Borderless Academe: "Families in Crisis" and A Lie of the Mind

This article traces the ways in which theatre production, sociology, formal scholarship, teaching, and interdiscipinary thinking fused in a project called "Families in Crisis"-an interdisciplinary study in Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) and dramaturgy for a production of Sam Shepard's A Lie of the Mind. Here, we draw on our original interviews with eighteen men and women who have experienced IPV, as well as on materials from the play, from the sociological literature on IPV, and from student-actors' responses to the work with these materials. We also detail our class-a service learning course in theatre and sociology-that fused all elements of the study, as well as funneling energy back into the community services organization that provided us with access to battered women and women who batter.