Skip to main content
Springer Nature Link
Log in
Palgrave Macmillan

Theatre and Human Rights after 1945

Things Unspeakable

  • Book
  • © 2015

Overview

Editors:
  1. Mary Luckhurst

    1. University of Melbourne, UK
      University of York, UK

    View editor publications

    You can also search for this editor in PubMed   Google Scholar

  2. Emilie Morin

    1. University of Melbourne, UK
      University of York, UK

    View editor publications

    You can also search for this editor in PubMed   Google Scholar

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this book

Log in via an institution
eBook USD 99.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access

Licence this eBook for your library

Institutional subscriptions

About this book

This volume investigates the rise of human rights discourses manifested in the global spectrum of theatre and performance since 1945. Essays address topics such as disability, discrimination indigenous rights, torture, gender violence, genocide and elder abuse.

Keywords

Table of contents (13 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xiii
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Introduction: Theatre and the Rise of Human Rights

    1. Introduction: Theatre and the Rise of Human Rights

      • Mary Luckhurst, Emilie Morin
      Pages 1-17

  5. Returning Histories, Listening, and Trauma

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 91-91
      Download chapter PDF

    2. Disappearing History: Listening and Trauma in Ariel Dorfman’s Death and the Maiden

      • Cathy Caruth
      Pages 93-109

    3. Hungry Ghosts and Inalienable Remains: Performing Rights of Repatriation

      • Emma Cox
      Pages 110-127

    4. Representing Genocide at Home: Ishi, Again

      • Catherine M. Cole
      Pages 128-150

  7. Militancy and Contemporary Invisibilities

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 207-207
      Download chapter PDF

    2. Defixio: Disability and the Speakable Legacy of John Belluso

      • Michael M. Chemers
      Pages 209-227

    3. Theatre and Elder Abuse

      • Mary Luckhurst
      Pages 228-240

  8. Back Matter

    Pages 241-254
    Download chapter PDF
Back to top

Reviews

“Editors … have collected an impressive range of international perspectives on human rights and theatre. … What the volume as a whole achieves is an insistence on theatre’s roles in wider cultural (often global) contexts that are about testimony, the recognition of past injustices, mediation, advocacy, and potential catharsis. Contributors offer engaging accounts of examples from a range of places (and eras) in which performance speaks of and through human rights abuses at the level of institutions, states, and international collusion.” (Aylwyn Walsh, New Theatre Quarterly, Vol. 33 (1), February, 2017)

“I describe this book as vital to playwrights, artistic directors and serious artistic thinkers alike. … I learned much from this book and itwill assist my own work as a playwright. … I suggest that whether you are a theatre practitioner or an audience member, your stage experience will be improved by reading these essays. As I said at the outset, Mary Luckhurst and Emilie Morin have compiled and edited a vital series of essays.” (Hubert O’Hearn, San Diego Book Review, October, 2015)


"This book defines vitally important new territory in thinking about the intersection of theatre, social engagement, and human rights. Nuanced readings of 20th and 21st-century performance practices investigate the unique role of theatre in relation to issues such as post-conflict violence, torture, elder abuse, political censorship, corporate labour practices, and disability. Cathy Caruth analyses the politics of listening and Catherine Cole writes magisterially on institutional ethics and the performance of genocide. This is a brilliant expose of the way performance can sometimes transcend and sometimes spectacularly fail in the wake of the famously unspeakable horrors of Auschwitz." - Yoni Prior, Deakin University, Australia

"This volume examines the critical and performative valency of 'unspeakability', by sensitively investigating its meanings within various historical and political contexts. Engaging with protest theatres in northern Africa, disability, indigenous rights, elderabuse, torture, sexual violence, and the ethical protocols of repatriating human remains, it offers an impressively diverse set of agendas on human rights. Theatre and Human Rights interrogates the 'unspeakable' in ways that will resonate with everyone and for a long time to come." - Joanne Tompkins, University of Queensland, Australia

Editors and Affiliations

  • University of Melbourne, UK

    Mary Luckhurst, Emilie Morin

  • University of York, UK

    Mary Luckhurst, Emilie Morin

About the editors

Ananda Breed, University of East London, UK Marvin Carlson, City University of New York, USA Cathy Caruth, Cornell University, USA Maryrose Casey, Monash University, Australia Michael M. Chemers, University of California, Santa Cruz, USA Catherine M. Cole, University of California, Berkeley, USA Emma Cox, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK Mark Fleishman, University of Cape Town, South Africa Mary Luckhurst, University of Melbourne, Australia Michael McAteer, Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Hungary Carol Martin, New York University, USA Emilie Morin, University of York, UK

Bibliographic Information

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Back to top