Description
Book SynopsisJacques Rancière has been hugely influential in the field of political philosophy and aesthetics. This edited collection is the first to investigate the points of contact between the work of Rancière and the field of theatre and performance studies. Recent scholarly works in this discipline have drawn upon concepts from Rancière’s writing, from theatrocracy to emancipated spectators, to investigate problems of audience, participation, politics and aesthetics. Before these concepts and critical tools peel away from the works through which they emerged, this book seeks a detailed critical assessment of the works themselves and their implications for theatre and performance studies. The collection examines the critical and analytical interventions that have been made to date and looks forward towards challenges to the future uses of Rancière’s work in performance and theatre studies. It also considers a wide range of performance work, from a performance for the residents of a Victorian workhouse to the activist performances of Liberate Tate. This collection includes work by ten scholars and is an essential resource for researchers and academics working in areas of performance and aesthetics, performance and activism, and performance and philosophy.
Trade ReviewAlthough a decade has passed since the English publication of the Emancipated Spectator, Rancière’s thought has lost none of its power to unsettle preconceptions regarding art and politics. Fryer and Conroy's timely volume proves the point. Its judicious selection of essays probe the potentialities and – yes – frustrations for theatre and performance scholars engaging with the dissensus at the heart of Rancière’s project.
-- Tony Fisher, reader in theatre and philosophy, Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London
This timely collection of new essays provides a fascinating survey of the work of Jacques Rancière and its impact on cutting-edge thinking in theatre and performance studies. In a series of provocative and inspiring engagements, theatre and performance are offered here as sites for destabilising the hierarchies of expertise and experience, exploding myths of the passive spectator, and framing some of the most urgent political questions of our time.
-- Sophie Nield, senior lecturer in drama, Royal Holloway, University of London
Table of ContentsIntroduction
NIC FRYER - Rancière’s Theatrocracy Within and Beyond the Theatre
Section 1: Aesthetics and Politics, Politics and Aesthetics
1. RYAN ANTHONY HATCH - The Politics of Aesthetics, in a State of Disruption
2. LIESBETH GROOT NIBBELINK - Soft Shivers, Sweaty Politics: Dramaturgy and the Pensive Body
Section 2: The Role of Theatre and Performance
3. SHULAMITH LEV-ALADGEM - Performing Philosophy: Rancière as Playwright, Director and Performer in The Ignorant Schoolmaster
4. ADRIAN KEAR - Staging the People: Performance, Presence and Representation
5. NIC FRYER - ‘Apart, we are together. Together, we are apart’: Rancière’s Community of Translators in Theory and Theatre
Section 3: Spectatorship and Participation
6. JENNY HUGHES - Nights of Theatrical Labour in the Victorian Workhouse
7. WILL SHÜLER - The Emancipated Educator: Chance, Will, and Equality in Higher Education Role-Immersion Pedagogies
Section 4: Performance as Political Disruption
8. JANELLE REINELT - Resisting Rancière
9. CAOIMHE MADER McGUINNESS - Dissensual Reproductions in You Should See the Other Guy’s Land of the Three Towers
10. STEPHEN SCOTT-BOTTOMS - The Paradoxes of Performing Activism: Art, Oil and Liberate Tate
