Publication Details

Abstract

One of the basic concerns of the philosophy and the humanities after the performative turn in the 20th century became thinking afresh about the status of the subject. How to conceive of subjectivity, if we abandon the essentialist idea of an autonomous, self-transparent, and rationalistic individual? The article investigates two different attitudes towards this situation: the stance of sacrifice and the ludic stance. In order to study the problem of the two stances coherently, the paper draws on the theatre practice of the 20th century and its understanding of the actor’s attitude to her role. It concludes that whereas the sacrificing attitude traps an individual in a vicious loop that does not allow for handling the new situation, the ludic subjectivity offers tools for developing effective strategies that not only allow for handling the human condition but even enable agents to profit from it and rejoice in it.