Performance and Cultural Politics

by Diamond,Elin

• ISBN13: 9780415127677
• ISBN10: 041512767X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1996-02-01
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Performance and Cultural Politicsgathers together some of the foremost scholars of performance studies to examine the historical and cultural territories of performance. "Culture" in the twentieth century, says ethnographer James Clifford, "is no longer an object to be described, neither is it a unified corpus of symbols and meanings that can be definitively interpreted. Culture is contested, temporal, emergent." The essays in this volume explore performance--encompassing theater, performance art, dance, and music--as a vital component of this hybrid, contested culture. The contributors to this landmark volume foucs on topics varying from Oscar Wilde to Eric Clapton; the Rose Theatre to the U.S. holocaust museums. They provide new interpretations of performance and its relation to issues of history, memory, mourning, racism, homophobia, and performativity. Performance artist Robbie McCauley concludes with a practitioner's perspective on art-making and politics whichoffers fresh insights into questions raised by other essays. Performance and Cultural Politicsis interdisciplinary, thought-provoking, and rich in new ideas. It is essential reading for students and scholars of performance. Contributors: Emily Apter, Herbert Blau, Ed Cohen, Lynda Hart, Peggy Phelan, Vivian Patraka, Philip Auslander, Susan Foster, Rebecca Schneider, Glenda Dicker/sun, Joseph Roach, Amy Robinson, Robbie McCauley.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	vii
Notes on contributors	ix
Introduction	1	(14)
Elin Diamond
Part I Re-sexing Culture: Stereotype, pose, and dildo
Acting Out Orientalism: Sapphic Theatricality in Turn-of-The-Century Paris	15	(20)
Emily Apter
Posing The Question: Wilde, Wit, and The Ways of Man	35	(13)
Ed Cohen
Doing It Anyway: Lesbian Sado-Masochism and Performance	48	(17)
Lynda Hart
Part II Grave Performances: The cultural politics of memory
Playing Dead in Stone, or, When is a Rose Not a Rose?	65	(24)
Peggy Phelan
Spectacles of Suffering: Performing Presence, Absence, and Historical Memory at U.S. Holocaust Museums	89	(19)
Vivian M. Patraka
Festivities and Jubilations on The Graves of The Dead: Sanctifying Sullied Space	108	(25)
Glenda Dickerlsun
Part III Moving/Seeing: Bodies and technologies
Pygmalion's No-Body and The Body of Dance	133	(24)
Susan Leigh Foster
After us The Savage Goddess: Feminist Performance Art of The Explicit Body Staged, Uneasily, Across Modernist Dreamscapes	157	(22)
Rebecca Schneider
Flat-Out Vision	179	(19)
Herbert Blau
Liveness: Performance and The Anxiety of Simulation	198	(21)
Philip Auslander
Part IV Identity Politics: Law and performance
Kinship, Intelligence, and Memory as Improvisation: Culture and Performance in New Orleans	219	(20)
Joseph Roach
Forms of Appearance of Value: Homer Plessy and The Politics of Privacy	239	(28)
Amy Robinson
Part V Performer/Performance
Thoughts on My Career, The Other Weapon, and Other Projects	267	(18)
Robbie McCauley
Index	285