Perform or Else: From Discipline to Performance - Hardcover

McKenzie, Jon

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0415247683 ISBN 13: 9780415247689

Publisher: Routledge, 2001

Synopsis

Perform or Else This text examines the meaning of the word "performance" in the 21st century. The author asserts that there is a relationship between cultural, organizational and technological performance and demonstrates that all three operate together to create powerful and contradictory pressures. Full description

About this title

Review:

"Overall, I find McKenzie's fluid essaying and profuse theorizing exhilarating. Alternately serious and ludic, vigorously interpretive and rewardingly idiosyncratic, this book is best read in the spirit in which it was written: as performance.."
-"Theatre Journal, Arthur Sabatini, Arizona State University
"In high-spirited prose that careens through both predictable and idiosyncratically selected texts and examples, McKenzie makes the case for rethinking performance as a concept and theory applicable far beyond theatre, performance, and cultural studies.."
-"Theatre Journal, Arthur Sabatini, Arizona State University
..."incredibly smart, provocative, and important.."
-Janelle Reinelt, University of California, Irvine
"Wholly original. Extremely valuable. A truly remarkable book.."
-Philip Auslander, author of "Liveness
"This tour de force introduces 'performance' as a new practice giving access to a secret network connecting 'performance' in all its uses across the divisions of knowledge. The liminal hinge of this newtork is 'the Challenger Lecture Machine, ' to whose seven Challengers may be added this eighth wonder of the performance world.."
-Gregory L. Ulmer, Professor of English, University of Florida

Synopsis:

"Performance" has become one of the key terms for the 21st century, but what do we mean by it? In today's world it can refer to experimental art; productivity in the workplace; and the functionality of technological systems. Do these disparate fields bear any relation to each other? In "Perform or Else" Jon McKenzie asserts that there is a relationship between cultural, organizational and technological performance. He demonstrates that all three operate together to create powerful and contradictory pressures to "perform...or else".

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0415247683
• ISBN 13: 9780415247689
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320