Mourning Sex: Performing Public Memories

Mourning Sexemploys an impressive range of cultural representations to examine how cultures perform their mourning. The texts examined range from a recent film made by a man dying of AIDS, to the remains of the Rose theatre. Other chapters explore the performance of grief through: the paintings of Caravaggio and Holbein; the Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas hearings; and Freud's patient Anna O. InMourning Sex, Phelan meditates upon the trauma of loss, erotically and performatively, in an extraordinary fusion of critical and creative writing which erodes the distinction between art and theory, fact and fiction. This work by the author of the highly-accalimedUnmarkedmakes a stunning advance in performance theory in dialogue with psychoanalysis, queer theory, and cultural studies. relation to texts and events ranging from the paintings of Caravaggio and Holbein, to Massi and Friedman's filmSilverlake Lifeto the Anita Hill and ClarenceThomas hearing Peggy Phelan meditates upon the performance and erotics of the trauma of loss. Experimental and theoretically informed Mourning Sex advances performance theory in dialogue with psychoanalysis, queer theory, and cultural studies.Mourning Sexexamines how cultures perform their mourning. Employing a wide range of cultural representations--from Caravaggio's 1601 painting,The Incredulity of St. Thomasto Tom Joslin's, Mark Massi's and Peter Friedman's 1992 filmSilver Lake Life: The View From Here,Mourning Sexmeditates on the trauma of loss, erotically, and performatively. Experimental and theoretically informed,Mourning Sexadvances performance theory in dialogue with psychoanalysis, queer theory, and cultural studies.