Wow! eBook
Performance and Power
Author(s): Jeffrey C. Alexander (Author)
- Publisher: Polity
- Publication Date: 7 Oct. 2011
- Edition: 1st
- Language: English
- Print length: 232 pages
- ISBN-10: 9780745648170
- ISBN-13: 0745648177
Book Description
Alexander develops a cultural pragmatics that shifts cultural sociology from texts to gestural meanings. Positioning social performance between ritual and strategy, he lays out the elements of social performance – from scripts to mise-en-scène, from critical mediation to audience reception – and systematically describes their tense interrelation. This is followed by a series of empirically oriented studies that demonstrate how cultural pragmatics transforms our approach to power.
Alexander brings his new theory of social performance to bear on case studies that range from political to cultural power: Barack Obama’s electoral campaign, American failure in the Iraqi war, the triumph of the Civil Rights Movement, terrorist violence on September 11th, public intellectuals, material icons, and social science itself.
This path-breaking work by one of the world’s leading social theorists will command a wide interdisciplinary readership.
Editorial Reviews
Review
Richard Biernacki, University of California, San Diego
“That so much of politics is symbolic – terrorism as much as presidential campaigning – is the first surprise of this wide-ranging and wonderfully provocative book. The second surprise, though, is what makes the book so compelling: success in symbolic politics, Alexander argues, depends on performances that fuse speaker, audience, props, and script – a fusion that is increasingly rare in modern societies, and is simultaneously longed for and distrusted. With his customary brio and command of literatures ranging from ancient dramaturgy to contemporary terrorism, Alexander offers a provocative theory of modern politics.”
Francesca Polletta, University of California, Irvine
“In this boundary-shifting and provocative book, Alexander brings performance studies into conversation with sociology in ways that challenge both. This is essential reading for anyone interested in these fields as well as for those who wonder how performance endows social actors with such persuasive power.”
Diana Taylor, New York University
