Ruins

Classical Theater and Broken Memory

Nonfiction, Entertainment, Theatre, Performing Arts
Cover of the book Ruins by Odai Johnson, University of Michigan Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Odai Johnson ISBN: 9780472124398
Publisher: University of Michigan Press Publication: October 10, 2018
Imprint: University of Michigan Press Language: English
Author: Odai Johnson
ISBN: 9780472124398
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Publication: October 10, 2018
Imprint: University of Michigan Press
Language: English

Much of the theater of antiquity is marked by erasures: missing origins, broken genres, fragments of plays, ruins of architecture, absented gods, remains of older practices imperfectly buried and ghosting through the civic productions that replaced them.  Ruins: Classical Theater and Broken Memory traces the remains, the remembering, and the forgetting of performance traditions of classical theater. The book argues that it is only when we look back over the accumulation of small evidence over a thousand-year sweep of classical theater that the remarkable and unequaled endurance of the tradition emerges. In the absence of more evidence, Odai Johnson turns instead to the absence itself, pressing its most legible gaps into a narrative about scars, vanishings, erasures, and silence:  all the breakages that constitute the ruins of antiquity.

In ten wide-ranging case studies, theater history and performance theory are brought together to examine the texts, artifacts, and icons left behind, reading them in fresh ways to offer an elegantly written, extended meditation on “how the aesthetic of ruins offered a model for an ideal that dislodged and ultimately stood in for the historic.”

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Much of the theater of antiquity is marked by erasures: missing origins, broken genres, fragments of plays, ruins of architecture, absented gods, remains of older practices imperfectly buried and ghosting through the civic productions that replaced them.  Ruins: Classical Theater and Broken Memory traces the remains, the remembering, and the forgetting of performance traditions of classical theater. The book argues that it is only when we look back over the accumulation of small evidence over a thousand-year sweep of classical theater that the remarkable and unequaled endurance of the tradition emerges. In the absence of more evidence, Odai Johnson turns instead to the absence itself, pressing its most legible gaps into a narrative about scars, vanishings, erasures, and silence:  all the breakages that constitute the ruins of antiquity.

In ten wide-ranging case studies, theater history and performance theory are brought together to examine the texts, artifacts, and icons left behind, reading them in fresh ways to offer an elegantly written, extended meditation on “how the aesthetic of ruins offered a model for an ideal that dislodged and ultimately stood in for the historic.”

More books from University of Michigan Press

Cover of the book Arthur Miller's America by Odai Johnson
Cover of the book Show Me Your Environment by Odai Johnson
Cover of the book Conflict, Security, Foreign Policy, and International Political Economy by Odai Johnson
Cover of the book Architecture and Modern Literature by Odai Johnson
Cover of the book Mad Heart Be Brave by Odai Johnson
Cover of the book International Capital Flows in Calm and Turbulent Times by Odai Johnson
Cover of the book The Chatter of the Visible by Odai Johnson
Cover of the book The Price of Racial Reconciliation by Odai Johnson
Cover of the book Big Digital Humanities by Odai Johnson
Cover of the book White Rebels in Black by Odai Johnson
Cover of the book Worldly Provincialism by Odai Johnson
Cover of the book How Like an Angel by Odai Johnson
Cover of the book The Subject and Other Subjects by Odai Johnson
Cover of the book Titles, Conflict, and Land Use by Odai Johnson
Cover of the book The Unreal Estate Guide to Detroit by Odai Johnson
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy