Critical Theory and Performance, eds., Janelle G. Reinelt and Joseph R. Roach (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007)

Abstract

This is a revised and expanded edition of an influential essay collection originally published under the same title in 1992. Of the twenty nine essays, nineteen are new or newly prefaced, and there are additional sections on race theory, postcolonialism, gender and sexuality, and mediatised cultures.

An anthology of this kind is a big gesture, and a bold one. The expansion reflects an ambition in the original collection to achieve a kind of scoping exercise for discipline of Performance Studies, though, as the editors acknowledge, one of the limitations is that this is an essentially North American anthology. From an Australian point of view, it’s good to see that a fine essay by Joanne Tompkins has found its way into the Postcolonial section, but for a readership outside the US context, there are some issues.