From the age of Aristotle to the age of AIDS, writers, thinkers, performers and activists have wresteled with what “performance” is all about. At the same moment, “performativity”–a new concept in language theory–has become a ubiquitous term in literary studies. This volume grapples with the nature of these two key terms whose traces can be found everywhere: in the theatre, in the streets, in philosophy, in questions of race and gender, and in the sentences we speak.
Siona Wilson investigates the charged relationship of sex and labour politics as it played out in the making of feminist art in 1970s Britain.
Examines how contemporary performance practices have been driven by questions of The Real and the consequent political implications of the concept’s disintigrating authority.