‘Political-Timing-Specific’ Performance Art in the Realm of the Museum

Can reenactments be a way to create counter-narratives in and for the museum? Through the analysis of political performance (or what the artist Tania Bruguera calls ‘political-timing-specific’ artworks), this essay discusses the potential of reenactment as both a practice of materializing memories and narratives of oppression and of rethinking museum policies in terms of preservation and display. Its main argument is that, while the archive can be regarded as a form of materializing the memory of these works, reenactment is more than a way of recovering the past; it is also a device for reconstructing memories of activism and oppression. This essay further suggests that reenactments of political-timing-specific works demand a change in accessioning, conservation, and presentation practices, which might be inclined to erase decentralized art-historical and material narratives.

Humbug and outrage: A study of performance, gender and affective atmosphere in the mediation of a critical parliamentary moment

In a Parliament called back following its unlawful prorogation in September 2019, Prime Minister Boris Johnson touched a raw nerve by stating that the ‘best way to honour Jo Cox’s memory is to get Brexit done’. Johnson had earlier dismissed concerns about threats to Members of Parliament which echoed his inflammatory language as ‘humbug’. We examine this critical parliamentary moment in the context of broader discussions about emotionality, toxic discourse and polarisation in the United Kingdom. The study combines performance analysis of the Hansard transcripts and UK Parliament YouTube coverage of the debate, with discourse analysis of national and local newspaper coverage from 25 September to 1 October 2019. We contend that in-depth examination of this moment, alongside the subsequent journalistic commentary, contributes an original case study which works to illuminate the intersections of political performance, affective atmospheres and gender in contemporary mediated political culture.

The First-Class, the Familiar and the Forgettable: An analysis of Prime Ministerial performance in New Zealand

<p>Within the literature associated with political leadership, scholarship directly focused upon political performance in office is thinly conducted, both in New Zealand and in other areas across the world. This thesis aims to greater understand political leadership and performance in New Zealand, and address the gaps in the literature correlated with Prime Ministerial performance. To do this, this thesis provides a current list of rankings of former Premiers and Prime Ministers in New Zealand and identifies the dimensions that one must fulfil to display exceptional performance in office. To undertake this research, this thesis uses a series of surveys – distributed to students at Victoria University of Wellington, and to other individuals with a professional interest in politics and history in New Zealand – to best assess public perceptions towards political performance. Building upon the path dependency created by former exercises of the same nature in New Zealand (conducted by Simon Sheppard in 1998, and by Jon Johansson and Stephen Levine in 2011), this thesis provides a snapshot of the current public perceptions of outstanding political performance. In a similar nature to the earlier studies, this thesis identifies the dimensions of longevity, death in office, and being a ‘big change’ or crisis Prime Minister as being directly correlated with elevated performance in office. Additionally, this thesis investigates whether a series of variables – namely time between exercises in New Zealand, and the appearance of a possible recency effect– provide any influence or change over results. Additionally, this thesis moves outside the scope of exercises conducted previously in New Zealand, by ranking Prime Ministerial performance using a series of different methodologies. In conjunction with a replication of the exercises already conducted in New Zealand, this survey also assesses Prime Ministerial performance by using a survey based upon the well-cited Schlesinger ranking studies in the United States, and a third survey aimed to assess political shifts and levels of knowledge and recall rates amongst university students. Regardless of such factors, the results of this thesis remain consistent with previous exercises, with Michael Savage, Richard Seddon, Helen Clark and Peter Fraser being regarded by the political and academic elite across all surveys as embodying the highest qualities of successful political leadership in New Zealand.</p>

The First-Class, the Familiar and the Forgettable: An analysis of Prime Ministerial performance in New Zealand

<p>Within the literature associated with political leadership, scholarship directly focused upon political performance in office is thinly conducted, both in New Zealand and in other areas across the world. This thesis aims to greater understand political leadership and performance in New Zealand, and address the gaps in the literature correlated with Prime Ministerial performance. To do this, this thesis provides a current list of rankings of former Premiers and Prime Ministers in New Zealand and identifies the dimensions that one must fulfil to display exceptional performance in office. To undertake this research, this thesis uses a series of surveys – distributed to students at Victoria University of Wellington, and to other individuals with a professional interest in politics and history in New Zealand – to best assess public perceptions towards political performance. Building upon the path dependency created by former exercises of the same nature in New Zealand (conducted by Simon Sheppard in 1998, and by Jon Johansson and Stephen Levine in 2011), this thesis provides a snapshot of the current public perceptions of outstanding political performance. In a similar nature to the earlier studies, this thesis identifies the dimensions of longevity, death in office, and being a ‘big change’ or crisis Prime Minister as being directly correlated with elevated performance in office. Additionally, this thesis investigates whether a series of variables – namely time between exercises in New Zealand, and the appearance of a possible recency effect– provide any influence or change over results. Additionally, this thesis moves outside the scope of exercises conducted previously in New Zealand, by ranking Prime Ministerial performance using a series of different methodologies. In conjunction with a replication of the exercises already conducted in New Zealand, this survey also assesses Prime Ministerial performance by using a survey based upon the well-cited Schlesinger ranking studies in the United States, and a third survey aimed to assess political shifts and levels of knowledge and recall rates amongst university students. Regardless of such factors, the results of this thesis remain consistent with previous exercises, with Michael Savage, Richard Seddon, Helen Clark and Peter Fraser being regarded by the political and academic elite across all surveys as embodying the highest qualities of successful political leadership in New Zealand.</p>

