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

The Resource Staged : show trials, political theater, and the aesthetics of judgment
Label
Staged : show trials, political theater, and the aesthetics of judgment
Title remainder
show trials, political theater, and the aesthetics of judgment
Statement of responsibility
Minou Arjomand
Creator
Author
Subject
Genre
Language
eng
Summary
"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"--
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Provided by publisher
Cataloging source
LBSOR/DLC
Illustrations
illustrations
Index
index present
Literary form
non fiction
Nature of contents
bibliography

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

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