Liberal Lives and Activist Repertoires

Political Performance and Victorian Social Reform
Erscheinungsjahr 2023
ISBN: 978-1-009-29753-0
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 352 Seiten, Format (B × H): 160 mm x 230 mm, Gewicht: 612 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

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Theaterwissenschaft
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturgeschichte und Literaturkritik
• 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.