Liveness

Reviews of the first edition: "Wide-ranging and deeply absorbing... a first point of reference for anyone interested in the meaning and prospects of performance in the contemporary world." - Steven Connor, Birkbeck College, London "... marvellously rigorous in its intellectual musings" - Dean Wilcox, Theatre Research International "... even those who approach this text prepared to resist it every step of the way emerge with a respect for the clarity of every argument Auslander makes." - Dorothy Chansky, Modern Drama Winner of the Joe A. Callaway Prize for the Best Book on Drama and Theatre, 2000 Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture addresses what may be the single most important question facing all kinds of performance today. What is the status of live performance in a culture dominated by mass media? Since its first appearance, Philip Auslander's ground-breaking book has helped to reconfigure a new area of study. Looking at specific instances of live performance such as theatre, rock music, sport, and courtroom testimony, Liveness offers penetrating insights into media culture, suggesting that media technology has encroached on live events to the point where many are hardly live at all. In this new edition, the author thoroughly updates his provocative argument to take into account new digital and media technologies, and cultural, social, and legal developments. In tackling some of the last great shibboleths surrounding the high cultural status of the live event, this book will continue to shape opinion and to provoke lively debate on a crucial artistic dilemma: what is live performance and what can it mean to us now? Philip Auslander teaches Performance Studies at the Georgia Institute of Technology, USA. He is author of From Acting to Performance (1997) and Theory for Performance Studies (2007) and edited Performance: Critical Concepts in Literary and Cultural Studies (2003). Performance Studies/Cultural Theory/Media Studies/MusicAuslander, Philip is the author of 'Liveness', published 2008 under ISBN 9780415773539 and ISBN 0415773539.