Unmaking Mimesis: Essays on Feminism and Theatre

by Diamond,Elin

• ISBN13: 9780415012287
• ISBN10: 0415012287
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1997-07-30
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

InUnmaking Mimesis, Elin Diamond interrogates the concept of mimesis in relation to feminism, theatre and performance. Diamond combines psychoanalytic, semiotic and materialist strategies with readings of selected plays by diverse writers such as Ibsen, Brecht, Aphra Behn, Caryl Churchill and Peggy Shaw. Through provocative readings of theatre, theory and feminist performance, Diamond demonstrates the continuing force of feminism and mimesis in critical thinking today. Table of Contents: Part One:Unmaking Mimesis: 1 Introduction; 2 Realism: Hysteria: Disruption in the Theater of Knowledge: i) Doleful Referents ii) Fallen Women: Medical Melodrama iii)Translation and the Hypnoid State iv) Realism's Hysteria v)Hysteria's Realism Part Two Gestic Feminist Criticism: 3 Brechtian Theory/Feminist Theory; 4 Gestus, Signature, Body in the Theater of Aphra Behn: i) The Apparatus ii) The Wife Thing iii) Disguise and Desire iv) Passionate Address/Gestric Undress v) Allegories ofAuthority; 5 Churchill's Plays: The Gestus of Invisibility 6 Mimesis and Identification: Kennedy's Theater: i) Funnyhouse of a Negro, The Owl Answers ii) Movie Star iii) Alexander Plays iv) People Who Led to My Plays 7 Performance and Temporality: Feminist Performance Art

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction	i
Part I Unmaking mimesis	3	(40)
1 Realism's hysteria: disruption in the theater of knowledge	3	(40)
Doleful referents	3	(5)
Fallen women: the medical melodrama	8	(6)
Translation and the hypnoid state	14	(11)
Realism's hysteria	25	(7)
Hysteria's realism	32	(6)
Before the referent...toward the gestus	38	(5)
Part II Gestic feminist criticism	43	(60)
2 Brechtian theory/feminist theory: toward a gestic feminist criticism	43	(13)
Gender, Verfremdungseffekt	45	(2)
Sexual (etc.) differences, the `not...but'	47	(2)
History, historicization	49	(1)
Spectator, body, historicization	50	(2)
Spectator, author, gestus	52	(2)
Gestic feminist criticism: Aphra Behn and Caryl Churchill	54	(2)
3 Gestus, signature, body in the theater of Aphra Behn	56	(27)
The apparatus	58	(4)
The wife thing	62	(3)
Disguise and desire	65	(8)
Passionate address/gestic undress	73	(5)
Allegories of authority: `I...hang out the sign of Angellica'	78	(5)
4 Caryl Churchill's plays: the gestus of invisibility	83	(20)
Fen	91	(4)
A Mouthful of Birds	95	(4)
Epilogue: Mad Forest and The Skriker: from gestic invisibility to gestic temporality	99	(4)
Part III Toward a feminist postmodern	103	(79)
Introduction: Mimesis in syncopated time	103	(39)
5 Identification and mimesis: the theater of Adrienne Kennedy	106	(3)
Fixity and transformation: Freud and others	109	(6)
Reading Adrienne Kennedy's Theater - I	115	(2)
Funnyhouse of a Negro, The Owl Answers	117	(8)
A Movie Star Has to Star in Black and White	125	(5)
Mimetic networks: from Freud to Freudenberger to Fanon in The Alexander Plays	130	(8)
People Who Led to My Plays	138	(4)
6 Performance and temporality: feminism, experience, mimetic transformation	142	(40)
Time out, time in	143	(1)
Brecht, Benjamin, and dialectical images	144	(4)
Exoteric experience and the performance apparatus	148	(4)
Stories and mimesis	152	(3)
Peggy Shaw, You're Just Like My Father	155	(7)
Interlude: autoeroticism	162	(2)
Robbie McCauley, Indian Blood	164	(8)
Deb Margolin, Carthieves! Joyrides!	172	(8)
Conclusion	180	(2)
Notes	182	(36)
Index	218