The SAGE Handbook of Performance Studies

The SAGE Handbook of Performance Studies brings together, in a single volume,  discussions of the major research in performance studies and identifies directions for further investigation. It is the only comprehensive collection on the theories, methods, politics, and practices of performance relating to life and culture. Edited by D. Soyini Madison and Judith Hamera, this Handbook serves artists, scholars, and  students across the disciplines by delineating the scope of the field, the critical and interpretive methods used, and the theoretical and ethical presumptions that guide work in this exciting and growing area.  

Key Features:

• Demonstrates the utility of performance studies for diverse academic audiences by organizing topics into six primary realms of performance inquiry―Theory, History, Literature, Pedagogy, Ethnography, and Politics
• Includes engaging explications of performance theory and methods that help readers grasp their significance and to apply them to a wide range of sites and practices
• Summarizes key theoretical and methodological challenges across the field and provides connections with other bodies of research to advance further work in the discipline
• Provides balanced coverage of issues of enduring interest (such as the relationship between performance and politics; performance and ethnography) as well as those currently flourishing in the field (for example, relationships between performance and pedagogy) 

This Handbook opens a range of paradigms and queries that demonstrates the scope and influence of performance.  It will be a welcome addition to any academic library and is of interest to researchers, scholars, and students in the fields of Communication Studies, Performance Studies, Theatre Arts, and Cultural Studies.  

D. Soyini Madison is professor of Performance Studies and Anthropology, and served as Interim Director of the Program in African Studies at Northwestern University. She is the author of Acts of Activism: Human Rights as Radical Performance (2010, Cambridge UP) and the co-editor with Judith Hamera of the SAGE Handbook of Performance Studies (2006, SAGE). Madison lived in West Africa as a Senior Fulbright Scholar and has conducted field research over the past ten years on the performance tactics of local human rights activists in Ghana.

Judith Hamera received her B.A. (1980) in Mass Communication from Wayne State University and her M.A. (1982) and Ph.D. (1987) in Interpretation and Performance Studies respectively from Northwestern University. She is currently the Acting Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Letters, and Professor of Communication Studies and Theatre Arts and Dance at California State University, Los Angeles. She has served as Editor of Text and Performance Quarterly, the journal of the National Communication Association Division of Performance Studies. Her publications have appeared in Cultural Studies, TDR: The Drama Review, Modern Drama, Text and Performance Quarterly, Theatre Topics, and Women and Language. She is the recipient of the National Communication Association′s Lilla Heston Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Interpretation and Performance Studies, and was named President′s Distinguished Professor at California State University in 2004. She is coeditor, with D. Soyini Madison, of the SAGE Handbook of Performance Studies.