Murder by Accident

by Enders, Jody

• ISBN13: 9780226207834
• ISBN10: 0226207838
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-06-01
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

Over fifty years ago, it became unfashionableeven forbiddenfor students of literature to talk about an author's intentions for a given work. InMurder by Accident, Jody Enders boldly resurrects the long-disgraced concept of intentionality, especially as it relates to the theater. Drawing on four fascinating medieval events in which a theatrical performance precipitated deadly consequences, Enders contends that the marginalization of intention in critical discourse is a mirror for the marginalizationand misunderstandingof theater.Murder by Accidentrevisits the legal, moral, ethical, and aesthetic limits of the living arts of the past, pairing them with examples from the present, whether they be reality television, snuff films, the "accidental" live broadcast of a suicide on a Los Angeles freeway, or an actor who jokingly fired a stage revolver at his temple, causing his eventual death. This book will force scholars and students to rethink their assumptions about theory, intention, and performance, both past and present.

Author Biography

Jody Enders is professor of French and theater at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is the author of three books, including Death by Drama and Other Medieval Urban Legends, also published by the University of Chicago Press.

 

 

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
List of Abbreviations	p. xi
Mise en Scène	p. xv
Introduction: Doing Theater Justice	p. 1
Back to the Medieval Future
Behind the Seen: All Hell Breaks Loose	p. 29
The Final Run-Through	p. 47
Fear of Imminence and Virtual Ethics: Staging Rape in the Middle Ages	p. 67
Killing Himself By Accident: Of Broken Frames, Mimetic Blindness, and a Dance of Death	p. 89
Entr'Acte: This Fallacy Which Is Not One	p. 109
The Theater and Its Trouble
The Theatrical Contract	p. 123
In Flagrante Theatro	p. 143
Theater Nullification	p. 163
Talk-Back: Black Box and Idiot Box	p. 185
Appendix: Original Documents in French and Latin	p. 197
Notes	p. 209
Works Cited	p. 249
Index	p. 275
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.