This book explores questions of gender, desire, embodiment, and language in Barker’s oeuvre. With The Castle as a focal point, the scope extends considerably beyond this play to incorporate analysis and exploration of the Theatre of Catastrophe; questions of gender, subjectivity and desire; God/religion; aesthetics of the self; autonomy-heteronomy; ethics; and the relation between political and libidinal economy, at stake in 20 other plays by Barker (including Rome, The Power of the Dog, The Bite of the Night, Judith, Possibilities, I Saw Myself, Fence in Its Thousandth Year, The Gaoler’s Ache for the Nearly Dead, The Brilliance of the Servant, Golgo, among others).
Author(s): Alireza Fakhrkonandeh
Publisher: Palgrave Pivot
Year: 2019
Language: English
Pages: 160
Tags: Performing Arts, Howard Barker, Drama
Front Matter ....Pages i-xvii
Encastleing England: Evental History and Histor(y)iography in Barker’s Work (Alireza Fakhrkonandeh)....Pages 1-27
The Castle and Other Plays (Alireza Fakhrkonandeh)....Pages 29-59
Desire, Language and Pregnancy/Maternity in The Castle and Other Plays (Alireza Fakhrkonandeh)....Pages 61-85
Aporias of Religion in Barker: God, Deconstruction, and the Re-writing of the Bible (Alireza Fakhrkonandeh)....Pages 87-105
Disciplinary Apparatus and the Paining of Transgressive Bodies (Alireza Fakhrkonandeh)....Pages 107-121
The Moment of Con-tactile Aesth-Ethics (Alireza Fakhrkonandeh)....Pages 123-140
Back Matter ....Pages 141-151
