Foucault’S Theatres
Tony Fisher editor Kélina Gotman editor
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Manchester University Press
Published:29th Nov '19
Should be back in stock very soon
The volume contributes to a new articulation of theatre and performance studies via Foucault’s critical thought. With cutting edge studies by established and emerging writers in areas such as dramaturgy, film, music, cultural history and journalism, the volume aims to be accessible for both experienced researchers and advanced students encountering Foucault’s work for the first time. The introduction sets out a thorough and informative assessment of Foucault’s relevance to theatre and performance studies and to our present cultural moment – it rereads his profound engagement with questions of truth, power and politics, in light of previously unknown writings and lectures set in relation to current political and cultural concerns. Unique to this volume is the discovery of a ‘theatrical’ Foucault - the profound affinity of his thinking with questions of performativity. This discovery makes accessible the ‘performance turn’ to readers of Foucault, while opening up ways of reading Foucault’s oeuvre ‘theatrically’.
This book comes at a time when Foucault’s concerns with power, truth and knowledge could not be more pressing. So the focus here is on Foucault as a theatrical thinker. Taking the philosopher ‘at his word’, essays deploy the tropes and optics of theatre to examine Foucault’s own methods and the practices of governance and workings of power he made it his life’s work to engage with. Demonstrating different ways of responding to the question that underpinned so much of Foucault’s project: ‘What are the practices that permit the daily work of desubjugation?’ the possibilities voiced here could not be more pertinent; a fortification against the perils of the day.
Jane Rendell, Professor of Critical Spatial Practice, The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL.
ISBN: 9781526132062
Dimensions: 234mm x 156mm x 16mm
Weight: unknown
264 pages