Short description:

In this uplifting and liberating volume, we?re invited to peek behind the curtains of other possible performances in higher education. The ensemble of writers show us the transformational potential of applying a performance and improvisational lens to our worlds. A long overdue text for those curious about the boundless possibilities of play, improv, and performance.

?Richard Bale, Senior Teaching Fellow, Imperial College London, United Kingdom

At a moment when higher education desperately needs new performances that move beyond competition, atomization, and communal disconnection, this groundbreaking new book invites faculty, staff, and students to improvise their ways forward. Saying ?yes, and?? to the playful, emergent, and relational spaces that generate all forms of knowledge to begin with, the book?s authors perform the very types of imaginative growth and development envisioned throughout. A must read for transforming higher educational contexts!

?Don Waisanen, Professor, Baruch College, City University of New York, United States

How and why does improvisational theater (improv) serve the learning and development of adults in higher education? What new approaches to higher education are possible with and because of improv activities? This edited collection considers these questions while illustrating the power of improv activities with and in higher education to co-create revolutionary opportunities for holistic human development, learning, community building, social change, and research. Moreover, this collection emphasizes the presence and significance of life-span imaginative play in the form of improv both as a topic of scholarship and as a means of teaching, learning, research, and administration in higher education. It provides illustrations of the imaginative, playful activities of the authors and offers reflections of, theoretical groundings for, and current sociopolitical contexts of these activities.

Luke Perone is a faculty member at the University of Washington Tacoma, USA, where he teaches courses in human development. Luke?s research interests include the power and possibilities of imaginative play, improvisational theater, performance activism, social therapeutics, humanitarian clowning, and socially-engaged arts to create revolutionary opportunities for lifespan learning, development, and community building.

Long description:

How and why does improvisational theater (improv) serve the learning and development of adults in higher education? What new approaches to higher education are possible with and because of improv activities? This edited collection considers these questions while illustrating the power of improv activities with and in higher education to co-create revolutionary opportunities for holistic human development, learning, community building, social change, and research. Moreover, this collection emphasizes the presence and significance of life-span imaginative play in the form of improv both as a topic of scholarship and as a means of teaching, learning, research, and administration in higher education. It provides illustrations of the imaginative, playful activities of the authors and offers reflections of, theoretical groundings for, and current sociopolitical contexts of these activities.

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1. Let?s Create New Higher Education Performances (Luke Perone).- Chapter 2. Performing Higher Education: Improv is/as Radical Co-creating (Luke Perone).- Chapter 3. Empowering Life Performer-Learners: Lloyd International Honors College at UNC Greensboro (Eric B. Toler).- Chapter 4. Embracing a ?Yes, and?? Philosophy to Engage With Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Higher Education (Colin Stewart).- Chapter 5. Improvisation as a Narrative of Faculty & Learner Growth and Development in Higher Education (Krista Longtin).- Chapter 6. Working From the Margins: Changing Our Institutions and Ourselves One ?Yes, and?? at a Time (Amy Baldwin).- Chapter 7. Say ?Yes, and?? to the Remix: A Practical Philosophical Approach to Meaning Making, Discovery, and Learning in Higher Education (Gwen Lowenheim).-Chapter 8. The Human Side of Mathematics: Using Improv as a Framework for Developing More Meaningful Mathematical Connections (Pedro Morales-Almazan).- Chapter 9. Teaching During the Pandemic: The Art of Creating Class Environments Full of Creativity, Performance, and Technology (Jorge Burciaga-Montoya).- Chapter 10. Creating New Performances of Teaching and Learning (Carrie Lobman).- Chapter 11. Co-creating With and In Lifespan Imaginative Play (Luke Perone).- Chapter 12. Brincadas Project: Playing Towards an Equitable and Just Society (Fernanda Coelho Liberali).- Chapter 13. The End Is in the Beginning - The Book Ensemble.