Performance, Politics, and the War on Terror

Using a performance studies lens, this book is a study of performance in the post-9/11 context of the so-called war on terror. It analyzes conventional theatre, political protest, performance art and other sites of performance to unpack the ways in which meaning has been made in the contemporary global sociopolitical environment.

Sara Brady is Assistant Professor at Bronx Community College/City University of New York, USA. She received her PhD from the Department of Performance Studies at New York University. With Fintan Walsh she edited the collection Crossroads: Performance Studies and Irish Culture (Palgrave, 2009). Her writing has appeared in TDR: The Drama Review, American Theatre magazine, and New Hibernia Review.

List of Illustrations	p. ix
Preface	p. xii
Acknowledgments	p. xvii
Bushismo	p. 1
Bushismo	p. 2
The big picture	p. 4
Bush's performances	p. 6
Truth, "truthiness," and the fake	p. 12
Michael Moore's Oscar, or, the invalidation of the political	p. 15
The real, and fear: 2004	p. 17
The blank slate	p. 18
Back stage: Cheney's dark side	p. 20
Bush in representation from W to Lil' Bush	p. 23
Documentary theatre: perforating "truth," testimony, and evidence	p. 26
Bush's wikiality	p. 31
Protest Visible and Invisible	p. 33
Shannon	p. 33
Theorizing secrecy	p. 35
Cultivating fear: reconstructing post-9/11 performances of dissent	p. 39
Uniforms and resistance	p. 44
Uniforms and camouflage: discipline/deception	p. 48
Wearing and telling: Vietnam	p. 51
Wearing and telling: Iraq and Afghanistan	p. 54
Post-9/11 uniform protests	p. 55
Conclusion: uniform protest on video and in games	p. 61
War, the Video Game	p. 65
"War is culture"	p. 65
Undercover at the Army Experience Center	p. 66
"War is peace"	p. 73
Games finite and infinite	p. 75
War as game	p. 75
Performing counter-insurgency within the "game"	p. 79
Documentary games	p. 83
Enemies "real" and "unreal"	p. 88
"AU But War Is Simulation"	p. 90
Playing the game	p. 95
Conclusion	p. 102
Torture Simulated and Real	p. 103
Scenes from the Coney Island Waterboarding Thrill Ride	p. 103
Real fiction, fake reality	p. 106
"Lookin' for Jack Bauer"	p. 107
Blurring fiction and reality in popular entertainment: 24	p. 110
24 and the representation of torture	p. 113
"Mock Death": waterboarding, performance, exception	p. 124
Waterboarding: the worst form of torture, and our favorite	p. 126
Interrogation training	p. 136
Conclusion	p. 138
Obamania	p. 140
Same method, different president	p. 140
"Whatever It Takes": pure theatre	p. 141
The test	p. 144
Freedom isn't free	p. 146
Obamania	p. 154
Barack the badass	p. 155
Notes	p. 160
References	p. 185
Index	p. 201
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

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Performance, Politics, and the War on Terror 'Whatever it Takes'

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials