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9781009297530

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'With her distinctive form of precision historiography, Tracy Davis has given us a vital and necessary addendum to the long history and ongoing project of abolitionism. Focusing primarily on the lives and work of three Victorians, Davis elaborates a theory of performance that situates seemingly minor forms of activism - hosting dinners and attending meetings, letter-writing campaigns, journalistic reportage, and speechifying - as fundamental to the cultivation of solidarity and to the momentum of political engagement. This is a wonderful book: meticulously researched, compellingly argued, and beautifully narrated.' Patrick Anderson, University of California, San Diego 'How was the work of social and political reform performed? And how did performance change the means and outcomes of that activism? In this remarkable, carefully-wrought book, Tracy Davis turns our attention to the importance of dramaturgy to the work of nineteenth-century reform movements, illuminating how one scholar can find performance in everything from petitioning to letter-writing and parades. A terrific feat of scholarship.' Carolyn Eastman, Virginia Commonwealth University In her compelling new study, Tracy Davis challenges preconceptions about how early activists developed and shared their strategies, revealing networks of association and exchange that traversed the globe. This book invites readers to rethink what kinds of performances constitute activism and how historians can recover traces of those spectacles in even the most unlikely places. Heather Nathans, Tufts University

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Tracy C. Davis is Barber Professor of Performing Arts and Professor of English and Theatre at Northwestern University. She has published books on nineteenth-century theatre, the economics and business history of theatre, performance theory, and gender and theatre. Her latest book combines these interests in a study of two generations of Victorian activists.

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