Description: With his customary wit and an acupuncturist's knack for exerting philosophical pressure on the most banal formulae of consumer society, Sam Weber outlines a reading of theater as a place, a juncture, never fully inhabited or vacated by its great theorists (as varied as Plato, Sophocles, Kierkegaard, and Benjamin). The transition from 'theater' to 'media' is made by an excavation of long-submerged metaphors and a recovery of the many meanings of 'acting.' Sharp, dramatic in its own right, and rich in implications, this book is entirely 'in character.'-Haun Saussy, Yale University
Brief description: Samuel Weber is Avalon Professor of Comparative Literature at Northwestern University and Director of Northwestern's Paris Program in Critical Theory. He is the author of numerous books, including The Legend of Freud, Institution and Interpretation, Mass Medianras: Form, Technics, Media, Theatricality as Medium, and Targets of Opportunity: On the Militarization of Thinking. (Fordham)
Review Quotes: "With his customary wit and an acupuncturist's knack for exerting philosophical pressure on the most banal formulae of consumer society ('home theater, ' 'casting, ' 'the commercial break, ' 'Stay with us!'), Sam Weber outlines a reading of theater as a place, a juncture, never fully inhabited or vacated by its great theorists (as varied as Plato, Sophocles, Kierkegaard, and Benjamin). The transition from 'theater' to 'media' is made by an excavation of long-submerged metaphors and a recovery of the many meanings of 'acting.' Sharp, dramatic in its own right, and rich in implications, this book is entirely 'in character.'"-------Haun Saussy, Yale University