Performing Fantasy And Reality In Contemporary Culture

We frequently engage with that which we consciously perceive not to be real, yet fantasy, despite its pervasive presence and strong role in everyday life through its connection to identities, communities, desires, and meanings, has yet to be properly defined and researched. This book examines fantasy from a performance theory perspective. Drawing on multidisciplinary literature, it presents ethnographic and art-based research on live action role-playing games to explore fantasy as a bodily and negotiated phenomenon that involves various kinds of engagement with one’s surroundings. Overall, this book is a study of various forms and roles that fantasy can take on as part of contemporary Western culture. The study suggests that fantasy emerges as a different type of interpretation of normalised performance and reality, and can thus provide individuals with the tools to wield agency in everyday life. The book will appeal to scholars of sociology, cultural and media studies, literature and performance studies.

This book examines the relation between bodies and political economies at micro and macro levels. It stands in the space between ends and beginnings – some long-desired, such as the end of capitalism and racism, and others long-dreaded, such as the climate catastrophe – and reimagines what the world can be like instead. It offers an original investigation into the relation between performance, dance, and political economy, looking at the points where politics, economics, ethics, and culture intersect. Arising from live conversations and exchanges among the contributors, this book is written in an interdisciplinary and dialogical manner by leading scholars and artists in the fields of Performance Studies, Dance, Political Theory, Economics, and Social Theory: Marc Arthur, Melissa Blanco Borelli, Anita Gonzalez, Alexandrina Hemsley, Jamila Johnson-Small, Elena Loizidou, Tavia Nyong'o, Katerina Paramana, Nina Power, and Usva Seregina. Their critical and creative examinations of the relation between bodies and political economy offer insights for both imagining and materializing a world beyond the present.

This Handbook provides a comprehensive guide to the latest research on role-playing games (RPGs) across disciplines, cultures, and media in one single, accessible volume. Collaboratively authored by more than 40 key scholars, it traces the history of RPGs, from wargaming precursors to tabletop RPGs like Dungeons & Dragons to the rise of live-action role-play and contemporary computer RPG and massively multiplayer online RPG franchises, like Baldur’s Gate, Genshin Impact, and World of Warcraft. Individual chapters survey the perspectives, concepts, and findings on RPGs from key disciplines, like performance studies, sociology, psychology, education, economics, game design, literary studies, and more. Other chapters integrate insights from RPG studies around broadly significant topics, like worldbuilding, immersion, and player-character relations, as well as explore actual play and streaming, diversity, equity, inclusion, jubensha, therapeutic uses of RPGs, and storygames, journaling games, and other forms of text-based RPGs. Each chapter includes definitions of key terms and recommended readings to help students and scholars new to RPG studies find their way into this interdisciplinary field. A comprehensive reference volume ideal for students and scholars of game studies and immersive experiences and those looking to learn more about the ever-growing, interdisciplinary field of RPG studies.

Gender After Gender in Consumer Culture provides an updated discussion of how gender cuts across consumer culture, in light of increasing gender fragmentation and integration with other identity positions. Sex, the biological distinction male/female, and gender, which refers to a person’s sense of being male, female, or any other combinations of these, inform issues as varied as personal identity, social interactions, and market behaviours. First, contributions account for the increasing fluidity and/or fragmentation of gender positions, which reshape the interplay between consumers and marketers. Second, they provide a timely illustration of how consumption and markets concur in contrasting gender inequalities, taken both individually and jointly (e.g., at the intersection of ethnicity or positions of market marginalisation). Third, chapters question the role of gender in granting personal and societal well-being, as they reflect on the collective capacity of constantly undoing gender stereotypes. Focusing on gender, this book allows the reader to trace the links among cultural categories (e.g. masculinity, femininity, gender identity), social phenomena, and market (dis)functioning. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue in the journal Consumption Markets & Culture.

The Explicit Body in Performance interrogates the avant-garde precedents and theoretical terrain that combined to produce feminist performance art. Among the many artists discussed are: * Carolle Schneemann * Annie Sprinkle * Karen Finley * Robbie McCauley * Ana Mendieta * Ann Magnuson * Sandra Bernhard * Spiderwoman Rebecca Schneider tackles topics ranging across the 'post-porn modernist movement', New Right censorship, commodity fetishism, perspectival vision, and primitivism. Employing diverse critical theories from Benjamin to Lacan to postcolonial and queer theory, Schneider analyses artistic and pop cultural depictions of the explicit body in late commodity capitalism. The Explicit Body in Performance is complemented by extensive photographic illustrations and artistic productions of postmodern feminist practitioners. The book is a fascinating exploration of how these artists have wrestled with the representational structures of desire.

"This text is important for any introductory anthropology course, particularly in conveying to students the relevance of anthropology by engaging with the very aspects of popular culture that are significant in their everyday lives." - Kristin L. Dowell, University of Oklahoma

These essays, written by experts in their fields, demonstrate how necessary it is in the study of the humanities and social sciences to realize the interdependency of the fields and how rich the resulting study can be.

The Presentation of Self in Contemporary Social Life covers the popular theories of Erving Goffman, and shows modern applications of dramaturgical analysis in a wide range of social contexts. David Shulman’s innovative new text demonstrates how Goffman’s ideas, first introduced in 1959, continue to inspire research into how we manage the impressions that others form about us. He synthesizes the work of contemporary scholars who use dramaturgical approaches from several disciplines, who recognize that many values, social norms, and laws have changed since Goffman’s time, and that contemporary society offers significant new forms of impression management that we can engage in and experience. After a general introduction to dramaturgical sociology, readers will see many examples of how Goffman’s ideas can provide powerful insights into familiar aspects of contemporary life, including business and the workplace, popular culture, the entertainment industry, and the digital world.