Performing Magic on the Western Stage: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present

Author:   L. Hass ,  Kenneth A. Loparo ,  F. Coppa ,  J. Peck
Publisher:   Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN:  

9780230607880


Pages:   240
Publication Date:   08 January 2009
Format:   Hardback
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us.

Our Price $140.00 Quantity:  
Add to Cart

Share |

Performing Magic on the Western Stage: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present


Add your own review!

Overview

Performing Magic on the Western Stage examines magic as a performing art and as a meaningful social practice, linking magic to cultural arenas such as religion, finance, gender, and nationality and profiling magicians from Robert-Houdin to Pen& Teller.

Full Product Details

Author:   L. Hass ,  Kenneth A. Loparo ,  F. Coppa ,  J. Peck
Publisher:   Palgrave Macmillan
Imprint:   Palgrave Macmillan
Dimensions:   Width: 14.00cm , Height: 1.80cm , Length: 21.60cm
Weight:   0.450kg
ISBN:  

9780230607880


ISBN 10:   0230607888
Pages:   240
Publication Date:   08 January 2009
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us.

Table of Contents

Life Magic and Staged Magic: A Hidden Intertwining; L.Hass The Family Romance of Modern Magic: Contesting Robert Houdin's Cultural Legacy in Contemporary France; G.M.Jones Magicians and the Magic of Hollywood Cinema during the 1920s; M.Solomon The Body Immaterial: Magicians' Assistants and the Performance of Labor; F.Coppa Conjuring Capital: Magic and Finance From Eighteenth-Century London to the New Las Vegas; J.Peck The Sacred and the Sleight of Hand in American Indian Gaming; M.Lawlor Outdoing Ching Ling Foo; C.Stahl Intersecting Illusions: Performing Magic, Disability and Gender; K.Dearborn Through A Glass Darkly: Magic and Religion in Western Thought and Practice; S.L.Schwartz Illusions About Illusions; R.E.Neale

Reviews

<p> The product of intense preparation by scholars and teachers trained in theatre, film, media, dance, philosophy, anthropology, literature, religion, psychiatry and, of course, magic itself, Performing Magic on the Western Stage skillfully conjures the interdisciplinary powers of performance studies to achieve an apparently impossible feat: an edited collection in which every contribution is equally strong and equally necessary. --Joseph Roach, Sterling Professor of Theater, Yale University Performing Magic on the Western Stage offers a much-needed and carefully compiled anthology of essays addressing some of the most important questions that have emerged out of the recent explosion of academic interest in staged magic. Drawing on work from a wide variety of fields, including Theater and Performance Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Cinema and Media Studies, Philosophy, and Anthropology, the essays collected here examine how staged magic shapes and exposes our relation to: otherness; class mobility; gender, sexuality, nationality and ethnicity; secrecy; disability; community; entertainment; ritual and religion; capitalism and money; self-deception; and the figure of the magician. This volume takes magic seriously as a meaningful art form, and explores its changing significance in specific historical and geographical locations. The collection brings together a wealth of original archival and field research, and initiates a series of interdisciplinary conversations that need to be continued. We learn, among other things, of the continued importance of the magician in film history long after the heyday of the cinema of attractions ; of how contemporary bad-boy magicians like Penn and Teller pave the way for alternative relations among the magician, the assistant and the audience; of the relationship between William Robinson's yellow-faced performances of Ching Ling Soo and Chinese magician Chee Ling Qua (a.k.a. Ching Ling Foo ); and of the range of magicia


