Performance and Performativity

Within the wide range of writings on performance studies, theoreticians and practitioners have been using the concepts of performance and performativity as key terms for explaining different social, philosophical and artistic phenomena. The question «what are performance and performativity» is always already shaped according to what sort of ‘performance’ is being carried out, which performance is taken into consideration, which contexts and power-knowledge «stratum» operate in the formation of these concepts. Performance and Performativity primarily aims to find a way of grasping the maze of different positions that have become incorporated within the general and often overlapping terms of performance studies and performative theory. The book focuses on how «the power of discourse to produce what it names» is linked with the question of performance and performativity, rather than providing a general intellectual background and context for the modern idea of performance and performativity.

Within the wide range of writings on performance studies, theoreticians and practitioners have been using the concepts of performance and performativity as key terms for explaining different social, philosophical and artistic phenomena. The question «what are performance and performativity» is always already shaped according to what sort of ‘performance’ is being carried out, which performance is taken into consideration, which contexts and power-knowledge «stratum» operate in the formation of these concepts. Performance and Performativity primarily aims to find a way of grasping the maze of different positions that have become incorporated within the general and often overlapping terms of performance studies and performative theory. The book focuses on how «the power of discourse to produce what it names» is linked with the question of performance and performativity, rather than providing a general intellectual background and context for the modern idea of performance and performativity.