Political Theology as Theodicy: The Holy Spirit’s Performance in the Economy of Redemption

Although Political Theology examined mainly the political dimension of the relationship between God-Father and God-Son, it is paramount to consider the political performance of the Holy Spirit in the Economy of Redemption. The Holy Spirit has been characterized as the binding cause and the principle of relationality both referring to God’s inner life and to God’s relationship with His creatures. As the personalization of relationality, the Holy Spirit performs a unique task: to bring together what is apart by means of organisation. This power of the Spirit to turn a plurality into a unity is manifested in the Latin translation of oikonomía as disposition, that is, giving a special order to the multiple elements within a certain totality. Within this activity of the Spirit, Theodicy can be regarded as the way to depict God’s arrangement of the world and of history, bringing everything together towards the eschatological Kingdom of God. The paper aims at showing this fundamental activity of the Holy Spirit in Christian Theology, and intends to pose the question on how to think on a theology beyond theodicy, that is, how to think on a Trinitarian God beyond the categories of sovereignty and totalization.

Making the Representation Real: The Actor and the Spectator in Milo Rau’s ‘Theatrical Essays’ Mitleid and La Reprise

Exceptional in demonstrating the political engagement emerging in twenty-first-century performance is the corpus of the writer and director Milo Rau, whose practice is distinguished by its (re)meditation of the real. With detailed reference to Mitleid (2016) and La Reprise (2018), this article examines Rau’s self-reflexive strategies in (re)presenting testimony or an event as a means not of depicting the real, but of making the theatrical representation itself real in order to change the world rather than merely to portray it. The article focuses in particular on strategies relating to the actor-character and spectatorship. Rau’s interest in the positions of the actor and spectator illuminates issues that have arisen in the discourse of theatre witnessing and in recent scholarship on dramaturgical approaches and spectatorship in contemporary political performance. Essentially, Rau makes the performer’s habitus transparent, and challenges the spectator’s reflexivity, effectively rebutting the largely unchallenged assumption that characters who perform witnesses necessarily leave little room for the spectator to be a performing witness. Stuart Young is Professor of Theatre Studies at the University of Otago. His recent publications include the co-edited Ethical Exchanges: Translation, Adaptation, Dramaturgy (Brill Rodopi, 2017), while his practice-led research into Theatre of the Real includes The Keys are in the Margarine: A Verbatim Play about Dementia (2014).

Performance Matters in Heine: The Case of Pauline Viardot’s ‘Das ist ein schlechtes Wetter’

Heinrich Heine’s poem ‘Das ist ein schlechtes Wetter’ (Die Heimkehr 29) can be read as a meta-poem about the ambivalence of his ironic art. The poet looks through his window into the stormy darkness, and we cannot tell if his perceptions of a mother carrying groceries and her daughter sitting at home are real or imagined. Reception of the poem has been similarly divided, with some critics likening the poem to a genre painting in a realist vein, and others citing it as another manifestation of Heine’s love-hate relationship with Romantic idealism. Literary translations and musical settings of the poem each take their own stand on the poem’s ambiguities, but the manner and context of performance will be crucial to what any presentation or adaptation of the poem might mean. A particularly cosmopolitan example of such a context is Pauline Viardot’s intimate Karlsuhe salon in the winter of 1869. In performing her own musical setting of the poem in this environment, Viardot seems to have identified with the mother represented in the poem and performs herself as a caring, nurturing matriarch to her own daughters. Ivan Turgenev must have been present at this performance, and his Russian singing translation of Viardot’s song corroborates this sentimental interpretation. Meanwhile, Louis Pomey’s French singing translation, decidedly more acerbic and cutting, may have been prepared for a more public audience interested primarily in Heine’s wit rather than Viardot’s personal family relationships. Finally, a contemporaneous passage in Viardot’s correspondence reveals her offense at Richard Wagner’s recently re-published essay Das Judentum in der Musik and suggests a political performance context for her song in which Viardot now expresses quasi-maternal sympathy for her Jewish colleagues maligned by Wagner’s screed and defends the notion of a cosmopolitan, international family of artists.

Rethinking Radical Democracy with Butler

In Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly, Judith Butler, by inserting the issue of bodily life and bodily needs into the Arendtian political category of space of appearance, allows us to trace unusual and interesting paths in our exploration of the territory of democracy. This exploration could start from what I call a reimagining of democracy’s germinal status. By pondering Butler’s claim that the gathering of people in a public space signifies in excess of what is said, this essay focuses on the topic of vocal crowds in order to investigate the difference between plurality and mass. In particular, by revisiting texts by Elias Canetti and Roland Barthes, it explores the soundscape of an embodied plurality uttering words or chanting. Does democracy, at its core, in its germinal status, allow for the voice of plurality to enact a distinctive political performance? Is it possible to speak of a democratic pluriphony?