Shawyer dissertation May 2008 final version - The University of ...

linguistic theory, the field of performance studies embraces the idea of performance as anaction, a doing of something.Performance studies emerged as an interdisciplinary field in the 1960s, drawingon the theories and practices of sociology, anthropology, theatre, literature, philosophy,and oral interpretation. At its most basic, performance studies suggests that “any event,action, item, or behavior may be examined ‘as’ performance” (Schechner, “What” 361).The concept of performance allows for the analysis of events as changeable and inprocess rather than as fixed phenomena. It also offers ways to discuss how humansconstruct identities and situations for the benefit of observers. For example, sociologistErving Goffman analyzes the different personae humans perform in different socialsituations in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959). Anthropologist VictorTurner uses concepts drawn from the classical Western agonistic dramatic structure toexplore the initiation rites of the Ndembu of northwestern Zambia in From Ritual toTheatre: The Human Seriousness of Play (1982). Theatre scholar Baz Kersawinvestigates a 1968 anti-war march on London’s Grosvenor Square in an attempt to createa “dramaturgy of protest as performance” in The Radical in Performance: BetweenBrecht and Baudrillard (1999). Social masks, rites of passage, public demonstrations—all can be considered types of performance.The field of performance studies defines performance broadly as human actionsproduced to influence other humans in some way. To influence might mean to entertainan audience in the theatre, or to form communitas with other participants in a ritual, or tocommunicate a gender identity to one’s peers. Goffman argues that performance12