ABSTRACT

In Unmaking Mimesis Elin Diamond interrogates the concept of mimesis in relation to feminism, theatre and performance. She combines psychoanalytic, semiotic and materialist strategies with readings of selected plays by writers as diverse as Ibsen, Brecht, Aphra Behn, Caryl Churchill and Peggy Shaw.
Through a series of provocative readings of theatre, theory and feminist performance she demonstrates the continuing force of feminism and mimesis in critical thinking today.
Unmaking Mimesis will interest theatre scholars and performance and cultural theorists, for all of whom issues of text, representation and embodiment are of compelling concern.

part |2 pages

Part I Unmaking mimesis

chapter 1|38 pages

Realism’s hysteria

Disruption in the theater of knowledge

part |2 pages

Part II Gestic feminist criticism

chapter 2|13 pages

Brechtian theory/feminist theory

Toward a gestic feminist criticism

chapter 4|18 pages

Caryl Churchill’s plays: the gestus of invisibility 91

The gestus of invisibility

part |2 pages

Part III Toward a feminist postmodern

chapter 5|36 pages

Identification and mimesis

The theater of Adrienne Kennedy

chapter 6|40 pages

Performance and temporality

Feminism, experience, and mimetic transformation