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eBook
Price, Bronwen; Hinds, Hilary
Manchester University Press
, 2025
; English
; 236 Pages
This volume explores the disruptive effects of militarism, war and social unrest in early modern drama. Engaging with Simon Barker's seminal work on dramatic representations of war and militarism, contributors highlight what often lies hidden beneath the surface of martial narratives, treating them as formative interventions in contemporary discourses, whether in justifying war, excluding dissident voices or shaping cultural identities. Discussions include new examinations of militarism, the figure of the soldier and early modern theories of war in Shakespearean tragedy, history and comedy, alongside antimasque and dramatic satire by lesser-known playwrights. The essays investigate how ideas of war underpin emerging concepts of gender, leadership, marriage and the family, as well as the continuing mobilisation of Shakespearean drama in the context of modern armed conflict.
Price, Bronwen; Hinds, Hilary
Manchester University Press
, 2025
; English
; 236 Pages
This volume explores the disruptive effects of militarism, war and social unrest in early modern drama. Engaging with Simon Barker's seminal work on dramatic representations of war and militarism, contributors highlight what often lies hidden beneath the surface of martial narratives, treating them as formative interventions in contemporary discourses, whether in justifying war, excluding dissident voices or shaping cultural identities. Discussions include new examinations of militarism, the figure of the soldier and early modern theories of war in Shakespearean tragedy, history and comedy, alongside antimasque and dramatic satire by lesser-known playwrights. The essays investigate how ideas of war underpin emerging concepts of gender, leadership, marriage and the family, as well as the continuing mobilisation of Shakespearean drama in the context of modern armed conflict.
eBook
Social interaction and dramatic performance : staging conversation
Hazel, Spencer
Bloomsbury Academic
, 2025
; English
; 273 Pages
At the heart of the dramatic arts lies a single phenomenon: human social interaction. The crux of the practitioner's work involves knowing how interaction works: knowing what a pause does, or why a particular intonation contour changes a line from interrogative to accusative, or what goes into inferring something about a character. Social Interaction and Dramatic Performance uses case studies from dramatic performances and data from real-world interaction to present findings from interaction analytic research.
Over ten chapters, Spencer Hazel illuminates the nuances that shape our everyday interactions, demonstrating how practitioners of the dramatic arts seek to develop and construct authentic representations of interaction. This book also explores the processes by which these representations of interaction are produced through interaction: between actors, between actor and director and between others in the creative team. It offers insights into the intricate ways people organise their interactions, their social affairs and their institutions, providing a toolkit for students and practitioners of the performing arts to embed the finer details of social interaction in their crafting of dramatic performance.
Hazel, Spencer
Bloomsbury Academic
, 2025
; English
; 273 Pages
At the heart of the dramatic arts lies a single phenomenon: human social interaction. The crux of the practitioner's work involves knowing how interaction works: knowing what a pause does, or why a particular intonation contour changes a line from interrogative to accusative, or what goes into inferring something about a character. Social Interaction and Dramatic Performance uses case studies from dramatic performances and data from real-world interaction to present findings from interaction analytic research.
Over ten chapters, Spencer Hazel illuminates the nuances that shape our everyday interactions, demonstrating how practitioners of the dramatic arts seek to develop and construct authentic representations of interaction. This book also explores the processes by which these representations of interaction are produced through interaction: between actors, between actor and director and between others in the creative team. It offers insights into the intricate ways people organise their interactions, their social affairs and their institutions, providing a toolkit for students and practitioners of the performing arts to embed the finer details of social interaction in their crafting of dramatic performance.
eBook
Europe and the wolf : political variations on a musical figure
Nadal-Melsió, Sara
Zone Books
, 2025
; English
; 329 Pages
In this stunningly original book, Sara Nadal-Melsió explores how the work of several contemporary artists illuminates the current crisis of European universalist values amid the brutal realities of exclusion and policing of borders. The “wolf” is the name Baroque musicians gave to the dissonant sound produced in any attempt to temper and harmonize an instrument. Europe and the Wolf brings this musical figure to bear on contemporary aesthetic practices that respond to Europe’s ongoing social and political contradictions. Throughout, Nadal-Melsió understands Europe as a conceptual problem that often relies on harmonization as an organizing category. The “wolf” as an emblem of disharmony, incarnated in the stranger, the immigrant, or the refugee, originates in the Latin proverb “man is a wolf to man.” This longstanding phrase evokes the pervasive fear, and even hatred, of what is foreign, unknown, or beyond the borders of a community. The book follows the “wolf” in a series of relays between the musical, the visual, and the political, and through innovative readings of artworks—by, among others, Carles Santos, Pere Portabella, Allora&Calzadilla, and Anri Sala. Traversed by the musical, these artworks, as well as Nadal-Melsió’s writing, present unstable symbolic and material ensembles in an array of variations of political possibilities and impossibilities that evade institutions intolerant of uncertainty and wary of diversity.
Nadal-Melsió, Sara
Zone Books
, 2025
; English
; 329 Pages
In this stunningly original book, Sara Nadal-Melsió explores how the work of several contemporary artists illuminates the current crisis of European universalist values amid the brutal realities of exclusion and policing of borders. The “wolf” is the name Baroque musicians gave to the dissonant sound produced in any attempt to temper and harmonize an instrument. Europe and the Wolf brings this musical figure to bear on contemporary aesthetic practices that respond to Europe’s ongoing social and political contradictions. Throughout, Nadal-Melsió understands Europe as a conceptual problem that often relies on harmonization as an organizing category. The “wolf” as an emblem of disharmony, incarnated in the stranger, the immigrant, or the refugee, originates in the Latin proverb “man is a wolf to man.” This longstanding phrase evokes the pervasive fear, and even hatred, of what is foreign, unknown, or beyond the borders of a community. The book follows the “wolf” in a series of relays between the musical, the visual, and the political, and through innovative readings of artworks—by, among others, Carles Santos, Pere Portabella, Allora&Calzadilla, and Anri Sala. Traversed by the musical, these artworks, as well as Nadal-Melsió’s writing, present unstable symbolic and material ensembles in an array of variations of political possibilities and impossibilities that evade institutions intolerant of uncertainty and wary of diversity.
eBook
Butler, Alice; Osborne, Nell; White, Hilary
Manchester University Press
, 2025
; English
; 349 Pages
Gestures: A body of work is a cross-disciplinary collection of feminist approaches to ‘gesture’ that considers the term’s complex registers across embodied, aesthetic and political scenes. Attending to gestural movements, languages, feelings and communications, the book argues that gestures can unsettle gendered, sexed and racialised relations, norms and affects. Contributors activate the lens of gesture to offer innovative readings of art and literary works from the 1960s onwards and in transnational contexts. Experiments in art writing and autotheory reflect on the entanglement of the body, gesture and feminist practice. The book proposes that gesture be rethought as a mode of feminist practice that includes art, writing, performance and theory. Mixing disciplines, forms, genres and voices, these contributions and the book’s gestural structure offer a bold intervention into the conventions of critical writing.
Butler, Alice; Osborne, Nell; White, Hilary
Manchester University Press
, 2025
; English
; 349 Pages
Gestures: A body of work is a cross-disciplinary collection of feminist approaches to ‘gesture’ that considers the term’s complex registers across embodied, aesthetic and political scenes. Attending to gestural movements, languages, feelings and communications, the book argues that gestures can unsettle gendered, sexed and racialised relations, norms and affects. Contributors activate the lens of gesture to offer innovative readings of art and literary works from the 1960s onwards and in transnational contexts. Experiments in art writing and autotheory reflect on the entanglement of the body, gesture and feminist practice. The book proposes that gesture be rethought as a mode of feminist practice that includes art, writing, performance and theory. Mixing disciplines, forms, genres and voices, these contributions and the book’s gestural structure offer a bold intervention into the conventions of critical writing.
eBook
Sex on stage : performing the body politic
Carr, Alison J; Sally, Lynn
Bloomsbury Academic
, 2025
; English
; 241 Pages
This is the first collection of original essays, articles, and images from authors, activists, artists, and scholars that grapple with the explicit body and the staging of sex across multiple spaces – from burlesque to drag, to sex work, to traditional theatre.
