Description
Book SynopsisExplores how theatrical production in Spain since the early 1990s has reflected national anxieties about immigration and race. Jeffrey Coleman argues that Spain has developed a ""necropolitical theater"" that casts the non-European immigrant as fictionalized enemy - one whose nonwhiteness is incompatible with Spanish national identity.
Trade ReviewThe Necropolitical Theater offers an insightful and accessible critique of contemporary Spanish plays dealing with migration to Spain in the last three decades. This is the first book devoted to the complex intersection of theater and migration. With it Coleman makes a significant contribution to discussions of migration, race and national identity, and the role theater plays in either humanizing the immigrant's experience and generating audiences' awareness and affect, or reifying nativist anxieties." - Isolina Ballesteros, author of
Immigration Cinema in the New Europe"In his perceptive study, Coleman focuses on the presentation of Latin-American, Moroccan, and sub-Saharan immigrants as protagonists or secondary characters in contemporary plays from Spain. He shows how their dramatic trajectory reflects historical attitudes toward each group. His findings transcend departmental boundaries and should be of interest to all concerned with immigration and the populist response in Europe today." - Marion Peter Holt, author
The Contemporary Spanish Theater (1949-1972)"
The Necropolitical Theatre is illuminating and groundbreaking in its examination of the paradoxes and problems in the representation of the otherness of immigrants from Africa and Latin America to Spain in the world of theater." - Jessica Folkart, author of
Liminal Fiction at the Edge of the Millennium: The Ends of Spanish Identity"Delineating a "theater of whiteness" in the highly racialized culture of contemporary Spain,
Necropolitical Theater carefully traces literary engagements with a fictionalized threat from nonwhite immigrants. Coleman's sensitive study lays bare a tragic paradox whereby plays intended to humanize such immigrants, overlooking the vibrant transcultural exchanges that migration might bring, focus instead on their physical or social death. Essential reading for scholars engaged with post-Francoist, contemporary Spanish culture and European immigration." - Benita Sampedro Vizcaya, coeditor of
Border Interrogations: Crossing Spanish Frontiers"
The Necropolitical Theatre is an excellent book about the relationship between social exclusion, marginalization, and its representation in theatre. Insightful analysis of plays about immigrants are combined with reflections on their reception and how to diversify both theatre and audiences. An invitation to imagine different scenarios for immigrants in contemporary Spain, and a must read for all those interested in discussions of race and the perception and hierarchization of different immigrant groups." - Daniela Flesler, author of
The Return of the Moor: Spanish Responses to Contemporary Moroccan ImmigrationTable of Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Note on Translations
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction: The Formation of the Necropolitical Theater
- Chapter One - Are You Being Served?: Latin American Female Migrants and Neocolonial Servitude
- Chapter Two - The Second Reconquista: Maurophobia and the Impossibility of North African Migrants in Spain Chapter Three - En Route to Death: Spanish Necropolitical Theater and the Precarity of Black Immigration Conclusion: The Necropolitical Theater of Whiteness
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
