Overview

Act of violence or show of strength? In a world of spectacular suffering and power plays – large and small – what is theatre's role in protecting human dignity? With its impassioned plays, inspired activism and outspoken artists, the theatre has long provided a venue for promoting and practising human rights; but is this always to the good? Today the relationship between theatre and human rights is not only vital, but complex and contested. Drawing on an international range of examples, this short, sharp and timely book outlines the key features of the debate and offers a critical take on where it should go next. Foreword by Rabih Mrove.

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9780230205246

Table of Contents

Reviews

'...Palgrave Macmillan's excellent new outward-looking, eclectic Theatre& ... series.These short books, written by leading theatre academics, do much to reintroduce some of the brightest names in theatre academia to the general reader. Plus, the matrix of references to bigger books soon builds quite a comprehensive catch-up reading list for those of us who graduated more than a decade ago and are interested in where contemporary thinking is at...' - Guardian Theatre Blog, September 2009, http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2009/sep/10/theatre-critics-academics-artists 'Fluent, provocative and well paced, it will make an excellent addition to the series' - James Thompson, Professor of Applied and Social Theatre, University of Manchester, UK 'With an intense display of knowledge and expertise, Paul Rae weaves a delicately precise web, connecting the dots between the theatre and human rights, and creates a tapestry of learning that begins with Antigone and extends all the way to contemporary events.' - Rabih Mroue

'[a] brilliant series...these mini paperbacks each give an insightful, focused overview of a key topic...start collecting now.' - Whatsonstage.com '...Palgrave Macmillan's excellent new outward-looking, eclectic Theatre& ... series.These short books, written by leading theatre academics, do much to reintroduce some of the brightest names in theatre academia to the general reader. Plus, the matrix of references to bigger books soon builds quite a comprehensive catch-up reading list for those of us who graduated more than a decade ago and are interested in where contemporary thinking is at...' - Guardian Theatre Blog, September 2009, http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2009/sep/10/theatre-critics-academics-artists 'Fluent, provocative and well paced, it will make an excellent addition to the series' - James Thompson, Professor of Applied and Social Theatre, University of Manchester, UK 'With an intense display of knowledge and expertise, Paul Rae weaves a delicately precise web, connecting the dots between the theatre and human rights, and creates a tapestry of learning that begins with Antigone and extends all the way to contemporary events.' - Rabih Mroue 'For those of us interested in the knotty paradoxes that sit at the core of theatre's meta-theatrical truth-effects - an ethics that is no longer ethics, a politics that is political for how it is yet to be imagined, an idea of the human that displaces itself the moment it is performed - these pithy glimpses at the enigma of what theatre might be doing when it does itself well are timely engagements with some of the twenty-first century's most pressing philosophical preoccupations.' - Review of Theatre & series, Performance Paradigm

Author Information

PAUL RAE is Assistant Professor on the Theatre Studies Programme at the National University of Singapore.

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