Description
The field of literary studies has long recognised the centrality of psychoanalysis as a method for looking at texts in a new way. But rarely has the relationship between psychoanalysis and performance been mapped out, either in terms of analysing the nature of performance itself, or in terms of making sense of specific performance-related activities. In this volume some of the most distinguished thinkers in the field make this exciting new connection and offer original perspectives on a wide variety of topics, including: · hypnotism and hysteria · ventriloquism and the body · dance and sublimation · the unconscious and the rehearsal process · melancholia and the uncanny · cloning and theatrical mimesis · censorship and activist performance · theatre and social memory. The arguments advanced here are based on the dual principle that psychoanalysis can provide a productive framework for understanding the work of performance, and that performance itself can help to investigate the problematic of identity.
Table of Contents
Preface: The returns of psychoanalysis, and performance Introduction SECTION A Thinking through theatre 1 Rehearsing the impossible: the insane root 2 As if: blocking the Cartesian stage 3 Scanning sublimation: the digital Pôles of performance and psychoanalysis 4 Now and then: psychotherapy and the rehearsal process SECTION B Parallel performances 5 Violence, ventriloquism and the vocalic body 6 Hello Dolly Well Hello Dolly: the double and its theatre 7 Writing home: post-modern melancholia and the uncanny space of living-room theatre 8 The writer’s block: performance, play and the responsibilities of analysis 9 The placebo of performance: psychoanalysis in its place SECTION C History, memory, trauma 10 Freud, Futurism, and Polly Dick 11 (Laughter) 12 Speak whiteness: staging ‘race’, performing responsibility 13 The Upsilon Project: a post-tragic testimonial 14 Staging social memory: Yuyachkani