Sex on Stage uncovers how gender and sexuality collide on stage in dynamic, dramatic, and thought-provoking ways. By taking a broad view of sex and the stage, this book tracks influences across the underground, marginalised, and the mainstream, from 'high' contemporary live art to the 'low' of entertainment.
Across these mediums, the staging of sex pushes against decorums of respectability, instead flaunting the body to shock, to entertain, to tell stories, and to display a new kind of gender expression. The subjects and contributors included in this collection inhabit their bodies-in fact, demand the agency of the body-in self-authored ways. Gender and sexuality here are performative, and what comes into being challenges traditional constructions of both femininity and sexuality.
Carr, Alison J; Sally, Lynn
Bloomsbury Academic
, 2025
; English
; 241 Pages
This is the first collection of original essays, articles, and images from authors, activists, artists, and scholars that grapple with the explicit body and the staging of sex across multiple spaces – from burlesque to drag, to sex work, to traditional theatre.
Sex on Stage uncovers how gender and sexuality collide on stage in dynamic, dramatic, and thought-provoking ways. By taking a broad view of sex and the stage, this book tracks influences across the underground, marginalised, and the mainstream, from 'high' contemporary live art to the 'low' of entertainment.
Across these mediums, the staging of sex pushes against decorums of respectability, instead flaunting the body to shock, to entertain, to tell stories, and to display a new kind of gender expression. The subjects and contributors included in this collection inhabit their bodies-in fact, demand the agency of the body-in self-authored ways. Gender and sexuality here are performative, and what comes into being challenges traditional constructions of both femininity and sexuality.
eBook
Theatre and the Israel-Palestine conflict : identity, resistance and contested narratives
Harras, Azza
I.B. Tauris
, 2025
; English
; 233 Pages
This book delves into the complex narratives surrounding the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian dispute through the unique lens of theatre. This ground-breaking exploration employs postcolonial theory to analyze a diverse array of theatrical works by Israeli, Palestinian, and Western playwrights. By juxtaposing portrayals of significant events such as the Nakba or the Israeli War of Independence, the Intifadas, and the experiences of diaspora and exile, Harras provides a nuanced examination of how these events are represented on stage. The book reveals the profound impact of language in constructing and contesting historical narratives and underscores theatre's role as a space for cultural critique and self-reflection. This comprehensive study offers new insights into the power of artistic expression to challenge historical dichotomies and encourage a deeper understanding of this enduring conflict. Essential for scholars of Postcolonial Studies, Middle East Studies, and the Performing Arts, this work invites readers to reconsider the conflict through the transformative lens of theatre.
Harras, Azza
I.B. Tauris
, 2025
; English
; 233 Pages
This book delves into the complex narratives surrounding the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian dispute through the unique lens of theatre. This ground-breaking exploration employs postcolonial theory to analyze a diverse array of theatrical works by Israeli, Palestinian, and Western playwrights. By juxtaposing portrayals of significant events such as the Nakba or the Israeli War of Independence, the Intifadas, and the experiences of diaspora and exile, Harras provides a nuanced examination of how these events are represented on stage. The book reveals the profound impact of language in constructing and contesting historical narratives and underscores theatre's role as a space for cultural critique and self-reflection. This comprehensive study offers new insights into the power of artistic expression to challenge historical dichotomies and encourage a deeper understanding of this enduring conflict. Essential for scholars of Postcolonial Studies, Middle East Studies, and the Performing Arts, this work invites readers to reconsider the conflict through the transformative lens of theatre.
