This book stages a timely discussion about the centrality of identity politics to theatre and performance studies. It acknowledges the important close relationship between the discourses and practices historically while maintaining that theatre and performance can enlighten ways of being with others that are not limited by conventional identitarian languages. The essays engage contemporary theatre and performance practices that pose challenging questions about identity, as well as subjecti...

Theatre and Performance in Digital Culture examines the recent history of advanced technologies, including new media, virtual environments, weapons systems and medical innovation, and considers how theatre, performance and culture at large have evolved within those systems.The book examines the two Iraq wars, 9/11 and the War on Terror through the lens of performance studies, and, drawing on the writings of Giorgio Agamben, Alain Badiou and Martin Heidegger, alongside the ...

Postmodernism has been a buzzword in contemporary society for the last decade. But how can it be defined? In this Very Short Introduction Christopher Butler challenges and explores the key ideas of postmodernists, and their engagement with theory, literature, the visual arts, film, architecture, and music. He treats artists, intellectuals, critics, and social scientists 'as if they were all members of a loosely constituted and quarrelsome political party' - a party which includes such memb...

Understand Postmodernism is an indispensable guide to this sometimes challenging domain. Using contemporary examples to further your understanding, it takes a broad look at theorists in a range of disciplines. Whether you're encountering postmodernism for the first time, or you need a quick reference to support your studies, this guide offers a comprehensive introduction to the key ideas in this thought-provoking philosophy.NOT GOT MUCH TIME?One, five and ten-minute introdu...

French philosopher Gilles Deleuze is known as a thinker of creation, joyous affirmation, and rhizomatic assemblages. In this short book, Andrew Culp polemically argues that this once-radical canon of joy has lost its resistance to the present. Concepts created to defeat capitalism have been recycled into business mantras that joyously affirm “Power is vertical; potential is horizontal!”Culp recovers the Deleuze’s forgotten negativity. He unsettles the prevailing interpretation thro...

Archaeologies of Presence is a brilliant exploration of how the performance of presence can be understood through the relationships between performance theory and archaeological thinking. Drawing together carefully commissioned contributions by leading international scholars and artists, this radical new work poses a number of essential questions:What are the principle signifiers of theatrical presence?How is presence achieved through th...

This revolutionary introductory performance studies coursebook brings together classic texts in critical theory and shows how these texts can be used in the analysis of performance. The editors put their texts to work in examining such key topics as: * decoding the sign * the politics of performance * the politics of gender and sexual identity * performing ethnicity * the performing body * the space of performance * audience and spectatorship * the borders of performance. Each reading is c...

This forward-thinking collection brings together over sixty essays that invoke images to summon, interpret, and argue with visual studies and its neighboring fields such as art history, media studies, visual anthropology, critical theory, cultural studies, and aesthetics. The product of a multi-year collaboration between graduate students from around the world, spearheaded by James Elkins, this one-of-a-kind anthology is a truly international, interdisciplinary point of entry into cutting-...

Conversant in contemporary theory and architectural history, Stan Allen argues that concepts in architecture are not imported from other disciplines, but emerge through the materials and procedures of architectural practice itself. Drawing on his own experience as a working architect, he examines the ways in which the tools available to the architect affect the design and production of buildings.This second edition includes revised essays together with previously unpublished work. ...

Looking afresh at the implications of Jacques Derrida’s thinking for architecture, this book simplifies his ideas in a clear, concise way. Derrida‘s treatment of key philosophical texts has been labelled as "deconstruction," a term that resonates with architecture. Although his main focus is language, his thinking has been applied by architectural theorists widely.As well as a review of Derrida’s interaction with architecture, this book is also a careful consideration of the implic...

Theory/Theatre: An Introduction provides a unique and engaging introduction to literary theory as it relates to theatre and performance. Mark Fortier lucidly examines current theoretical approaches, from semiotics, poststructuralism, to cultural materialism, postcolonial studies and feminist theory.Drawing upon examples from Shakespeare and Aphra Behn, to Chekhov, Artaud, Cixous and Churchill, the author examines the specific realities of theatre in order to come to a rich...

Almost thirty years ago, W. J. T. Mitchell's Iconology helped launch the interdisciplinary study of visual media, now a central feature of the humanities. Along with his subsequent Picture Theory and What Do Pictures Want?, Mitchell's now-classic work introduced such ideas as the pictorial turn, the image/picture distinction, the metapicture, and the biopicture. These key concepts imply an approach to images as true objects of investigation—an "image science."