ABSTRACT
The Routledge Circus Studies Reader offers an absorbing critical introduction to this diverse and emerging field. It brings together the work of over 30 scholars in this discipline, including Janet Davis, Helen Stoddart and Peta Tait, to highlight and address the field’s key historical, critical and theoretical issues. It is organised into three accessible sections, Perspectives, Precedents and Presents, which approach historical aspects, current issues, and the future of circus performance.
The chapters, grouped together into 13 theme-based sub-sections, provide a clear entry point into the field and emphasise the diversity of approaches available to students and scholars of circus studies. Classic accounts of performance, including pieces by Philippe Petit and Friedrich Nietzsche, are included alongside more recent scholarship in the field.
Edited by two scholars whose work is strongly connected to the dynamic world of performance, The Routledge Circus Studies Reader is an essential teaching and study resource for the emerging discipline of circus studies. It also provides a stimulating introduction to the field for lovers of circus.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part 1|315 pages
Perspectives
section |66 pages
Aesthetics
section |35 pages
The clown
section |55 pages
Cross-arts
section |36 pages
Gender and sexuality
section |27 pages
Race
chapter Chapter 12|25 pages
Celebrated, then implied but finally denied
section |42 pages
Sideshows
chapter Chapter 13|32 pages
Freaks of culture
section |20 pages
Child performers
section |31 pages
Spectators
part II|168 pages
Precedents
section |74 pages
Origins
section |50 pages
Politics
chapter Chapter 23|25 pages
Bending the body for China
chapter Chapter 25|19 pages
A contemporary history of circus arts in Buenos Aires, Argentina
section |14 pages
Physical exceptionalism
section |30 pages
Animal performers
part III|75 pages
Presents