Why do people act? Why are other people drawn to watch them? How is acting as a performing art related to role-playing outside the theater? As the first philosophical study devoted to acting, Acts: Theater, Philosophy, and the Performing Selfsheds light on some of the more evasive aspects of the acting experience— such as the import of the actor''s voice, the ethical unease sometimes felt while embodying particular sequences, and the meaning of inspiration. Tzachi Zamir explores acting’s relationship to everyday role-playing through a surprising range of examples of “lived acting,” including pornography, masochism, and eating disorders. By unearthing the deeper mobilizing structures that underlie dissimilar forms of staged and non-staged role-playing, Acts offers a multi-layered meditation on the percolation from acting to life.

The book engages questions of theatrical inspiration, the actor’s “energy,” the difference between acting and pretending, the special role of repetition as part of live acting, the audience and its attraction to acting, and the unique significance of the actor’s voice. It examines the embodied nature of the actor’s animation of a fiction, the breakdown of the distinction between what one acts and who one is, and the transition from what one performs into who one is, creating an interdisciplinary meditation on the relationship between life and acting.

In Just Literature, Tzachi Zamir introduces the idea of ''philosophical criticism'' as an innovative approach to interpreting literary texts.

Throughout the book, Zamir uses the theme of justice as a case study for this new critical approach. By using ‘philosophical criticism’, Zamir posits that a stronger grasp of the idea of justice can increase one’s understanding of literature, and thus its value. He offers philosophical readings of works by Dante, Shakespeare, Toni Morrison, J. M. Coetzee and Philip Roth to explore the relationship between aesthetic and epistemic value. Zamir argues that, while literature and philosophy remain separate entities, examining the two in tandem may help inform the study of both.

Offering an inventive twist on an established dynamic, this book is essential reading for any student or scholar of literature or philosophy.

In Just Literature, Tzachi Zamir introduces the idea of ''philosophical criticism'' as an innovative approach to interpreting literary texts.

Throughout the book, Zamir uses the theme of justice as a case study for this new critical approach. By using ‘philosophical criticism’, Zamir posits that a stronger grasp of the idea of justice can increase one’s understanding of literature, and thus its value. He offers philosophical readings of works by Dante, Shakespeare, Toni Morrison, J. M. Coetzee and Philip Roth to explore the relationship between aesthetic and epistemic value. Zamir argues that, while literature and philosophy remain separate entities, examining the two in tandem may help inform the study of both.

Offering an inventive twist on an established dynamic, this book is essential reading for any student or scholar of literature or philosophy.

Hamlet tells Horatio that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in his philosophy. In Double Vision, philosopher and literary critic Tzachi Zamir argues that there are more things in Hamlet than are dreamt of--or at least conceded--by most philosophers. Making an original and persuasive case for the philosophical value of literature, Zamir suggests that certain important philosophical insights can be gained only through literature. But such insights cannot be reached if literature is deployed merely as an aesthetic sugaring of a conceptual pill. Philosophical knowledge is not opposed to, but is consonant with, the literariness of literature. By focusing on the experience of reading literature as literature and not philosophy, Zamir sets a theoretical framework for a philosophically oriented literary criticism that will appeal both to philosophers and literary critics. Double Vision is concerned with the philosophical understanding induced by the aesthetic experience of literature. Literary works can function as credible philosophical arguments--not ones in which claims are conclusively demonstrated, but in which claims are made plausible. Such claims, Zamir argues, are embedded within an experiential structure that is itself a crucial dimension of knowing. Developing an account of literature''s relation to knowledge, morality, and rhetoric, and advancing philosophical-literary readings of Richard III, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, Antony and Cleopatra, Hamlet, and King Lear, Zamir shows how his approach can open up familiar texts in surprising and rewarding ways.

Why do people act? Why are other people drawn to watch them? How is acting as a performing art related to role-playing outside the theater? As the first philosophical study devoted to acting, Acts: Theater, Philosophy, and the Performing Selfsheds light on some of the more evasive aspects of the acting experience— such as the import of the actor''s voice, the ethical unease sometimes felt while embodying particular sequences, and the meaning of inspiration. Tzachi Zamir explores acting’s relationship to everyday role-playing through a surprising range of examples of “lived acting,” including pornography, masochism, and eating disorders. By unearthing the deeper mobilizing structures that underlie dissimilar forms of staged and non-staged role-playing, Acts offers a multi-layered meditation on the percolation from acting to life.

The book engages questions of theatrical inspiration, the actor’s “energy,” the difference between acting and pretending, the special role of repetition as part of live acting, the audience and its attraction to acting, and the unique significance of the actor’s voice. It examines the embodied nature of the actor’s animation of a fiction, the breakdown of the distinction between what one acts and who one is, and the transition from what one performs into who one is, creating an interdisciplinary meditation on the relationship between life and acting.

In Just Literature, Tzachi Zamir introduces the idea of ''philosophical criticism'' as an innovative approach to interpreting literary texts.

Throughout the book, Zamir uses the theme of justice as a case study for this new critical approach. By using ‘philosophical criticism’, Zamir posits that a stronger grasp of the idea of justice can increase one’s understanding of literature, and thus its value. He offers philosophical readings of works by Dante, Shakespeare, Toni Morrison, J. M. Coetzee and Philip Roth to explore the relationship between aesthetic and epistemic value. Zamir argues that, while literature and philosophy remain separate entities, examining the two in tandem may help inform the study of both.

Offering an inventive twist on an established dynamic, this book is essential reading for any student or scholar of literature or philosophy.

In Just Literature, Tzachi Zamir introduces the idea of ''philosophical criticism'' as an innovative approach to interpreting literary texts.

Throughout the book, Zamir uses the theme of justice as a case study for this new critical approach. By using ‘philosophical criticism’, Zamir posits that a stronger grasp of the idea of justice can increase one’s understanding of literature, and thus its value. He offers philosophical readings of works by Dante, Shakespeare, Toni Morrison, J. M. Coetzee and Philip Roth to explore the relationship between aesthetic and epistemic value. Zamir argues that, while literature and philosophy remain separate entities, examining the two in tandem may help inform the study of both.

Offering an inventive twist on an established dynamic, this book is essential reading for any student or scholar of literature or philosophy.

Hamlet tells Horatio that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in his philosophy. In Double Vision, philosopher and literary critic Tzachi Zamir argues that there are more things in Hamlet than are dreamt of--or at least conceded--by most philosophers. Making an original and persuasive case for the philosophical value of literature, Zamir suggests that certain important philosophical insights can be gained only through literature. But such insights cannot be reached if literature is deployed merely as an aesthetic sugaring of a conceptual pill. Philosophical knowledge is not opposed to, but is consonant with, the literariness of literature. By focusing on the experience of reading literature as literature and not philosophy, Zamir sets a theoretical framework for a philosophically oriented literary criticism that will appeal both to philosophers and literary critics. Double Vision is concerned with the philosophical understanding induced by the aesthetic experience of literature. Literary works can function as credible philosophical arguments--not ones in which claims are conclusively demonstrated, but in which claims are made plausible. Such claims, Zamir argues, are embedded within an experiential structure that is itself a crucial dimension of knowing. Developing an account of literature''s relation to knowledge, morality, and rhetoric, and advancing philosophical-literary readings of Richard III, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, Antony and Cleopatra, Hamlet, and King Lear, Zamir shows how his approach can open up familiar texts in surprising and rewarding ways.