Performance and the Medical Body

This edited collection focuses on performance practice and analysis that engages with medical and biomedical sciences. After locating the 'biologization' of theatre at the turn of the twentieth century, it examines a range of contemporary practices that respond to understandings of the human body as revealed by biomedical science.

In bringing together a variety of analytical perspectives, the book draws on scholars, scientists, artists and practices that are at the forefront of current creative, scientific and academic research. Its exploration of the dynamics and exchange between performance and medicine will stimulate a widening of the debate around key issues such as subjectivity, patient narratives, identity, embodiment, agency, medical ethics, health and illness. In focusing on an interdisciplinary understanding of performance, the book examines the potential of performance and theatre to intervene in, shape, inform and extend vital debates around biomedical knowledge and practice in the contemporary moment.

Dr Alex Mermikides is Senior Lecturer in Drama at Kingston University, London, UK. Her research interest is in contemporary performance-making, with a particular focus on science-engaged devised performance. Publications include Devising in Process (2010, edited with Jackie Smart), and chapters in other collections.
Dr Gianna Bouchard is Principal Lecturer in Drama at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK. Her research focuses on contemporary performance and live art in relation to medical science. She is co-editor of 'On Medicine', a special issue of Performance Research, and her work has been published in various edited collections.

Introduction
Part I
1. The Body on the Table - Alex Mermikides (Kingston University, UK) and Gianna Bouchard (Anglia Ruskin University, UK)
2. The Alternative (Medical) Science Play - Kirsten Shepherd-Barr (University of Oxford, UK)
3. Visualising the Medical Body - Martin Kemp (University of Oxford, UK)
4. Disciplines and Cultures - Roger Kneebone (Imperial College London, UK)
Part II
5. The Whole Body - Alex Mermikides (Kingston University, UK) and Gianna Bouchard (Anglia Ruskin University, UK)
6. Playing Doctors and Patients - Emma Brodzinski (Royal Holloway, University of London, UK)
7. Anatomie in 4 Parts - Suzy Willson (Clode Ensemble)
8. Empathy and Magic: Marina Abramovic and The Magic of the Mutual Gaze - Marko Zivkovic (University of Alberta, Canada)
9. The Performativity of Medicine - P. Solomon Lennox (Northumbria University, UK) and Fiona Pettit
Part III
10. Under the Scalpel - Alex Mermikides (Kingston University, UK) and Gianna Bouchard (Anglia Ruskin University, UK)
11. Anatomy and Dissection in and as Performance
12. The Pain of Specimenhood - Gianna Bouchard (Anglia Ruskin University, UK)
13. Medical Cyborgs - Professor Jennifer Parker-Starbuck (University of Roehampton, UK)
Part IV
14. Slides and Smears - Alex Mermikides (Kingston University, UK) and Gianna Bouchard (Anglia Ruskin University, UK)
15. Biomedia and the Permeable self - Kira O'Reilly (Queen Mary University, London, UK)
16. Sorting Socks - Alex Mermikides (Kingston University, UK)
17. 3-D Skin - Gabriella Giannachi (University of Exeter, UK)
Notes
Bibliography
Noes on Contributors
Index

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