Rethinking Roland Barthes Through Performance
A Desire for Neutral Dramaturgy
Published on 15. June 2023
Book
Hardback
264 pages
978-1-350-33084-9 (ISBN)
Description
Through a series of reflections from internationally renowned performance-makers and contextualising essays from leading theatre and performance scholars, this is the first book to map the influence of Roland Barthes on performance.
The contributions are framed through Barthes's notion of The Neutral - the suspension of binary choice that offers a welcome antidote to the political deadlock of our present moment. They cover the breadth of Barthes's work from Mythologies (1957) to 'The Death of the Author' (1967), A Lover's Discourse (1977), Camera Lucida (1980), to the more recently available lecture courses at the College de France.
Together, they capture and rethink a range of Barthes's preoccupations, from his early writing on myths and meaning to personal reflections on love, loss and desire, and interrogate the intersections between Barthes's work and contemporary theatre and performance.
This book invites readers to approach Barthes's writing from a breadth of creative-critical perspectives, to become more aware of the importance of his late thought for thinking through a range of dramaturgical forms, and to become more familiar with the work of internationally significant performance practitioners.
The contributions are framed through Barthes's notion of The Neutral - the suspension of binary choice that offers a welcome antidote to the political deadlock of our present moment. They cover the breadth of Barthes's work from Mythologies (1957) to 'The Death of the Author' (1967), A Lover's Discourse (1977), Camera Lucida (1980), to the more recently available lecture courses at the College de France.
Together, they capture and rethink a range of Barthes's preoccupations, from his early writing on myths and meaning to personal reflections on love, loss and desire, and interrogate the intersections between Barthes's work and contemporary theatre and performance.
This book invites readers to approach Barthes's writing from a breadth of creative-critical perspectives, to become more aware of the importance of his late thought for thinking through a range of dramaturgical forms, and to become more familiar with the work of internationally significant performance practitioners.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Target group
College/higher education
Illustrations
10 bw illus.
Dimensions
Height: 218 mm
Width: 146 mm
Thickness: 22 mm
Weight
460 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-350-33084-9 (9781350330849)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Harry Robert Wilson | Will Daddario
Rethinking Roland Barthes Through Performance
A Desire for Neutral Dramaturgy
E-Book
05/2023
1st Edition
Methuen Drama
€31.99
Available for download
Persons
Harry Robert Wilson is an artist and researcher based in Dundee, UK. He was recently awarded the Digital Thinker in Residence award at the National Theatre of Scotland, UK (2018-19). He has a PhD from the University of Glasgow, UK, in which he explored performance and photography through his own creative practice.
Will Daddario is a teacher, scholar, grief worker and itinerant philosopher who currently resides
in Asheville, USA. He co-edits the Performance Philosophy book series and online journal.
Will Daddario is a teacher, scholar, grief worker and itinerant philosopher who currently resides
in Asheville, USA. He co-edits the Performance Philosophy book series and online journal.
Content
List of Figures
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Contemporary Performance After Roland Barthes - Harry Robert Wilson
Part 1 - A Dictionary of Twinklings
1. 5 Theses for a Dramaturgy of Performance - Matthew Goulish and Lin Hixson
2. Ceaselessly Positing and Evaporating Meaning: A Performance Score - Pablo Pakula
3. Looking Through Old Photographs - Andy Field and Deborah Pearson
4. Recipes / Addendums / Souvenirs - greenandowens (Katheryn Owens and Chris Green)
5. Ways to Submit - Ira Brand
6. All the Sense of Real: A World of Wrestling - Simon Bayly
7. Practising Neutral Dramaturgy(ies) - Will Daddario and Harry Robert Wilson
Part 2 - Rethinking Roland Barthes, Theatre, Performance
8. We've never met but we may have fought - Simon Bayly and Ira Brand
9. For the Lover(s) of Dramaturgy: on Roland Barthes' Amateur - Swen Steinhaeuser
10. The Disturbance of One System by Another - Claudia Kappenberg
11. Baffling Dramaturgy: Between the Obvious and Obtuse - Mischa Twitchin
12. Choreography, Capturing and Barthes' Notion of the Punctum - Sandra Parker
13. Body and Mask: Dramaturgies of the Face in Roland Barthes - Michael Bachmann
14. Tracing Barthes' Eastern Theatres: Empire of Signs and the Staging of Individual Cultural Interpretation - Pamela Genova
15. Unraveling Textual Soundscapes: Reading Barthes' 'The Grain of the Voice' through Soederberg's Entangled Phrases and Linehan's Body of Work - Rosa Lambert
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Contemporary Performance After Roland Barthes - Harry Robert Wilson
Part 1 - A Dictionary of Twinklings
1. 5 Theses for a Dramaturgy of Performance - Matthew Goulish and Lin Hixson
2. Ceaselessly Positing and Evaporating Meaning: A Performance Score - Pablo Pakula
3. Looking Through Old Photographs - Andy Field and Deborah Pearson
4. Recipes / Addendums / Souvenirs - greenandowens (Katheryn Owens and Chris Green)
5. Ways to Submit - Ira Brand
6. All the Sense of Real: A World of Wrestling - Simon Bayly
7. Practising Neutral Dramaturgy(ies) - Will Daddario and Harry Robert Wilson
Part 2 - Rethinking Roland Barthes, Theatre, Performance
8. We've never met but we may have fought - Simon Bayly and Ira Brand
9. For the Lover(s) of Dramaturgy: on Roland Barthes' Amateur - Swen Steinhaeuser
10. The Disturbance of One System by Another - Claudia Kappenberg
11. Baffling Dramaturgy: Between the Obvious and Obtuse - Mischa Twitchin
12. Choreography, Capturing and Barthes' Notion of the Punctum - Sandra Parker
13. Body and Mask: Dramaturgies of the Face in Roland Barthes - Michael Bachmann
14. Tracing Barthes' Eastern Theatres: Empire of Signs and the Staging of Individual Cultural Interpretation - Pamela Genova
15. Unraveling Textual Soundscapes: Reading Barthes' 'The Grain of the Voice' through Soederberg's Entangled Phrases and Linehan's Body of Work - Rosa Lambert