Theatre, Activism, Subjectivity - (Theatre: Theory - Practice - Performance) by Bishnupriya Dutt & Silvija Jestrovic (Paperback)

About the Book

In modern times of political confusion, when Leftist agendas and struggles often collapse or become appropriated by Right, this book stress the necessity of recovering the Leftist ethos of solidarity, social justice, and care for the commons.

Book Synopsis

Through the lens of performance and politics, this collection zooms in on the context-specific dimensions, analogies, and micro-histories of the Left to better understand the larger picture. It proposes a search for the Left not from totalising Leftist ideological positions and partisan politics but from ethical dimensions through smaller-scale Left-leaning struggles; not from the political to the aesthetic, but from the potentiality of art to offer new political imagination and critique; not from the individual subordinated to the collective, but from the dialectics of subjectivity and collectivity. This is not an attempt at a sweeping global overview of Leftist cultures either, but a collection that brings together culture-specific and comparative perspectives. This book searches for fragments of and on the Left, past and present, through which to rethink and patch a fragmented world.

From the Back Cover

Drawing from both past and present and using the interdisciplinary hermeneutics of theatre, politics, and performance, this collection explores how to do activism, make theatre, and be in the world through the Leftist paradigms and ethos, and asks what are the political, cultural, personal, and collective dramaturgies through which to recuperate the Leftist care for commons for our time?

The Left is framed here as an umbrella term for a range of progressive cultural and political practices. The focus on plural cultural Lefts draws attention to the different histories and to the dialectics between official and unofficial Lefts - amidst both the totalising ideological framework and its smaller-scale manifestations. The conceptual focus is on the dialectics of the macro- and the micro-plane of the Leftist histories, legacies, and current forms of resistance as they occur through different dramaturgies of activism, but also through theatre and everyday life.

In our times of political confusion - when Leftist agendas and struggles often collapse or become appropriated by Right - the necessity of recovering the Leftist ethos of solidarity, social justice, and care for the commons seems more urgent than ever. The book questions how to grapple with the complexities of the Left: its theatres and theatricalities, its modes of activism, its subjects and subjectivities?

Review Quotes

'This book is simply terrific, offering astute transnational perspectives on the predicaments confronting contemporary progressive political theatres - an essential resource for those looking for unity in a fragmented world!'
--Professor Tony Fisher, The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama

'It is in the domain of culture that we imagine our futures and struggle over our values. On the stage, in our songs, and in the way we move our bodies, we tell each other that this or that need not be the way things should be, and that the other thing, that thing that we imagine and do, is possible. That's the point of the essays in Theatre, activism, subjectivity. We stand 'Stage Left' and cry, Not This. Not This. Never Just This. We Want More. And that is when the real drama begins.'
--Vijay Prashad, Director, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research

About the Author

Bishnupriya Dutt is Professor of Theatre and Performance at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University
Silvija Jestrovic is Professor of Theatre and Performance at the University of Warwick