eBook
Erotic resistance : the struggle for the soul of San Francisco
Otalvaro-Hormillosa, Gigi
University of California Press
, 2024
; English
; 256 Pages
Erotic Resistance celebrates the erotic performance cultures that have shaped San Francisco. It preserves the memory of the city's bohemian past and its essential role in the development of American adult entertainment by highlighting the contributions of women of color, queer women, and trans women who were instrumental in the city's labor history, as well as its LGBT and sex workers' rights movements. In the 1960s, topless entertainment became legal in the city for the first time in the US, though cross-dressing continued to be criminalized. In the 1990s, stripper-artist-activists led the first successful class action lawsuits and efforts to unionize. Gigi Otálvaro-Hormillosa uses visual and performance analysis, historiography, and ethnographic research, including participant observation as both performer and spectator and interviews with legendary burlesquers and strippers, to share this remarkable story.
Otalvaro-Hormillosa, Gigi
University of California Press
, 2024
; English
; 256 Pages
Erotic Resistance celebrates the erotic performance cultures that have shaped San Francisco. It preserves the memory of the city's bohemian past and its essential role in the development of American adult entertainment by highlighting the contributions of women of color, queer women, and trans women who were instrumental in the city's labor history, as well as its LGBT and sex workers' rights movements. In the 1960s, topless entertainment became legal in the city for the first time in the US, though cross-dressing continued to be criminalized. In the 1990s, stripper-artist-activists led the first successful class action lawsuits and efforts to unionize. Gigi Otálvaro-Hormillosa uses visual and performance analysis, historiography, and ethnographic research, including participant observation as both performer and spectator and interviews with legendary burlesquers and strippers, to share this remarkable story.
eBook
Performative monuments: the rematerialisation of public art
Widrich, Mechtild
Manchester University Press
, 2024
; English
; 241 Pages
This book answers one of the most puzzling questions in contemporary art: how did performance artists of the ‘60s and ‘70s, famous for their opposition both to lasting art and the political establishment, become the foremost monument builders of the ‘80s, ‘90s and today? Not by selling out, nor by making self-undermining monuments. This book argues that the centrality of performance to monuments and indeed public art in general rests not on its ephemerality or anti-authoritarian rhetoric, but on its power to build interpersonal bonds both personal and social. Specifically, the survival of body art in photographs that cross time and space to meet new audiences makes it literally into a monument.
The argument of the book spans art in Austria, the former Yugoslavia, and Germany: Valie Export, Peter Weibel and the Viennese Actionists (working in Austria and abroad), Marina Abramovic, Sanja Ivecovic and Braco Dimitrijevic (working in Yugoslavia and abroad), and Joseph Beuys and Jochen Gerz (working in Germany and abroad). These artists began by critiquing monumentality in authoritarian public space, and expanded the models developed on the streets of Vienna, Munich, Rome, Belgrade and Zagreb to participatory monuments that delegate political authority to the audience.
Readers interested in contemporary art, politics, photography and performance will find in this book new facts and arguments for their interconnection.
Widrich, Mechtild
Manchester University Press
, 2024
; English
; 241 Pages
This book answers one of the most puzzling questions in contemporary art: how did performance artists of the ‘60s and ‘70s, famous for their opposition both to lasting art and the political establishment, become the foremost monument builders of the ‘80s, ‘90s and today? Not by selling out, nor by making self-undermining monuments. This book argues that the centrality of performance to monuments and indeed public art in general rests not on its ephemerality or anti-authoritarian rhetoric, but on its power to build interpersonal bonds both personal and social. Specifically, the survival of body art in photographs that cross time and space to meet new audiences makes it literally into a monument.
The argument of the book spans art in Austria, the former Yugoslavia, and Germany: Valie Export, Peter Weibel and the Viennese Actionists (working in Austria and abroad), Marina Abramovic, Sanja Ivecovic and Braco Dimitrijevic (working in Yugoslavia and abroad), and Joseph Beuys and Jochen Gerz (working in Germany and abroad). These artists began by critiquing monumentality in authoritarian public space, and expanded the models developed on the streets of Vienna, Munich, Rome, Belgrade and Zagreb to participatory monuments that delegate political authority to the audience.
