Performance Studies

Reviews / Votes

"Richard Schechner's Performance Studies: An Introduction is an extraordinary, expansive and erudite resource for scholars, artists and students alike. It can be read start to finish, as the story of how the study of performance is woven from and into intellectual history. Or it can be dipped into at any point, whether to explore possible answers to a particular question or to be provoked into thinking again, differently, about how performance (re)makes the world we live in."

--- Sharon Mazer, Auckland University of Technology

"A lifetime of experience and theoretical reflection has been distilled into this volume. It is a book that does much more than introduce Performance Studies (although it does do that wonderfully). In deep, concise, and up-to-date prose, Schechner offers readers an encyclopaedic and internationalist introduction to the social and cultural study of performance. There is no other book quite like this, and it belongs the shelf of every student, teacher, and practitioner of performance. I know I will be teaching from it and referring to it often."

--- Tavia Nyong'o, Yale University

"Comprehensively edited, and including a new chapter on social media, the fourth edition of Performance Studies: An Introduction is eminently useful in the classroom."

-- Matt Cornish, Ohio University

"Already in its fourth edition, Richard Schechner's Performance Studies is still a must-read for students, encouraging them to think beyond the clearly marked boundaries of academic disciplines. It allows them to venture into the vast and open field of studies on human behavior in highly diverse contexts that are usually addressed by separate disciplines in the humanities, social sciences and cultural studies. Yet readers will not get lost but will leave the book behind with an enormously widened knowledge on human behavior and how to study it. "

-- Erika Fischer-Lichte, Freie Universitaet Berlin

"Now updated for our experience of "the end of humanism" (Schechner) in the 21st century, Performance Studies is even more important for thinking back on what the 20th century was all about, and for starting to share the future vision of how we may think, live, and indeed perform. This book has been where I always come back to when I need to find some intellectual, scholarly and/or artistic inspiration; it has kept telling me where I started as a performance studies scholar, teacher, and human being."

-- Tadashi Uchino, University of Tokyo

"Richard Schechner's work is a provocation and an offering that functions as many things to many people. Now in its fourth edition, it will continue to be a fellow traveller for practitioners and scholars alike, providing opportunities to debate, think, and propose redefinitions in an expanded field."

-- Anuradha Kapur, Ambedkar University Delhi

Performance Studies: An Introduction remains a vital and dynamic contribution to the study of performance in its many forms. Ambitiously expansive in scope, but focused in application, this accessible and thought-provoking text ought to occupy the reference shelf of all performance scholars and students.

-- Ashley Thorpe, Royal Holloway "Richard Schechner's Performance Studies: An Introduction is an extraordinary, expansive and erudite resource for scholars, artists and students alike. It can be read start to finish, as the story of how the study of performance is woven from and into intellectual history. Or it can be dipped into at any point, whether to explore possible answers to a particular question or to be provoked into thinking again, differently, about how performance (re)makes the world we live in."

--- Sharon Mazer, Auckland University of Technology

"A lifetime of experience and theoretical reflection has been distilled into this volume. It is a book that does much more than introduce Performance Studies (although it does do that wonderfully). In deep, concise, and up-to-date prose, Schechner offers readers an encyclopaedic and internationalist introduction to the social and cultural study of performance. There is no other book quite like this, and it belongs the shelf of every student, teacher, and practitioner of performance. I know I will be teaching from it and referring to it often."

--- Tavia Nyong'o, Yale University

"Comprehensively edited, and including a new chapter on social media, the fourth edition of Performance Studies: An Introduction is eminently useful in the classroom."

-- Matt Cornish, Ohio University

"Already in its fourth edition, Richard Schechner's Performance Studies is still a must-read for students, encouraging them to think beyond the clearly marked boundaries of academic disciplines. It allows them to venture into the vast and open field of studies on human behavior in highly diverse contexts that are usually addressed by separate disciplines in the humanities, social sciences and cultural studies. Yet readers will not get lost but will leave the book behind with an enormously widened knowledge on human behavior and how to study it. "

-- Erika Fischer-Lichte, Freie Universitaet Berlin

"Now updated for our experience of "the end of humanism" (Schechner) in the 21st century, Performance Studies is even more important for thinking back on what the 20th century was all about, and for starting to share the future vision of how we may think, live, and indeed perform. This book has been where I always come back to when I need to find some intellectual, scholarly and/or artistic inspiration; it has kept telling me where I started as a performance studies scholar, teacher, and human being."

-- Tadashi Uchino, University of Tokyo

"Richard Schechner's work is a provocation and an offering that functions as many things to many people. Now in its fourth edition, it will continue to be a fellow traveller for practitioners and scholars alike, providing opportunities to debate, think, and propose redefinitions in an expanded field."

-- Anuradha Kapur, Ambedkar University Delhi

Performance Studies: An Introduction remains a vital and dynamic contribution to the study of performance in its many forms. Ambitiously expansive in scope, but focused in application, this accessible and thought-provoking text ought to occupy the reference shelf of all performance scholars and students.

-- Ashley Thorpe, Royal Holloway