Performance Cultures as Epistemic Cultures, Volume II (Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies)

This volume investigates performance cultures as rich and dynamic environments of knowledge practice through which distinctive epistemologies are continuously (re)generated, cultivated and celebrated. Epistemologies are dynamic formations of rules, tools and procedures not only for understanding but also for doing knowledges.

This volume deals in particular with epistemological challenges posed by practices and processes of interweaving performance cultures. These challenges arise in artistic and academic contexts because of hierarchies between epistemologies. European colonialism worked determinedly, violently and often with devastating effects on instituting and sustaining a hegemony of modern Euro-American rules of knowing in many parts of the world. Therefore, Interweaving Epistemologies critically interrogates the (im)possibilities of interweaving epistemologies in artistic and academic contexts today. Writing from diverse geographical locations and knowledge cultures, the book’s contributors―philosophers and political scientists as well as practitioners and scholars of theater, performance and dance―investigate prevailing forms of epistemic ignorance and violence. They introduce key concepts and theories that enable critique of unequal power relations between epistemologies. Moreover, contributions explore historical cases of interweaving epistemologies and examine innovative present-day methods of working across and through epistemological divides in nonhegemonic, sustainable, creative and critical ways.

Ideal for practitioners, students and researchers of theater, performance and dance, Interweaving Epistemologies emphasizes the urgent need to acknowledge, study and promote epistemological plurality and diversity in practices of performance-making as well as in scholarship on theater and performance around the globe today.

Torsten Jost is a researcher and academic coordinator at the Cluster of Excellence "Temporal Communities: Doing Literature in a Global Perspective" at Freie Universität Berlin.

Erika Fischer-Lichte is Director of the International Research Center "Interweaving Performance Cultures" at Freie Universität Berlin.

Milos Kosic studied creative writing at the City College of New York and English Studies at Freie Universität Berlin.

Astrid Schenka is a performing arts scholar, dramaturge and translator. She currently works as a research associate at the International Research Center "Interweaving Performance Cultures" at Freie Universität Berlin as well as a guest lecturer at the Zurich University of the Arts.