Politics of the Scene

Paul A. Kottman is Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature at the New School, where he teaches at Eugene Lang College, the New School for Liberal Arts, and in Liberal Studies at the New School for Social Research.

"A Politics of the Scene is a closely argued but beautifully written book about the centrality of drama for the discourse of political philosophy. The claims of the latter, