Terror and Performance [Paperback]

This work goes where other books fear to tread. It reaches the parts other scholars might imagine in their dreams but would neither have the international reach nor the critical acumen and forensic flourish to deliver. Alan Read, King's College London

This book is not only timely. It is overdue  and it is a masterpiece unrivalled by any book I know of. Erika Fischer-Lichte, Freie Universit?t Berlin

The first and only book that focuses on the intersections of performance, terror and terrorism as played out beyond a Euro-American context post-9/11. It is an important work, both substantively and methodologically. Jenny Hughes, University of Manchester

A profound and tightly bound sequence of reflections & a rigorously provocative book. Stephen Barber, Kingston University London

In this exceptional investigation Rustom Bharucha considers the realities of Islamophobia, the legacies of Truth and Reconciliation, the deadly certitudes of State-controlled security systems and the legitimacy of counter-terror terrorism, drawing on a vast spectrum of human cruelties across the global South. The outcome is a brilliantly argued case for seeing terror as a volatile and mutant phenomenon that is deeply lived, experienced, and performed within the cultures of everyday life.

Preface i-vii

Provocation

Impulse

Doublespeak of terrorism

Risks of misunderstanding

Ambivalences of terror

Holy Terror

Terror through a literary lens

Visual overkill

Performance/performativity/theatre

Dangerous liaisons: terror and performance