Liberal Lives and Activist Repertoires

Political Performance and Victorian Social Reform
Erscheinungsjahr 2023
ISBN: 978-1-00-929753-0
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 352 Seiten, Format (B × H): 160 mm x 236 mm, Gewicht: 684 g

This ambitious study traces the strategies of human rights activists to show how world-changing reform movements were shaped by women and men from modest backgrounds who were deeply attuned to the power of performance. Tracy C. Davis explores nineteenth-century reform campaigns through the pioneering work of a family of activists – prominent anti-slavery lecturer George Thompson, his daughter Amelia (the first female theatre and music critic for a British daily newspaper) and her husband, the political organizer Frederick Chesson. Engaging in some of the most important social struggles of the late Georgian and Victorian periods – including abolition, enfranchisement, and anti-genocide - this book reveals how two generations' insights into performance consolidated into activist tactics that persist today. Characterised by a skilful deployment of performance theory alongside deep and wide-ranging historical knowledge, this ground-breaking work demonstrates what 'dramaturgy' can teach us about 'history'.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Davis, Tracy C. (Northwestern University, Illinois)

Davis, Tracy C.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturgeschichte und Literaturkritik
• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Theaterwissenschaft
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein Demographie, Demoskopie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction: History as Performance History; 1. Forms and Increments of Performance; 2. Change Making: Incrementalism; 3. Bildung: Leveraging Critique to Propel the Precarious into Political Life; 4. Combative Pens; 5. Experiments in Becoming.

Über Autor(innen)

Davis, Tracy C.
Tracy C. Davis is Barber Professor of Performing Arts and Professor of English and Theatre at Northwestern University. She has published books on nineteenth-century theatre, the economics and business history of theatre, performance theory, and gender and theatre. Her latest book combines these interests in a study of two generations of Victorian activists.