not need to. There has been as much thought and interest put into defining and understanding emotions and feelings as some of the most prevailing philosophical questions. Throughout all this work some have come to agree that “... a fundamental demarcation lies between theories that view emotions as an intra-personal state with physiological arousal, feelings, and activation of certain motor patterns, and theories that view emotions as an interpersonal function between the self and an object.”[i] There have been many attempts to define emotions using the symptoms or physical attributes associated with emotional states or processes. This goes from sweaty palms all the way up to brain activity and fits in the former group. However, such an approach is more apt for answering questions such as why we feel hunger. You can isolate the stomach and understand its position in the broader picture of the human body and the stomach’s interaction with the brain and come to the conclusion that humans need food and hunger is a system to motivate humans to eat. Although one can chart neural activity there is no other functional part of the body where emotions can be ‘located.’ In other words brain activity can give us many insights into the process of emotional conception but still no decisive reasoning as to how they function and any use they might be. One useful piece of insight is that “... recent research
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