JAMES HARDING is Professor of English at the University of Mary Washington, USA. He is a former editor of Theatre Survey, and the author of Cutting Performances: Collage Events, Feminist Artists, and the American Avant-Garde and Adorno and a Writing of the Ruins: Essays on Anglo-American Literature and Culture. He is currently finishing a new monograph entitled Decentering the Edge: Critical Theories of Avant-Garde Performance.CINDY ROSENTHAL is Professor of Drama and Dance and Director of Women's Studies at Hofstra University. She co-edited Restaging the Sixties: Radical Theatres and their Legacies (University of Michigan, 2006) with James Harding and Living on Third Street: Plays of the Living Theatre 1989-1992 (Autonomedia, 2008) with Hanon Reznikov. Current projects include Ellen Stewart Presents: Posters and Chronicles from the Archives of La Mama Experimental Theatre, a monograph analyzing Ellen Stewart's life and work through oral histories and poster art (forthcoming, University of Michigan Press). Her work is also published in Theatre Journal, TDR and Women in Performance. She is a founding member of the Bread Loaf Acting Ensemble in Middlebury, Vermont.

• List of Illustrations Series Preface Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors Introduction The Rise of Performance Studies: An Introduction; J.Harding  & C.Rosenthal PART I: PERFORMANCE/THEATRE/STUDIES Performance Studies and the Enhancement of Theatre Studies; M.Carlson In Defence of the String Quartet: An Open Letter to Richard Schechner ; S.Bottoms Experimenting with an Unfinished Discipline: Richard Schechner, the Avant-Garde and Performance Studies;  J.Harding &  C.Rosenthal PART II: PERFORMANCE STUDIES GENEALOGIES Wayang Studies?; P.Rae Today I am a Field: Performance Studies Comes of Age ; H.Bial Richard Schechner and Performance Studies in China; P.Yongwen & Y.Jiancun Australian Performance Studies Marginally Off Centre; P.Eckersall PART III: WORKING WITH RICHARD Reactuals: From Personal to Critical and Back; R.Schneider Fanning the Flames: Richard Schechner's TDR; M.Sandford Liminal Richard: Approaches to Performance Studies; J.Emigh The Broadest Spectrum of Pluralities: Performance Studies, Theatre Practices, Theatre Histories, and Beyond; P.Zarrilli PART IV: PRACTICING PERFORMANCE: SCHECHNER AMONG THE PERFORMERS. Richard Schechner; J.Malina Interview; J.MacIntosh Interview; E.LeCompte For Richard; A.D.Smith Performing Against the Backdrop of the War on Terror; G.Gomez-Pena PART V: ENGAGING DIALOGUE: SCHECHNER AS CRITICAL INTERLOCUTOR Trauma as Durational Performance; D.Taylor Medical Clowning and Performance Theory; A.Citron Restored Restored Behavior or the Emperor of California Roll: 1989-90 Japanese Imperial Rites of Funeral and Enthronement; T.Yuichiro 'Deep Play, Dark Play': Framing the Limit(less); J.Roach Index