Readers interested in contemporary art, politics, photography and performance will find in this book new facts and arguments for their interconnection.
eBook
Encounters in theatre and liberature: B.S. Johnson and Zenkasi
Biela, Katarzyna
Jagiellonian University Press
, 2024
; English
; 317 Pages
In his essay-manifesto of 1999, Zenon Fajfer defined liberature – a literary genre encompassing works whose authors intentionally design the shape of the book, so that it matches their textual message. Extending beyond the growing literary research on liberature, this book presents the theatrical contexts of the genre. Grounded in original archival research, it discusses the theatre practice of Zenon Fajfer and Katarzyna Bazarnik (Zenkasi), as well as the post-war British avant-garde author, B.S. Johnson, whom they see as as a liberatic author avant la lettre. Tracking the connections between their work work in different media, the monograph considers how their theatrical experience may be related to the invention of unconventional aesthetic solutions in literature.
Biela, Katarzyna
Jagiellonian University Press
, 2024
; English
; 317 Pages
In his essay-manifesto of 1999, Zenon Fajfer defined liberature – a literary genre encompassing works whose authors intentionally design the shape of the book, so that it matches their textual message. Extending beyond the growing literary research on liberature, this book presents the theatrical contexts of the genre. Grounded in original archival research, it discusses the theatre practice of Zenon Fajfer and Katarzyna Bazarnik (Zenkasi), as well as the post-war British avant-garde author, B.S. Johnson, whom they see as as a liberatic author avant la lettre. Tracking the connections between their work work in different media, the monograph considers how their theatrical experience may be related to the invention of unconventional aesthetic solutions in literature.
eBook
Probabilistic aesthetics of the avant-gardes : predictive arts
Wojnowski, Konrad
Edinburgh University Press
, 2024
; English
; 256 Pages
An inquiry into probabilistic modes of sensing and making sense of reality developed by avant-garde artists
- Situates the notion of probability in the context of European and American art to reveal the anthropological and existential importance of this epistemic shift
- Supplements existing literature about the probabilistic revolution in sciences with a much-needed inquiry into its wider cultural resonance
- Connects highly abstract theoretical considerations – often considered beyond the scope of visual representation – with tangible and perceptible ways of experiencing reality
- Constitutes an important step toward coming to terms with the new techno-cultural reality of living amid predictive engines in the age of "planetary-scale computation"
Konrad Wojnowski argues that the probabilistic revolution, while recognized and investigated by historians of science, has been largely overlooked in the field of art. He shows that the idea that one can perceive and comprehend reality in terms of shifting probabilities was clearly present in the work of many avant-garde artists working in Europe and North America. Exploring the probabilistic aspects of the avant-garde allows him to establish a dialogue between scientific and artistic forms of knowledge. This is particularly important now, as we become surrounded by probabilistic AIs and while the very nature of cognition is being reinterpreted as inherently probabilistic.
Wojnowski, Konrad
Edinburgh University Press
, 2024
; English
; 256 Pages
An inquiry into probabilistic modes of sensing and making sense of reality developed by avant-garde artists
- Situates the notion of probability in the context of European and American art to reveal the anthropological and existential importance of this epistemic shift
- Supplements existing literature about the probabilistic revolution in sciences with a much-needed inquiry into its wider cultural resonance
- Connects highly abstract theoretical considerations – often considered beyond the scope of visual representation – with tangible and perceptible ways of experiencing reality
- Constitutes an important step toward coming to terms with the new techno-cultural reality of living amid predictive engines in the age of "planetary-scale computation"
Konrad Wojnowski argues that the probabilistic revolution, while recognized and investigated by historians of science, has been largely overlooked in the field of art. He shows that the idea that one can perceive and comprehend reality in terms of shifting probabilities was clearly present in the work of many avant-garde artists working in Europe and North America. Exploring the probabilistic aspects of the avant-garde allows him to establish a dialogue between scientific and artistic forms of knowledge. This is particularly important now, as we become surrounded by probabilistic AIs and while the very nature of cognition is being reinterpreted as inherently probabilistic.
