Description:
This volume brings together important work at the interstection of politics and performance studies. While the languages of theatre and performance have long been deployed by other disciplines such as psychology (Freud's primal 'scene'), sociology (Goffman's 'backstage'), and politics (politicians 'play' to the public, stage debates), this metaphorical attribution has seldom been taken seriously and pursued systematically to discover the actual nature of the relationship between performance as a set of behavioural practices and the forms and the transactions of these other realms.
Review Quotes:
Through a compelling interdisciplinary collaboration the authors of this book advance a new and radical political grammar; one that merges politics and performance to confront the widespread disillusion with conventional channels of democratic participation.
Roland Bleiker, Professor of International Relations, University of Queensland, Australia.
A fine collection of perceptive interventions into current debates at the intersection of performance and politics. It offers a distinctive combination of material, spatial and rhetorical analysis that will be vital reading for scholars and students in politics and performance studies.
Nicholas Ridout, Queen Mary University of London, UK.