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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.
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.
