1st Edition
Theatrical Speech Acts: Performing Language Politics, Translations, Embodiments
Theatrical Speech Acts: Performing Language explores the significance and impact of words in performance, probing how language functions in theatrical scenarios, what it can achieve under particular conditions, and what kinds of problems may arise as a result.
Presenting case studies from around the globe—spanning Argentina, Egypt, Germany, India, Indonesia, Korea, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Thailand, the UK and the US—the authors explore key issues related to theatrical speech acts, such as (post)colonial language politics; histories, practices and theories of translation for/in performance; as well as practices and processes of embodiment. With scholars from different cultural and disciplinary backgrounds examining theatrical speech acts—their preconditions, their cultural and bodily dimensions as well as their manifold political effects—the book introduces readers to a crucial linguistic dimension of historical and contemporary processes of interweaving performance cultures.
Ideal for drama, theater, performance, and translation scholars worldwide, Theatrical Speech Acts opens up a unique perspective on the transformative power of language in performance.
List of Figures Contributors Acknowledgements Introduction: Reflections on the Politics and Philosophy of Language in Performance ERIKA FISCHER-LICHTE PART I: Politics 1. The Politics of Translation: Notes towards an African Language Policy NGUGI WA THIONG’O 2. English is an African Language – Ka Dupe! For and against Ngugi BIODUN JEYIFO 3. Doing Things with Words: Indonesian Paralanguage and Performance HYPATIA VOURLOUMIS 4. Speech Politics: Performing Political Scripts ANANDA BREED PART II: Translations 5. Cultural Interweaving and Translation: Three Iconic Moments in Indian Theater, 1859–1979 APARNA DHARWADKER 6. The Translational Politics of Surtitling: Lola Arias’s Campo minado/Minefield JEAN GRAHAM-JONES 7. Staging an Alternative Theatrical Modernity: From Modern Literary Drama to Theatrical Speech Acts in Malayalam B. ANANTHAKRISHNAN 8. The Task of Theatrical Translation: Second-hand Speech Acts in Contemporary Performances ADAM CZIRAK PART III: Embodiments 9. Transmitting Voice Pedagogy: Interweaving Korean P’ansori and Contemporary Modes of Anglo-American Voice Training TARA MCALLISTER-VIEL 10. The Female Voice in Egyptian Theater: Between Traditions of Muting and the New Waves of Revolution NORA AMIN 11. Words that Dance / Words that Fight: Locating Speech Acts in Hip-Hop Theater RAMONA MOSSE Epilogue: Restoration as Re-creation: The Performative Role of the Word in the Context of Thai Culture CHETANA NAGAVAJARA Index
Biography
Erika Fischer-Lichte is Director of the International Research Center "Interweaving Performance Cultures" at Freie Universität Berlin.
Torsten Jost is Researcher at the International Research Center "Interweaving Performance Cultures" at Freie Universität Berlin.
Saskya Iris Jain is a writer, translator and editor, educated at Freie Universität Berlin and at Columbia University, New York.
