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Performance Studies and Negative Epistemology

Performance Apophatics

  • Book
  • © 2017

Overview

Authors:
  1. Claire Maria Chambers

    1. Sogang University, Seoul, Korea (Republic of)

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  • Employs a radical, non-faith-based approach to religious studies and theology in order to explore performance
  • Interrogates the intersection between negative theology and performance
  • Explores what can be gained through reassessing an ancient form of negative epistemology
  • Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Part of the book series: Performance Philosophy (PPH)

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Table of contents (7 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xiv
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Introduction: Performance Apophatics

    • Claire Maria Chambers
    Pages 1-19

  3. Performance Studies and Negative Epistemology

    • Claire Maria Chambers
    Pages 21-69

  4. Intercultural Performance and the Apophatics of Appropriation

    • Claire Maria Chambers
    Pages 71-120

  5. An Apophatics of the Archive: In Memoriam Reverend Doctor Florence Li Tim-Oi

    • Claire Maria Chambers
    Pages 121-161

  6. The Playwright as Negative Theologian: James Baldwin’s The Amen Corner and Blues for Mister Charlie

    • Claire Maria Chambers
    Pages 163-208

  7. The Apophatics of the Object: Icon and Community

    • Claire Maria Chambers
    Pages 209-257

  8. Conclusion: Learned Ignorance and Performative Unknowing: Unselfing the Self, Unworlding the World

    • Claire Maria Chambers
    Pages 259-278

  9. Back Matter

    Pages 279-301
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Keywords

About this book

This book explores the intersection between apophaticism - negative theology - and performance. While apophaticism in literature and critical theory may have had its heyday in the heady debates about negative theology and deconstruction in the 1990s, negative ways of knowing and speaking have continued to structure conversations in theatre and performance studies around issues of embodiment, the non- and post-human, objects, archives, the ethics of otherness in intercultural research, and the unreadable and inaccessible in the work of minority artists. A great part of the history of apophaticism lies in mystic literature. With the rise of the New Age movement, which claimed historical mysticism as part of its genealogy, apophaticism has often been sidelined as spirituality rather than serious study.


This book argues that the apophatic continues to exert a strong influence on the discourse and culture of Western literature and especially performance, and th
at by reassessing this ancient form of negative epistemology, artists, scholars, students, and teachers alike can more deeply engage forms of unknowing through what cannot be said and cannot be represented in language, on the stage, and in every aspect of social life.

Reviews

“Intellectually stimulating and thoroughly engaging, Claire Maria Chambers’s Performance Studies and Negative Epistemology: Performance Apophatics, is an ambitious interweaving of the two concepts in her title, generating an emerging methodological approach predicated on a practice of ‘critical unknowing’. … this is a rewarding, challenging book, written with intellectual integrity and sagacity. It will surely make an important contribution to the fields of performance studies, performance and philosophy and performance and religion … .” (Patrick Campbell, Performance, Religion and Spirituality, Vol. 1 (02), 2018)

Authors and Affiliations

  • Sogang University, Seoul, Korea (Republic of)

    Claire Maria Chambers

About the author

Claire Maria Chambers teaches modern American and British drama at Sogang University in Seoul, South Korea. Her articles have appeared in Theatre Journal, Performance Research, and Text and Performance Quarterly, among others.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Performance Studies and Negative Epistemology

  • Book Subtitle: Performance Apophatics

  • Authors: Claire Maria Chambers

  • Series Title: Performance Philosophy

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52044-9

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan London

  • eBook Packages: Religion and Philosophy, Philosophy and Religion (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-137-52043-2Published: 24 October 2017

  • eBook ISBN: 978-1-137-52044-9Published: 12 October 2017

  • Series ISSN: 2947-5589

  • Series E-ISSN: 2057-7176

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XIV, 301

  • Number of Illustrations: 10 b/w illustrations

  • Topics: Epistemology, Performing Arts, Philosophy of Religion

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