The Performer: Art, Life, Politics

Description

An acclaimed sociologist's exploration of the connections among performances in life, art, and politics "A thought-provoking, essayistic and touchingly personal exploration of the ethics and aesthetics of performance from one of the leading intellectuals of our time."--Lucasta Miller, The Spectator, "Best Books of 2024" "Constantly fascinating and often illuminating."--Simon Callow, New York Review of Books In The Performer, Richard Sennett explores the relations between performing in art (particularly music), politics, and everyday experience. It focuses on the bodily and physical dimensions of performing, rather than on words. Sennett is particularly attuned to the ways in which the rituals of ordinary life are performances. The book draws on history and sociology, and more personally on the author's early career as a professional cellist, as well as on his later work as a city planner and social thinker. It traces the evolution of performing spaces in the city; the emergence of actors, musicians, and dancers as independent artists; the inequality between performer and spectator; the uneasy relations between artistic creation and social and religious ritual; the uses and abuses of acting by politicians. The Janus-faced art of performing is both destructive and civilizing.

Reviews

 Urgent, penetrating, moving. A masterwork from a master thinker. -- Ian Bostridge, author of Schubert's Winter Journey: Anatomy of an Obsession
Richard Sennett calls on his vast knowledge of theater and performance to argue for the social uses of civility-and against the degradation of public social space brought by demagogues. This is a book that ranges widely while speaking forcefully to our current needs. -- Peter Brooks, Yale University
[A] timely study of the place of performance in society ... Sennett combines erudition with personal experience ... Performance, he believes, and the emotions it arouses, are fundamental to being human ... colourful stories ... unique insight and intelligence -- Rowan Moore * Observer *
He looks at every aspect of performing - where it is done, stage or street; the performances of demagogues; the audience who takes it all in; the masks, clothing and appurtenances of acting in public. Sennett uses a wide frame of reference to bolster his analysis -- Michael Prodger * New Statesman *
Sennett has the confidence to present a grand international cultural narrative ... revealing ... enjoyable -- Emma Smith * Times Literary Supplement *

Author description

Richard Sennett grew up in the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago, attended the Julliard School in New York and then studied social relations at Harvard. Over the last five decades, he has written about social life in cities, changes in labour and social theory. His books include The Hidden Injuries of Class, The Fall of Public Man, The Corrosion of Character, The Culture of the New Capitalism, The Craftsman and Building and Dwelling. Sennett has advised the United Nations on urban issues for the past thirty years and currently serves as member of the UN Committee on Urban Initiatives. He is Visiting Professor of Urban Studies at Harvard. Among other awards, he has received the Hegel Prize, the Spinoza Prize and the Centennial Medal from Harvard University.