Waiting For Godot In Sarajevo

In the summer of 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo, an event which led to the horror of World War I. In 1992, Sarajevo again lurched into prominence as the focal point of one of the century's bloodiest civil wars. Yet Sarajevo at one point epitomized the dreams of the Enlightenment, a city where Christians, Jews and Muslims coexisted peacefully. In the midst of Sarajevo's recent decline into chaos and destruction, Susan Sontag decided to produce Act one of "Waiting for Godot", which, despite ever-advancing danger, played to packed houses. Why did this city of hope lie crushed at the end of the 20th century? Why did Sontag stage an artistic production in the midst of such overwhelming tragedy? Why "Waiting for Godot"? And, most important of all, why the silent appreciative tears of audience members who risked their lives to attend a play in the middle of a war? These are the questions which guide David Toole's theological reflections, as he seeks to come to terms with what it means to live a life of dignity in a world of undeniable suffering.

Over 20 years after the war in Yugoslavia, this book looks back at its two most iconic cities and the phenomenon of exile emerging as a consequence of living in them in the 1990s. It uses examples ranging from street interventions to theatre performances to explore the making of urban counter-sites through theatricality and utopian performatives.

The Siege of Sarajevo remains the longest siege in modern European history, lasting three times longer than the Battle of Stalingrad and over a year longer than the Siege of Leningrad. Reporting the Siege of Sarajevo provides the first detailed account of the reporting of this siege and the role that journalists played in highlighting both military and non-military aspects of it. The book draws on detailed primary and secondary material in English and Bosnian, as well as extensive interviews with international correspondents who covered events in Sarajevo from within siege lines. It also includes hitherto unpublished images taken by the co-author and award-winning photojournalist, Paul Lowe. Together Morrison and Lowe document a relatively short but crucial period in both the history of Bosnia & Herzegovina, the city of Sarajevo and the profession of journalism. The book provides crucial observations and insights into an under-researched aspect of a critical period in Europe's recent history.

Sarajevo’s Holiday Inn on the Frontline of Politics and War charts the rich history of the city’s famous Holiday Inn hotel. Describing in detail the tumultuous events that took place within its walls and in its immediate environs, this book explores the opening of the building in advance of the 1984 Winter Olympics through the early 1990s when the hotel was utilized by political elites through to the siege of Sarajevo, when the hotel became the main base for foreign correspondents. Kenneth Morrison draws upon a plethora of primary and secondary sources, and includes extensive interviews with many participants in the drama that was played out within the confines of the hotel, contextualizing the case of the Holiday Inn by analyzing how hotels are utilized in times of conflict.

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) spoke of the promiscuity of art and literature the willingness of great artists and writers to scandalize their spectators through critical frankness, complexity, and beauty. Sontag's life and thought were no less promiscuous. She wrote deeply and engagingly about a range of subjects theater, sex, politics, novels, torture, and illness and courted celebrity and controversy both publicly and privately. Throughout her career, she not only earned adulation but also provoked scorn. Her living was the embodiment of scandal. In this collection, Terry Castle, Nancy K. Miller, Wayne Koestenbaum, E. Ann Kaplan, and other leading scholars revisit Sontag's groundbreaking life and work. Against Interpretation, "Notes on Camp," Letter from Hanoi, On Photography, Illness as Metaphor, I, Etcetera, and The Volcano Lover these works form the center of essays no less passionate and imaginative than Sontag herself. Debating questions raised by the thinker's own images and identities, including her sexuality, these works question Sontag's status as a female intellectual and her parallel interest in ambitious and prophetic fictional women; her ambivalence toward popular culture; and her personal and professional "scandals." Paired with rare photographs and illustrations, this timely anthology expands our understanding of Sontag's images and power.

Susan Sontag: An Annotated Bibliography catalogues the works of one of America's most prolific and important 20th century authors. Known for her philosophical writings on American culture, topics left untouched by Sontag's writings are few and far between. This volume is an exhaustive collection that includes her novels, essays, reviews, films and interviews. Each entry is accompanied by an annotated bibliography.

This book engages with the relationship between ruins, dilapidation, and abandonment and cultural events performed within such spaces. Following the author’s fieldwork in the UK, Bosnia Herzegovina, Poland, Germany, Greece, and Sicily, chapters describe, investigate, and reflect upon live performance events which have taken place in sites of decay and abandonment. The book’s main focus is upon modern economic ruins and ruins of warfare. Each chapter provides several case studies based upon the author’s own site visits and interviews with actors, directors, producers, curators, writers, and other artists. The book contextualises these events within the wider framework of Ruin Studies and provides brief summaries of how we might understand the ruin in terms of time, politics, culture, and atmospheres. The book is particularly preoccupied with artists’ reasons and motivations for placing performance events in ruined spaces and how these work dramaturgically.