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Jean Genet: Performance and Politics.

Research output: Book/Report/ProceedingsBook

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Publication date2006
PublisherPalgrave Macmillan
Number of pages1
ISBN (print)1403994803
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Bibliographic note

Early Career Researcher. This book explores the politics of Genet's performance practice by situating it within the fields of theatre studies, performance studies, cinema, dance and live art. The intention behind the book is to revise Genet's standing in the English-speaking world and to encourage new approaches to his work, both practically and theoretically. The book has been described by Professor Trevor Walker (endorsement) as 'making a major landmark and intervention in the field'. The rationale for the book is laid out in an earlier article Lavery published called 'The State of Genet Studies', Contemporary Theatre Review, 15:4, 2005, 470-5. In addition to co-editing the book, Lavery contributed two solo essays ' Reading The Blacks Through the 1956 Preface' and 'Theatre in a Graveyard: Site-based Performance and the Revolution of Everyday Life'; a joint essay with Paul Woodward 'Jean, Ron, Franko and Me: Genet, Body Art and Abjection' (50%); and a joint 'Introduction' (75%). Lavery also conducted, transcribed and edited five interviews. Lavery's essays offer new readings of Genet's theatre, based, respectively, on an unpublished French preface, Raoul Vanegeim's notion of everyday life, and the abject body. The 'Introduction' provides a detailed summary of Genet's career, including his experiments in different forms of performance, and much-neglected political commitment. The book was funded by an AHRC small grant in the Performing Arts (2004) and a British Academy travel grant to deliver a paper at the 14th Conference of the International Federation for Theatre Research in Washington (2005). The catalyst for the book was an international conference Lavery curated at the University of East Anglia in October 2003. Lavery's essay 'Reading The Blacks Through The 1956 Preface' will be republished in a forthcoming edited collection provisionally entitled Political Theatres (Rodopoi, 2008). RAE_import_type : Edited book RAE_uoa_type : LICA