Publisher's Synopsis
The study privileges the puppet as a new and revealing point of access to contemporary critical debates regarding performance, genre, affect, aesthetics, cultural production, political activism and the nonhuman studies. The contributors address a striking range of performance histories, aesthetic movements and theoretical positions, from the Arabic influence on Iberian shadow puppetry to the position of the puppet in post-Revolutionary Iran and the American anti-war movement; from the puppet's central role in the development of European theatre to avant-garde and modernist anti-theatre; from the puppet's place in the histories of visual art and experimental film to critiques of mass media.