Overview

Staging Monstrous Bodies: Questioning Normative Orders brings together global perspectives from leading and emerging scholars to explore the intersections of monster studies and performances studies. Divided into three parts, the volume explores the connection between monstrosity and performance, such as representations of violence, gender and sexuality contexts, disability studies perspectives, anti-racism and post-colonial issues, and monstrosity as an artistic practice and dramaturgical process, which discursively cross-pollinate the different sections of the book. The first section, The Mise-En-Scène of Monstrous Bodies, examines queer-feminist performance, bodybuilding as monstrous, monstrosity in costume-making and freak discourse in Latin America. Section two, De-Montage of the Monstrous, moves on to look at the historicization of medieval monsters and staging (in)justice and monstrosity. The third and final part, Monstrous Orders, includes messages on the rise of neo-Nazism in Europe, monstrosity in dance and an analysis of monstrosity in the writings of Diderot. Each section includes a roundtable discussion of what new theses, questions, and intellectual motifs are raised by the corresponding chapters. With its global scope, Staging Monstrous Bodies is an essential book for theater, dance, and performance students at all levels, as well as for scholars in these fields.

Full Product Details

Author:   Michael Mark Chemers (UC Santa Cruz, USA) ,  Ekaterina Trachsel ,  Gerald Siegmund
Publisher:   Taylor & Francis Ltd
Imprint:   Routledge
Weight:   0.453kg
ISBN:  

9781032910673

ISBN 10:   1032910674
Pages:   217
Publication Date:   24 September 2025
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Tertiary & Higher Education ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   Not yet available  
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Table of Contents

Introduction: Towards a monstrous order Part One: The Mise-En-Scène of Monstrous Bodies 1. The monstrous does not exist: Epistemological and queer-feminist reflections on non-binary figures 2. Breaking the Mold: Building Bodies between Gender Conformity and Monstrosity 3. Dress Eats Woman: Monstrous Costumes in Contemporary Performances 4. From Monster to Freak: A Latin American Genealogy of Corporeal Difference 5. ROUNDTABLE PART ONE: The Mise-En-Scène of Monstrous Bodies – Theses and Motifs Part Two: De-Montage of the Monstrous 6. A Rhineland Werewolf and its Theatrical Legacy 7. LE SOUTENEUR NATUREL DES JUGEURS : Staging the Monstrosity of the Norm 8. Medusa from afar with the sounding body 9. Women Cut Open on Stage: Performing the De-Montage of Femininity as a Monstrous Practice 10. To Open the Shut Eyes of the Corpse: Performing Resurrections in Cadela Força – The bride and the goodnight Cinderella by Carolina Bianchi y Cara de Cavalo 11. ROUNDTABLE PART TWO: De-Montage of the Monstrous – Theses and Motifs Part Three: Monstrous Orders 12. “There are only monsters here.” On the theatrical uncovering of the no-longer-so-hidden in current political contexts 13. Appropriation as Expulsion: Claire Vivianne Sobottke’s Performance Velvet as a Feminist Practice of Becoming Unrecognizable 14. Score for: Where Are The Monsters? 15. Monstrous Imagination: Denis Diderot and the Body of the Actor 16. ROUNDTABLE PART THREE: Monstrous Orders –Theses and Motifs CODA: A Collection of Questions and Thesis to be Continued…

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Author Information

Michael Mark Chemers is a Professor of Dramatic Literature and Chair of the Department of Performance, Play & Design at the University of California Santa Cruz, USA. He is the author and co-editor of several books on monsters in performance, freak shows, and dramaturgy. Ekaterina Trachsel is a Theater Scholar and Theater-Maker currently working as a post-doctoral researcher at the Justus Liebig University in Giessen, Germany. Her research focuses on contemporary dramaturgies, institutional change, and theatrical stagings of monstrous bodies and orders. Gerald Siegmund is a Professor of Applied Theatre Studies at the Justus-Liebig University in Giessen, Germany. His research focuses on forms of contemporary theatre, dance, and performance, aesthetics, theories of memory, and the intermediality of theatre in relation to the visual arts.

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