The Spectator and the Spectacle: Audiences in Modernity and Postmodernity - Softcover

Kennedy, Dennis

Softcover

ISBN 10: 110740360X ISBN 13: 9781107403604

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2011

Synopsis

Spectators and audiences are everywhere in contemporary culture. However, even in conventional performance, whether in the theatre, in film or television, or at a sporting event, it is difficult to discuss spectators with any authority, since each of us experiences and understands the display in different ways and all methods of analyzing spectators are flawed or unreliable. This book provides instead a series of investigations into specific types of performance activity, and how they relate to their audiences. Specific topics discussed include the relationship of audiences to the rise of the director, the avant-garde, tourism, gambling, the effect of cinema on live performance and sport, including crowd violence. Spectatorship is an area of increasing importance in the field of theatre and performance studies, and this engaging study is a valuable contribution to the development of thinking about audiences and spectators.

About this title

Review

Review of the hardback: 'Kennedy engages the reader in a series of well-observed, clear-eyed, clear-minded, and finely wrought conversations that are thematically linked, yet also discrete about historically specific audiences and the inevitable failure of efforts to control or contain them in theory or practice.' Modern Drama

'It is a very refreshing way of putting theoretical "big talk" into concrete perspective ... contain[s] some excellent studies on the corporeality and phenomenology of visuality ... The idea of various "modes of spectating" promises an intriguing concept ...' Theatre Research International

Book Description

Are spectators passive receptors, merely consuming what is offered, or are they active participants, adding something to the event? In what ways does a spectator assist the spectacle? This wide-ranging study addresses these and many other questions, covering many different types of performance events including theatre, sport, television and ritual.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 110740360X
• ISBN 13: 9781107403604
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 260