Performing bodies in pain : medieval and post -modern martyrs, mystics, and artists

This text analyzes the cultural work of spectacular suffering in contemporary discourse and late-medieval France, reading recent dramatizations of torture and performances of self-mutilating conceptual art against late-medieval saint plays. The urgent debate about torture in public discourse of the twenty-first century thrusts pain into the foreground while research in neuroscience is transforming our understanding of this fundamental human experience. In late-medieval France, a country devastated by the Black Death, torn by civil strife, and strained by the Hundred Year's War with England, the notion of pain shifted within the conceptual frameworks provided by theology and medicine. Performing Bodies in Pain analyzes the cultural work of spectacular suffering during these two periods, reading recent dramatizations of torture and performances of self-mutilating conceptual art against late-medieval saint plays "Pain is both one of the most fundamental human experiences and also one of the most complex and the extensive interest today in the performing body has concentrated new attention on this basic experience. Carlson examines key manifestations, private and public, of pain, its performance, its effect upon those who witness it, and its utilization in both medieval and modern contexts. The result is a fascinating comparison of this universal phenomenon in pre-modern and post-modern culture which opens provocative new perspectives in the understanding of both."--Marvin Carlson, Sidney E. Cohn Professor of Theatre, CUNY Graduate Center "In this dazzling juxtaposition of performed pain in late medieval France and our own late/post modern world, Carlson makes immediate for the reader the sensations and responses of spectatorship. But she also reflects, deeply and wisely, on the many uses and functions of pain in these parallel but far from identical worlds. Drawn along by Carlson's compelling sense of urgency and presence, the reader encounters with her the pain of others, whether simulated or real, as a medium through which we experience a culture's most significant identities. Drawing on a wide range of sources, from witness to neuroscience, from saints' plays to performance art, this book makes major contribution to our thinking (and feeling) about pain."--Pamela Sheingorn, City University of New York Front Matter....Pages i-xii Introduction....Pages 1-23 Feeling Torture....Pages 25-48 Imagining Death....Pages 49-76 Enduring Ecstasy....Pages 77-101 Whipping Up Community....Pages 103-130 Containing Chaos....Pages 131-154 Conclusion....Pages 155-166 Back Matter....Pages 167-227