Terror and Performance

Erscheinungsjahr 2014
ISBN: 978-1-138-01427-5
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd (Sales)

Buch, Englisch, 254 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 233 mm, Gewicht: 447 g

‘This work goes where other books fear to tread. It reaches the parts other scholars might imagine in their dreams but would neither have the international reach nor the critical acumen and forensic flourish to deliver.’ Alan Read, King's College London

‘This book is not only timely. It is overdue – and it is a masterpiece unrivalled by any book I know of.’ Erika Fischer-Lichte, Freie Universität Berlin

‘The first and only book that focuses on the intersections of performance, terror and terrorism as played out beyond a Euro-American context post-9/11. It is an important work, both substantively and methodologically.’ Jenny Hughes, University of Manchester

‘A profound and tightly bound sequence of reflections … a rigorously provocative book.’ Stephen Barber, Kingston University London

In this exceptional investigation Rustom Bharucha considers the realities of Islamophobia, the legacies of Truth and Reconciliation, the deadly certitudes of State-controlled security systems and the legitimacy of counter-terror terrorism, drawing on a vast spectrum of human cruelties across the global South. The outcome is a brilliantly argued case for seeing terror as a volatile and mutant phenomenon that is deeply lived, experienced, and performed within the cultures of everyday life.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Bharucha, Rustom

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Tanz Andere Darstellende Künste

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface i-vii





Introduction: Mapping Terror in the War of Words 1-39

Provocation

Impulse

Doublespeak of ‘terrorism’

Risks of misunderstanding

Ambivalences of terror

Holy Terror

Terror through a literary lens

Visual overkill

Performance/performativity/theatre

Dangerous liaisons: terror and performance





1. Genet in Manila: ‘September 11’ in Retrospect 40-88



I

Pre-Terror

Deadly Innocence

Intentionality

Politics of the ‘real’

Event/betrayal: rethinking the political

‘September 11’: first exposure

II

Discourse

Genres of terror

- tragedy

- Theatre of Cruelty

The terror of repetition

Deconstructing terror

- trauma

- autoimmunity

Controversies

- Stockhausen’s blunder

- The politics of empathy



III

Exit the Theatre





2. ‘Muslims’ in a Time of Terror: Deceptions,

Demonization, and Uncertainties of Evidence 89-130



I

Passing as a Muslim

Constructing ‘Muslims’

Phenomenology of passing

Queering the Muslim terrorist: beards and penises

The beautiful terrorist

The Sikh as Muslim



II

Recapitulation

The Indian Muslim as Other

Genocide in Godhra

‘Dead certainty’: the limits of performativity

Outing the self













3. Countering Terror? The Search for Justice through

Truth and Reconciliation 131-186



I

Mapping the Terrain



Multiple locations, different stakes

The right to intervene



II

Rwanda



The terror of statistics

Realizing the unthinkable: the provocation of gacaca

Gacaca as performance: a theoretical trap?

Dramaturgy of gacaca

The evidence of experience

Performing Rwandanicity



III

South Africa



The ‘impossible machine’

The theatricality of hearings

Amnesty in performance

Between performance and justice: an ethical impasse

The ‘truth’ of story-telling



IV

Key Motifs of Truth and Reconciliation



Performing silence

Forgiveness, or ‘living with evil’?

Time and reconciliation

Coda







4. Performing Non-Violence in the Age of Terror 187-231



Enter Gandhi

Gandhi as Truth Commission

Performing the Truth Commission

The performativity of salt

Non-violence: sacrifice or suicide?

Suicide bombing: acts of performance

‘Just War’: ambivalences and duplicities

Training to die?: the viability of non-violence

The violence of non-violence

Lip-sewing and blood graffiti: the weapons of the weak

Towards justice?

Postscript 232-239

Notes 240-285

Bibliography 286-300

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Rustom Bharucha is Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi. He is a writer, director, dramaturg and cultural critic, as well as the author of several books, including Theatre and the World: Performance and the Politics of Culture (Routledge, 1993).