From the age of Aristotle to the age of AIDS

Writers, thinkers, performers and activists have wrestled with what "performance" is all about. At the same moment, "performativity"—a new concept in language theory—has become a ubiquitous term in literary studies.

Exploring Key Terms

This volume grapples with the nature of these two key terms whose traces can be found everywhere: in the theatre, in the streets, in philosophy, in questions of race and gender, and in the sentences we speak.