The product of intense preparation by scholars and teachers trained in theatre, film, media, dance, philosophy, anthropology, literature, religion, psychiatry and, of course, magic itself, Performing Magic on the Western Stage skillfully conjures the interdisciplinary powers of performance studies to achieve an apparently impossible feat: an edited collection in which every contribution is equally strong and equally necessary. - Joseph Roach, Sterling Professor of Theater, Yale University Performing Magic on the Western Stage offers a much-needed and carefully compiled anthology of essays addressing some of the most important questions that have emerged out of the recent explosion of academic interest in staged magic. Drawing on work from a wide variety of fields, including Theater and Performance Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Cinema and Media Studies, Philosophy, and Anthropology, the essays collected here examine how staged magic shapes and exposes our relation to: otherness; class mobility; gender, sexuality, nationality and ethnicity; secrecy; disability; community; entertainment; ritual and religion; capitalism and money; self-deception; and the figure of the magician. This volume takes magic seriously as a meaningful art form, and explores its changing significance in specific historical and geographical locations. The collection brings together a wealth of original archival and field research, and initiates a series of interdisciplinary conversations that need to be continued. We learn, among other things, of the continued importance of the magician in film history long after the heyday of the cinema of attractions ; of how contemporary bad-boy magicians like Penn and Teller pave the way for alternative relations among the magician, the assistant and the audience; of the relationship between William Robinson s yellow-faced performances of Ching Ling Soo and Chinese magician Chee Ling Qua (a.k.a. Ching Ling Foo); and of the range of magicians - including transgressive tricksters, retro-sexists, escape artists and clairvoyants - who provoke audiences to widen their eyes in wonder or roll them tiredly, as though the time of magic had passed. Yet as Coppa, Hass and Peck make clear, magic s time has only just begun. - Karen Beckman, Jaffe Associate Professor of the History of Art at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Vanishing Women: Magic, Film and Feminism The volume evidences a running tension between conflicting definitions: magic as illusion or deception versus magic as occult phenomenon or alternative religion . . . a useful and informative collection. - Choice


The product of intense preparation by scholars and teachers trained in theatre, film, media, dance, philosophy, anthropology, literature, religion, psychiatry and, of course, magic itself, Performing Magic on the Western Stage skillfully conjures the interdisciplinary powers of performance studies to achieve an apparently impossible feat: an edited collection in which every contribution is equally strong and equally necessary. --Joseph Roach, Sterling Professor of Theater, Yale University Performing Magic on the Western Stage offers a much-needed and carefully compiled anthology of essays addressing some of the most important questions that have emerged out of the recent explosion of academic interest in staged magic. Drawing on work from a wide variety of fields, including Theater and Performance Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Cinema and Media Studies, Philosophy, and Anthropology, the essays collected here examine how staged magic shapes and exposes our relation to: otherness; class mobility; gender, sexuality, nationality and ethnicity; secrecy; disability; community; entertainment; ritual and religion; capitalism and money; self-deception; and the figure of the magician. This volume takes magic seriously as a meaningful art form, and explores its changing significance in specific historical and geographical locations. The collection brings together a wealth of original archival and field research, and initiates a series of interdisciplinary conversations that need to be continued. We learn, among other things, of the continued importance of the magician in film history long after the heyday of the cinema of attractions ; of how contemporary bad-boy magicians likePenn and Teller pave the way for alternative relations among the magician, the assistant and the audience; of the relationship between William Robinson's yellow-faced performances of Ching Ling Soo and Chinese magician Chee Ling Qua (a.k.a. Ching Ling Foo ); and of the range of magicians--including transgressive tricksters, retro-sexists, escape artists and clairvoyants--who provoke audiences to widen their eyes in wonder or roll them tiredly, as though the time of magic had passed. Yet as Coppa, Hass and Peck make clear, magic's time has only just begun. --Karen Beckman, Jaffe Associate Professor of the History of Art at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Vanishing Women: Magic, Film and Feminism


<p>&#8220;The product of intense preparation by scholars and teachers trained in theatre, film, media, dance, philosophy, anthropology, literature, religion, psychiatry and, of course, magic itself, Performing Magic on the Western Stage skillfully conjures the interdisciplinary powers of performance studies to achieve an apparently impossible feat: &nbsp; an edited collection in which every contribution is equally strong and equally necessary.&#8221;--Joseph Roach, Sterling Professor of Theater, Yale University Performing Magic on the Western Stage offers a much-needed and carefully compiled anthology of essays addressing some of the most important questions that have emerged out of the recent explosion of academic interest in staged magic. Drawing on work from a wide variety of fields, including Theater and Performance Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Cinema and Media Studies, Philosophy, and Anthropology, the essays collected here examine how staged magic shapes and exposes


Author Information

Karen Dearborn Graham M. Jones Mary Lawlor Robert E. Neale Susan L. Schwartz Matthew Solomon Christopher Stahl

Tab Content 6

Author Website:  

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

No review item found!

Add your own review!

Countries Available

All regions
Latest Reading Guide

wl

Shopping Cart
Your cart is empty
Shopping cart
Mailing List