Drama/Theatre/Performance

by Wallis; Mick

• ISBN13: 9780415234948
• ISBN10: 0415234948
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2004-11-04
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

What should we call the study of the performing arts? 'Drama', 'theatre' and 'performance' each identify with a different tradition of thought and offer different possibilities to the student or practitioner. This book examines the history and use of the terms 'Drama', 'theatre' and performance' and investigates the different philosophies, politics, languages and institutions with which they are associated. Simon Shepherd and Mick Wallis: *Analyse attitudes to drama, theatre and performance at different historical junctures *Trace a range of political interventions into the field(s) *Explore and contextualise the institutionalisation of drama as a university subject, then the emergence of performance' as practice, theory and academic discipline *Guide readers through major approaches to drama, theatre and performance, from theatre history to theories of play and presence *Discuss crucial terms such as action, alienation, catharsis, character, empathy,interculturalism, mimesis, presence or representation in a substantial 'keywords' section. Continually linking their analysis to wider cultural concerns, the authors here offer the most wide-ranging and authoritative guide available to a vibrant, fast-moving field and its hotly contested debates.

Author Biography

Mick Wallis is Professor of Performance and Culture at the University of Leeds.

Table of Contents

SERIES EDITOR'S PREFACE	viii
Introduction	1	(4)
PART ONE: A GENEALOGY	5	(160)
1 Drama and Theatre as University Subjects	7	(8)
2 Drama and the Literary Tradition	15	(20)
Mingling Kings and Crowns: Sidney	15	(2)
Nature at a Higher Pitch: Dryden	17	(2)
The Stage is only a Stage: Johnson	19	(1)
Drama and Order: Sidney, Dryden, Johnson	20	(2)
Confusion of the Natural Order of Things: Coleridge	22	(1)
Imitation: an Interlude	23	(2)
Modern Tragedy: Bradley	25	(2)
Dramatic Poems: Knights and New Criticism	27	(2)
Human Needs and Satisfactions: Eliot	29	(2)
Embodying History and Presence: Williams	31	(4)
3 History, Theatre, Society	35	(21)
Drama, Theatre and History	35	(8)
Drama and Society	43	(13)
4 The Essence of Drama	56	(14)
The Nature and Origins of Drama	56	(2)
Drama's Origin and Human Nature	58	(2)
Drama's Origin and Human Organisation	60	(1)
Nietzsche	61	(2)
Artaud	63	(2)
Drama's Psychoanalytic Truth	65	(5)
5 Women, Theatre and the Ethics of the Academy	70	(12)
Feminism and the Discipline of Theatre Studies	70	(2)
Feminism, Tragedy and the Patriarchal Academy	72	(1)
Feminist Ethics and Positionality	73	(3)
Feminist Communities, Textuality and Transcendence	76	(2)
Technologies of Gender and the Feminist Subject	78	(2)
Marked and Un(re)marked	80	(2)
6 Performance, Art and the Avant Garde	82	(20)
Narrative Definitions of Performance	82	(6)
The Question of Critique	88	(2)
Fluxus and Situationism: Keys to Another Narrative	90	(6)
Western Marxism and After	96	(6)
7 The Rise of Performance Studies	102	(14)
The First Performance Studies Department	102	(2)
Schechner and the Ethics of Performance Studies	104	(3)
Performance Studies and Academic Imperialism	107	(3)
Historicising the Emergence of Performance Studies: The Liminal Norm	110	(2)
A General Theory of Performance	112	(4)
8 Performance Studies: Some Basic Concepts	116	(18)
Aesthetic and Social Drama	116	(2)
Ritual	118	(4)
Play	122	(5)
Theatre Anthropology	127	(3)
Cultural Performance	130	(4)
9 Postmodernism and Performance	134	(17)
Minimalism, Theatricality and the Authority of Art	135	(2)
Premonitions of Postmodern Performance	137	(2)
Undecidability, Avant Gardes and the Recuperation of modernism	139	(1)
Formalism, Feminism and Performance	140	(1)
Three Systems of Undecidability	141	(2)
Practice, Criticism and the Body	143	(2)
The Body and Postmodernity	145	(3)
Defining Fields: Art Versus Performance	148	(1)
Radicalism, Narcissism and Performing Theory	149	(2)
10 Recent Mappings of Drama-Theatre-Performance	151	(14)
Performance Versus Theatre	151	(3)
Drama, Theatre, Performance...Script and Text	154	(6)
Drama Versus Theatre	160	(5)
PART TWO: KEYWORDS	165	(76)
Action	167	(5)
Aleatory	172	(3)
Catharsis	175	(4)
Character, mask, person	179	(6)
Defamiliarisation and alienation	185	(6)
Embodiment	191	(4)
Empathy	195	(3)
Interculturalism	198	(9)
Kinaesthetic	207	(5)
Mimesis	212	(8)
Performativity	220	(5)
Presence and representation	225	(11)
Semiotics and phenomenology	236	(5)
BIBLIOGRAPHY	241	(13)
INDEX	254