Overview
Interrogates the way in which artistic works can challenge prejudice against stateless and dispossessed people
Explores a range of artistic works, from adaptations of Greek tragedy to documentary dramas
Offers an account of performance methods that have sought to challenge and criticise governmental and transnational failings
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Table of contents (10 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
This book examines performative strategies that contest nationalist prejudices in representing the conditions of refugees, the stateless and the dispossessed. In the light of the European Union failing to find a political solution to the current migration crisis, it considers a variety of artistic works that have challenged the deficiencies in governmental and transnational practices, as well as innovative efforts by migrants and their hosts to imagine and build a new future. It discusses a diverse range of performative strategies, moving from a consideration of recent adaptations of Greek tragedy, to performances employing fictive identification, documentary dramas, immersive theatre, over-identification and subversive identification, nomadism and political activism. This study will appeal to those interested in questions of statelessness, migration, and the problematic role of the nation-state.
Reviews
“An adept volume that makes a significant contribution to the rapidly expanding field of migrant and refugee theatre studies. In a way that will be welcome to theatre scholars and students alike, it offers readers the benefit of a long-range view of European performance as well as close insights into selected works at particular times and places. … represents a unique and essential document for reflection on the imminent divergent trajectories of two old, powerful member states of … the EU.” (Emma Cox, Journal of Contemporary Drama in English, Vol. 8 (2), 2020)
“The book presents gems of close performance analysis: an invaluable addition to an archive of contemporary performance … Performing Statelessness in Europe is essential reading material for all students and scholars of theatre who are deeply engaged with and disturbed by today’s social and cultural practices of migration and nationalism.” (Yana Meerzon, Modern Drama, Vol. 62 (2), 2019)
“Stephen Wilmer has for some time been among the most prominent scholars internationally in studying this important relationship between theatrical production and concept of the nation, and like many of my colleagues I have found his work of enormous help in dealing with these deeply intertwined cultural expressions...Just as the work of Steve Wilmer has been central during the past decade to an understanding of the phenomenon of the national theatre, so his new book provides essential insight into the new social and theatrical phenomenon of statelessness, which is both the opposite of nationalism and paradoxically a malign result of it. All students of theatre as a social form will find this new work, as they did Steve's previous ones, invaluable in understanding and exploring this new manifestation.” (Marvin Carlson, Sidney E. Cohn Distinguished Professor of Theatre, Comparative Literature and Middle Eastern Studies, City University of New York, USA)Authors and Affiliations
About the author
S. E. Wilmer is Professor Emeritus in Drama and former Head of the School of Drama, Film and Music at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. He has been Visiting Professor at Stanford University and UC Berkeley and Research Fellow at the International Research Centre for Interweaving Performance Cultures at the Freie Universität, Berlin. He is the author of Theatre, Society and the Nation.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Performing Statelessness in Europe
Authors: S.E. Wilmer
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69173-2
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-69172-5Published: 08 March 2018
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-09875-9Published: 22 December 2018
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-69173-2Published: 26 February 2018
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: IX, 245
Number of Illustrations: 9 b/w illustrations
Topics: Theatre and Performance Studies, Cultural Studies, Comparative Literature, History of Germany and Central Europe, German Politics