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Performing Anti-Slavery demonstrates how black and white abolitionist women transformed antebellum performance practice into a critique of state violence.
List of contents
Introduction; 1. From sentimental sympathy to activist self-judgment; 2. From the suffering of others to a 'compassion for ourselves'; 3. 'Beyond our traditions' to a provisional, practical activism; 4. From anti-slavery celebrity to cosmopolitan self-possession; Epilogue: the repertoire of anti-trafficking.
About the author
Gay Gibson Cima is a Professor of English at Georgetown University, Washington DC. In 2012, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association of Theatre in Higher Education's Women and Theatre Program. In 2015, she received the Distinguished Scholar Award from the American Society for Theatre Research. Her book, Early American Women Critics: Performance, Religion, Race (2006), won the 2007 Barnard Hewitt Award for Outstanding Research in Theatre History from the American Society for Theatre Research. A recipient of the ASTR's Kahan Prize, she has published widely on feminist performance history and critical race theory in journals such as Theatre Survey and the Theatre Journal as well as anthologies including Changing the Subject: Marvin Carlson and Theatre Studies, 1959–2009 (2009) and The Sage Handbook of Performance Studies (2006).
Summary
Offering readers a fresh perspective on the history of women and activism, Performing Anti-Slavery recaptures the affective practices of black and white American women in the antebellum abolitionist movement. Gay Gibson Cima demonstrates that these women imagined new ways to think about the relationship between the self and the other.
