Performance, Feminism and Affect in Neoliberal Times

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xviii

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2. Introduction

   • Elin Diamond, Denise Varney, Candice Amich

   Pages 1-12

3. Affect, Performance, and the Neoliberal State

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 13-13

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   2. The Affective Performance of State Love

      • Sue-Ellen Case

      Pages 15-23

   3. ‘Not Now, Not Ever’: Julia Gillard and the Performative Power of Affect

      • Denise Varney

      Pages 25-38

   4. Performing Sovereignty Against Jurisprudential Death in an Australian State of Exception

      • Sandra D’Urso

      Pages 39-50

   5. Imagining Love in a Neoliberal Japan: Yanagi Miwa’s Elevator Girl

      • Nobuko Anan

      Pages 51-63

   6. Nisti Stêrk’s Affective Spaces in For Sweden – With the Times (För Sverige i tiden!)

      • Christina Svens

      Pages 65-74

4. Violence and Performance Activism

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 75-75

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   2. Raging On: The Politics of Violence in the Work of Jesusa Rodríguez and Liliana Felipe

      • Diana Taylor

      Pages 77-90

   3. The Limits of Witness: Regina José Galindo and Neoliberalism’s Gendered Economies of Violence

      • Candice Amich

      Pages 91-104

   4. Protesting Violence: Feminist Performance Activism in Contemporary India

      • Bishnupriya Dutt

      Pages 105-115

   5. My Cunt, My Rules! Feminist Sextremist Activism in Neoliberal Europe

      • Tiina Rosenberg

      Pages 117-130

5. Global Spectacles

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 131-131

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   2. Mapping Abramović, from Affect to Emotion

      • Marla Carlson

      Pages 133-145

   3. Virtuosity: Dance, Entrepreneurialism, and Nostalgia in Stage Irish Performance

      • Aoife Monks

      Pages 147-159

   4. Neoliberal Postfeminism, Neo-burlesque, and the Politics of Affect in the Performances of Moira Finucane

      • Sarah French

      Pages 161-173

   5. Buy One, Get One Free: The Dance Body for the Indian Film and Television Industry

      • Urmimala Sarkar Munsi

      Pages 175-187

   6. Affecting the Apparatus: Queer Feminist Re/Decodings in the Digital Dramaturgy Lab, Toronto

      • Antje Budde

      Pages 189-200

6. Resistance and Theatre Politics

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 201-201

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This book is a provocative new study of global feminist activism that opposes neoliberal regimes across several sites including Asia, Australia, Canada, Europe, Latin America and the United States. The feminist performative acts featured in the book contest the aggressive unravelling of collectively won gains in gender, sexual and racial equality, the appearance of new planes of discrimination, and the social consequences of political economies based on free market ideology. The investigations of affect theory follow the circulation of intensities – of political impingements on bodies, subjective and symbolic violence, and the shock of dispossession – within and beyond individuals to the social and political sphere. Affect is a helpful matrix for discussing the volatile interactivity between performer and spectator, whether live or technologically mediated. Contending that there is no activism without affect, the collection brings back to the table the activist and hopeful potential offeminism.

• feminist activism
• feminist performance
• affect theory
• performance activism
• political performance
• agitprop theatre
• political protest
• feminist protest
• street protest
• post-feminism
• site specific theatre
• female repression
• female empowerment
• cultural hegemony
• neoliberal ideology
• heteronormativity
• neoliberal individualism
• performance theory

“This volume gathers powerful scholarship by a global roster of writers, also including Antje Budde, Sue-Ellen Case, Charlotte Canning, Sandra D’Urso, Sarah French, Rebecca Jennison, Aoife Monks, and Urmimala Sarkar Munsi. It details and analyses an extraordinary array of performance and art practices. It tells a resounding horror story about the global reach of neoliberalism, the disparity it brings, and the precarity it multiplies, especially for women. … it delivers the powerful, inspiring affect of feminist resilience and resistance.” (Jen Harvie,Journal of Contemporary Drama in English, Vol. 8 (2), 2020)

“This collection is a major achievement and shining testimony to the longevity and value of an  international research group of feminist scholars who over time have developed a penetrating critique of our (neoliberal) times, the virtues and liabilities of affect, and the ways they manifest in performances across the world.” (Janelle Reinelt, Emeritus Professor of Theatre and Performance, University of Warwick, UK)

“In a spectrum of sharply inflected positions on the intersections of neoliberalism, affect and feminism, this assemblage of essays located in diverse geographical locations calls attention to the ways in which feminist performance continues to rage in multiple registers against the collusions of the state, the market, heteronormativity and racism.” (Rustom Bharucha, Professor in the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, India)

“The four keywords that organize this important and timely collection evoke the most compelling intellectual and political issues of our time.  The global reach of sites considered and the range of state power expertly examined illustrates each essay’s significance and impact.  An excellent, lively, engaged, and inspiring read.” (Jill Dolan, Annan Professor in English and Professor of Theatre, Princeton University, USA)

“This timely anthology examines how contemporary performance and intersectional feminism display complex affective responses to gendered life in neoliberal times. Arguing there is no resistance without affect, the book is also significant for its cross-cultural analysis and diverse case studies, offering insightful essays by leading scholars and new critical perspectives.” (Peter Eckersall, Professor of Theatre, The Graduate Center, City University of New York, USA)

• Department of English, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, USA

  Elin Diamond

• School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

  Denise Varney

• Department of English, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, USA

  Candice Amich

Elin Diamond is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Rutgers University, USA.

Denise Varney is Professor of Theatre Studies and co-director of the Australian Centre in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne, Australia.

Candice Amich is Assistant Professor of English at Vanderbilt University, USA.

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