Figure of the Monster in Global Theatre - Further Readings on the Aesthetics of Disqualification

Bringing together international perspectives on the figure of the "monster" in performance, this edited collection builds on discussions in the fields of posthumanism, bioethics, and performance studies. The collection aims to redefine "monstrosity" to describe the cultural processes by which certain identities or bodies are configured to be threateningly deviant, whether by race, gender, sexuality, nationality, immigration status, or physical or psychological extraordinariness.
The book explores themes of race, white supremacy, and migration with the aim of investigating how the figure of the monster has been used to explore representations of race and identity. To these, we add discussions on gender, queer identities, and how the figure of the "monster" has been used to explore the gendered body to finally understand how monstrosity intersects with contemporary issues of technology and the natural world. Navigating the fields of disability studies, performance-centered monster studies, and representation in performance, editors Michael M. Chemers and Analola Santana have brought together perspectives on the figure of the "monster" from across a variety of fields that intersect with performance studies.
This book is essential reading for Theatre and Performance students of all levels as well as scholars. It will also be an enlightening text for those interested in monstrosity and Cultural Studies more broadly.

List of contents

List of Contributors

Introduction: A Global Epistemology of the Monster in Performance

Chapter 1. Gender and Performing a Spider Spirit in Jingju (Beijing Opera) Pansidong (Cave of the Silken Web)

Chapter 2. Yakshi - A Bizarre Double from South Asia

Chapter 3. The Resignification of La Llorona in Mexican and Chicano Culture

Chapter 4. Spectral Monster/Haunting Presence: Decolonial Re-imaginings of Sycorax

Chapter 5. Cuentos de la Tumbona: A Teatro-cabaret Tale of Trans Monstrosity and Resistance

Chapter 6. When is the Time of No More Deaths? Forced Migration, Untimely Ghosts, and the Sounds of Haunting Performance

Chapter 7. Blood, Sweat, and Fears: The Values of Work and Community in the Haunting Profession

Chapter 8. The Ghost at the Top of the Stairs: Apparitions of Trauma and White Supremacy in Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' Appropriate

Chapter 9. More than Monsters: Black Horror and the Whole Humanity of Her (1925) and Nope (2022)

Chapter 10. A Tale of Golem Democracy

Chapter 11. 'Something Coming to Eat the Whole World': The monstrous nostalgia of Little Shop of Horrors

Chapter 12. The Ghosts of War: Trauma and the Supernatural

Chapter 13. 'In the puppet or in the god': Annie Baker's John, Numinous Dread,
and Unknowable Others

Chapter 14. Snap Chat Filters, Dissonant Cockatoos, and Total Blackouts: Conjuring Monsters in Australian Gothic Theatre

Chapter 15. The Wicked Witch of the Web: Technology and Monstrosity in The Builders Association's Elements of Oz

Index

About the author

Michael M. Chemers is Professor and Chair of the Department of Performance, Play & Design at the University of California Santa Cruz, USA. He is the author of more than 70 peer-reviewed pieces (including seven books) on theatre history, theory, adaptation, and dramaturgy. Most relevant to this project, he is the author of Staging Stigma: A Critical Examination of the American Freak Show (Palgrave MacMillan, 2008) and The Monster in Theatre History: This Thing of Darkness (Routledge, 2017), served as editor for a double issue of Disability Studies Quarterly on freak shows, and edited Alexander Iliev’s Towards a Theory of Mime (Routledge, 2014) and Luis Valdez’s Theatre of the Sphere: The Vibrant Being (Routledge, 2021).
Analola Santana is Associate Professor in the Department of Theater at Dartmouth College, USA. She is the author of Teatro y Cultura de Masas: Encuentros y Debates (2010) and Freak Performances: Dissidence in Latin American Theatre (2018), the latter of which considers the significance of theatrical practices that use the "freak" as a medium to explore the continuing effects of colonialism on Latin American identity. She is also the co-editor of Theatre and Cartographies of Power: Repositioning the Latina/o Americas (2018) and Fifty Key Figures in Latinx and Latin American Theatre (Routledge, 2022). She works as a professional dramaturg and is a company member of Mexico’s famed Teatro de Ciertos Habitantes.

Summary

Bringing together international perspectives on the figure of the “monster” in performance, this edited collection builds on discussions in the fields of posthumanism, bioethics and performance studies.

Product details

• Authors: Michael M. (Uc Santa Cruz Chemers
• Assisted by: Michael Chemers (Editor), Michael M. Chemers (Editor), Chemers Michael M. (Editor), Analola Santana (Editor)
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd.
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 09.10.2024
• EAN: 9781032558370
• ISBN: 978-1-0-3255837-0
• No. of pages: 208
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Art > General, dictionaries; PERFORMING ARTS / Theater / General, Theatre Studies, monster;theatre;performance;otherness;race;gender