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Performativity and Performance EVE KOSOFSKY SEDGWICK & ANDREW PARKER, Eds, 1995 London & New York, Routledge
239 pp., 0 415 91054 4, hb, 35.00; 0 415 91055 2, pb, 11.99
This collection of essays is another contribution to current debates on the nature and theory of performance: performance not necessarily in terms of theatrical experience, but as the interpretation of speech in action. As the editors correctly recognise, the centre of theatre studies appears to have moved from the study of texts to the study of performance; concurrently, the terminology of 'performativity' has become a growing area of literary studies. The impetus behind much of this collection is J.L. Austin's 1962 publication, How To Do Things With Words: and at least three of the essays here are explicit responses to that text. The editors state their aim as to `demonstrate the extraordinary productivity of...