Overview

An acclaimed sociologist's exploration of the connections among performances in life, art, and politics 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.

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9780300272901

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Reviews

"""Urgent, penetrating, moving. Another masterwork from a master thinker.""--Ian Bostridge, author of Song and Self: A Singer's Reflections on Music and Performance​ ""A masterpiece from one of the most important cultural theorists of our time. The Performer is, at once, a memoir, an investigation, a sociological treatise, and a manifesto for rethinking humanity's next act.""--Eric Klinenberg, Helen Gould Shepard Professor in the Social Sciences, New York University ""An inspiring essay on performance and ritual, packed with insights. Essential reading for anyone interested in public space and the city.""--Anna Minton, author of Big Capital: Who Is London For?"

Author Information

Richard Sennett is the Centennial Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics and former University Professor of the Humanities at New York University. He lives in London and New York City.

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