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An Evolutionary Perspective on Play, Performance, and Ritual
- TDR: The Drama Review
- The MIT Press
- Volume 55, Number 4, Winter 2011 (T212)
- pp. 33-50
- Article
- Additional Information
What can neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, and cognitive linguistics tell us about the probable origins of play? What was the likely order of the emergence of play, performance, and ritual in evolutionary time? As new scientific discoveries challenge older traditions and truisms of scholarship in performance studies, these questions take on new urgency and reshape key definitions in the field.