Overview

Through the lens of performance and politics, this collection zooms in on the context-specific dimensions, analogies, and micro-histories of the Left to better understand the larger picture. It proposes a search for the Left not from totalising Leftist ideological positions and partisan politics but from ethical dimensions through smaller-scale Left-leaning struggles; not from the political to the aesthetic, but from the potentiality of art to offer new political imagination and critique; not from the individual subordinated to the collective, but from the dialectics of subjectivity and collectivity. This is not an attempt at a sweeping global overview of Leftist cultures either, but a collection that brings together culture-specific and comparative perspectives. This book searches for fragments of and on the Left, past and present, through which to rethink and patch a fragmented world.

Full Product Details

Author:   Bishnupriya Dutt ,  Silvija Jestrovic
Publisher:   Manchester University Press
Imprint:   Manchester University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.60cm , Height: 1.70cm , Length: 23.40cm
Weight:   0.454kg
ISBN:  

9781526195500

ISBN 10:   152619550
Pages:   320
Publication Date:   20 January 2026
Audience:   General/trade ,  College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  General ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Not yet available, will be POD  
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Table of Contents

Forward - Partha Chatterjee Introduction: Searching for the Left in a Fragmented World - Silvija Jestrovic & Bishnupriya Dutt Part I: Activism 1 Performing the Constitution as an insurgent document - Nivedita Menon 2 Revolution: Like. Share. Subscribe - Dragan Todorovic 3 The ‘Hunger Artists’: Hunger protests, prisons and insurgent citizenship - Anupama Roy and Ujjwal Kumar Singh 4 Of Quiet Resistance: Shy Radicals, divergent world-making and the poetics of statecraft - Anika Marschall Part II: Theatre 5 Acting Politically: Making performance in the eye of history - Adrian Kear 6 Theatre of the streets—of the working class: strikes, protests, and democratization of life - Bishnupriya Dutt 7 The Cheviot and its Legacies: Dramaturgies of the Left in Scottish Theatre - Trish Reid 8 Between the Right and the Left: Staging political, emotional and social polarizations on Canadian stage - Yana Meerzon 9 The Indiscreet Charm of Left nostalgia: Reeking redolence in the contemporary - Ameet Parameswaran 10 Staging Revolution: Utpal Dutt’s Kallol (1965) and the Question of ‘Spectacular’ Aesthetics in Calcutta’s Leftist Theatre Practice - Trina Neelina Banerjee 11 Love in the time of revolution: Exploring political theatre of Utpal Dutt - Mallarika Sinha Roy Part III: Subjectivity 12 Revolutionary intimacies: Friendship, love, and theatre - Silvija Jestrovic 13 The fraught act of speaking for / about the communist women - Urmimala Sarkar Munsi 14 One always fails to speak of the things one loves: Memories of border crossings - Shirin M Rai 15 Why I am still a Socialist - Janelle Reinelt -- .

Reviews

‘This book is simply terrific, offering astute transnational perspectives on the predicaments confronting contemporary progressive political theatres – an essential resource for those looking for unity in a fragmented world!’ —Professor Tony Fisher, The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama ‘It is in the domain of culture that we imagine our futures and struggle over our values. On the stage, in our songs, and in the way we move our bodies, we tell each other that this or that need not be the way things should be, and that the other thing, that thing that we imagine and do, is possible. That’s the point of the essays in Theatre, activism, subjectivity. We stand ‘Stage Left’ and cry, Not This. Not This. Never Just This. We Want More. And that is when the real drama begins.’ —Vijay Prashad, Director, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research -- .

Author Information

Bishnupriya Dutt is Professor of Theatre and Performance at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Silvija Jestrovic is Professor of Theatre and Performance at the University of Warwick.

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