Bellingham, Washington, United States of America
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    The Paradox of Onstage Emotion
    British Journal of Aesthetics 54 (3): 357-369. 2014.
    I develop a paradox regarding the emotional experiences of theatrical actors, which I call the ‘paradox of onstage emotion’. Many actors tell us that they experience genuine emotions while performing fictional plays: they grow angry, sad, joyful, etc., as befits their characters’ circumstances. Yet, they are not their characters and are not actually in those characters’ circumstances. Intuitively, it would seem those actors cannot have emotions befitting their characters’ circumstances rather th…Read more