Liberal Lives and Activist Repertoires

Political Performance and Victorian Social Reform

Bibliographic Data

ID19949372
AuthorsTracy C Davis (0000-0003-1706-1785, Northwestern University, corresponding author)
Year2023
Publication date2023-06-01
Open AccessYes
TypeBOOK
VenueLiberal Lives and Activist Repertoires (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherCambridge University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1017/9781009297554
OpenAlexW4377012687
Open LibraryOL48683624M
ISBN9781009297554
LanguageEN
Citations received2

This ambitious study traces the strategies of human rights activists to show how world-changing reform movements were shaped by women and men from modest backgrounds who were deeply attuned to the power of performance. Tracy C. Davis explores nineteenth-century reform campaigns through the pioneering work of a family of activists – prominent anti-slavery lecturer George Thompson, his daughter Amelia (the first female theatre and music critic for a British daily newspaper) and her husband, the political organizer Frederick Chesson. Engaging in some of the most important social struggles of the late Georgian and Victorian periods – including abolition, enfranchisement, and anti-genocide - this book reveals how two generations' insights into performance consolidated into activist tactics that persist today. Characterised by a skilful deployment of performance theory alongside deep and wide-ranging historical knowledge, this ground-breaking work demonstrates what 'dramaturgy' can teach us about 'history'

Aesthetics · Art · Art history · Dramaturgy · Georgian · Media studies · Newspaper · Performance art · Political science · Politics · Power (physics) · Sociology · Gender Studies · History · Irish and British Studies · Law · Theatre and Performance Studies

Tools

Open DOI