Puppet and Spirit: Ritual, Religion, and Performing Objects

This anthology of essays, a companion to Puppet and Spirit: Ritual, Religion, and Performing Objects, Volume I, aims to explore the many types of relationships that exist between puppets, broadly speaking, and the immaterial world.

The allure of the puppet goes beyond its material presence as, historically and throughout the globe, many uses of puppets and related objects have expressed and capitalized on their posited connections to other realms or ability to serve as vessels or conduits for immaterial presence. The flip side of the puppet’s troubling uncanniness is precisely the possibilities it represents for connecting to discarnate realities. Where do we see such connections in contemporary artistic work in various mediums? How do puppets open avenues for discussion in a world that seems to be increasingly polarized around religious values? How do we describe, analyze, and theorize the present moment? What new questions do puppets address for our times, and how does the puppet’s continued entanglement with these concerns trouble or comfort us? The essays in this book, from scholars and practitioners, provide a range of useful models and critical vocabularies for addressing this aspect of puppet performance, further expanding the growing understanding and appreciation of puppetry generally.

This book, along with its companion volume, offers, for the first time, robust coverage of this subject from a diversity of voices, examples, and perspectives.

Claudia Orenstein is Professor of Theatre at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, CUNY. She has spent over a decade writing on contemporary and traditional puppetry in the US and Asia.

Tim Cusack is an Adjunct Lecturer in Theatre at Hunter College. He was the co-founder and artistic director of Theatre Askew, an independent theatre company dedicated to the exploration of representations of queerness onstage.