Critical Notice of Eric Mullis, Pragmatist Philosophy and Dance. Interdisciplinary Dance Research in the American South Palgrave Macmillan, 2019

This essay deals with Performance Philosophy which refers to an international network of researchers, practitioners, scholars, and activists who investigate new forms of thinking, performing and practicing philosophy through international conferences and events. Pragmatist Philosophy and Dance. Interdisciplinary Dance Research in the American South by Eric Mullis, a pragmatist philosopher and performance maker, is one of the most recent publications in this field. Most scholars dealing with dance from philosophical perspectives usually work in dance rather than philosophy departments, and their publications rarely appear in philosophy books and journals but certainly, dance philosophy’s potential is vast because dance itself is multifaceted enough to connect with many philosophy branches and has been practiced throughout history for different purposes from artistic to educational, from therapeutic to social, political, and religious. Most scholars dealing with dance from philosophical perspectives usually work in dance rather than philosophy departments, and their publications rarely appear in philosophy books and journals. Pragmatist Philosophy and Dance has the rare merit of making dance the subject of a study and to show how philosophy could play a significant role as cultural practice in contemporary culture, and shows how philosophy and dance artistry intertwine in a specific creative process. Last but not least, it demonstrates the potential of performance philosophy to bring a unique form of critical investigation to both academic and non-academic readerships. From this perspective, performance philosophy can play a crucial function in the context of our politically and culturally divided societies.