Terror and Performance

'Rustom Bharuchas Terror and Performance stages a rigorous and challenging analysis of the relation between terror and performance. The book unpacks the entangled relations between performance, embodiment, violence and history. In the course of his book, Bharucha raises provocative questions that unsettle doxic understandings of both terror and terrorism. His book, I argue, works to materialise unspeakable truths that shed light on the complex aporias that inscribe the relation between terror and performance.' - Joseph Pugliese, Macquarie University "[Bharuchas] text overall as well as major geopolitical developments since its publication in spring 2014 suggest a far more conflicting temporality of deferment, suspended between a justice to come and a terror-in-waiting." Professor Markus Wessendorf, University of Hawaii

Rustom Bharucha is Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi. He is a writer, director, dramaturg and cultural critic, as well as the author of several books, including Theatre and the World: Performance and the Politics of Culture (Routledge, 1993).

Preface i-vii Introduction: Mapping Terror in the War of Words 1-39 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 1. Genet in Manila: September 11 in Retrospect 40-88 I Pre-Terror Deadly Innocence Intentionality Politics of the real Event/betrayal: rethinking the political September 11: first exposure II Discourse Genres of terror tragedy Theatre of Cruelty The terror of repetition Deconstructing terror trauma autoimmunity Controversies Stockhausens blunder The politics of empathy III Exit the Theatre 2. Muslims in a Time of Terror: Deceptions, Demonization, and Uncertainties of Evidence 89-130 I Passing as a Muslim Constructing Muslims Phenomenology of passing Queering the Muslim terrorist: beards and penises The beautiful terrorist The Sikh as Muslim II Recapitulation The Indian Muslim as Other Genocide in Godhra Dead certainty: the limits of performativity Outing the self 3. Countering Terror? The Search for Justice through Truth and Reconciliation 131-186 I Mapping the Terrain Multiple locations, different stakes The right to intervene II Rwanda The terror of statistics Realizing the unthinkable: the provocation of gacaca Gacaca as performance: a theoretical trap? Dramaturgy of gacaca The evidence of experience Performing Rwandanicity III South Africa The impossible machine The theatricality of hearings Amnesty in performance Between performance and justice: an ethical impasse The truth of story-telling IV Key Motifs of Truth and Reconciliation Performing silence Forgiveness, or living with evil? Time and reconciliation Coda 4. Performing Non-Violence in the Age of Terror 187-231 Enter Gandhi Gandhi as Truth Commission Performing the Truth Commission The performativity of salt Non-violence: sacrifice or suicide? Suicide bombing: acts of performance Just War: ambivalences and duplicities Training to die?: the viability of non-violence The violence of non-violence Lip-sewing and blood graffiti: the weapons of the weak Towards justice? Postscript 232-239 Notes 240-285 Bibliography 286-300 Index