The course aims to encourage the students understand the way in which specific philosophers of the 20th century have construed drama and a series of issues concerning dramatic performance and representation. The students will explore and reflect on the approaches of philosophers such as Sartre, Ricoeur and Derrida, among others, by studying both primary and secondary texts. In this way, the students will have an overview of significant contemporary interpretations of drama in the context of philosophical strands such as existentialism, hermeneutics, critical theory and deconstruction.

After the successful completion of the course, the students:

• Will become familiar with the main developments in the philosophy of theatre in the 20th century;
• Will be able to understand and evaluate the arguments of the philosophers and thinkers studied on the course;
• Will be able to identify other relevant texts of the 20th c., by philosophers or theatre theorists, to understand them autonomously and to reflect on them;
• Will be able to compare and assess the arguments formulated in current debates on drama and theatrical practice;