Book

Staged : show trials, political theater, and the aesthetics of judgment

Arjomand, Minou, author

Overview

\"No one uses the term \"show trial\" as a compliment: we usually understand theater as antithetical to the workings of justice. But after the Second World War, directors and playwrights like Bertolt Brecht, Erwin Piscator, Peter Weiss, and Arthur Miller sought to claim a new public role for theater by restaging trials as shows. In the two decades after the War, the Moscow show trials, Nuremberg trials, House Un-American Activities Committee hearings, the Frankfurt Auschwitz trial, and the Eichmann trial were all turned into plays. Why re-stage these trials within a theater? How can the stage represent atrocity and narrate histories of oppression differently than a courtroom? And, finally, how do the processes of aesthetic judgment change an audience's understanding of justice? To answer these questions, Staged combines extensive archival research into performances of postwar documentary theater with a critical reading of Hannah Arendt's political and aesthetic philosophy, addressing at the same time broader debates within critical theory about the relationship between aesthetics and politics\"-- Provided by publisher.

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Subject: Theater Political aspects. / Legal drama History and criticism. / Political plays History and criticism. / Aesthetics Political aspects.
• ISBN: 9780231184885

Item info:

1 item available

1 item total in all locations

Holdings :

Call Number	Copies	Material	Location
PN2051.A75 2018	1	BOOK	AUTOSTORE