Performing European Memories Trauma, Ethics, Politics

by Gluhovic, Milija

• ISBN13: 9780230297906
• ISBN10: 0230297900
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2013-04-26
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Performing European Memories: Trauma, Ethics, Politics explores the intersections between contemporary European theatre and performance, the interdisciplinary field of memory studies, and current preoccupations with the politics of memory in Europe. Asking whether a genuinely shared European memory is possible while addressing the dangers of a single homogenised European memory, this important book examines the contradictions, specificities, continuities and discontinuities in the European shared and unshared pasts as represented in the works of Harold Pinter, Tadeusz Kantor, and Heiner Müller, Andrzej Wajda, Artur Zmijewski and other European artists. Gluhovic shows different ways in which these artists engage with the traumatic experiences of the Holocaust, the Stalinist Gulags, colonialism, and imperialism, challenge their audiences' historical imagination, and renew their affective engagement with Europe's past.

Author Biography

Milija Gluhovic is Associate Professor of Theatre and Performance and Director of an Erasmus Mundus MA in International Performance Research at the University of Warwick, UK. His research interests include contemporary European theatre and performance, memory studies, and discourses of European identity, migrations and human rights. He is the co-editor (with Karen Fricker) of Performing the 'New' Europe: Identities, Feelings, and Politics in the Eurovision Song Contest (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: Theorising Europe and Recollection
2. History, Memory, and Trauma in Heiner Müller's Theatre
3. Contested Pasts and the Ethics of Remembrance in Tadeusz Kantor's 'Theatre of Death'
4. Postmemory, Vulnerability, Affect
5. Conclusion: European Memories and the Margins of Europe: Sarajevo Theatre Tragedy and Three Prayers for One Wish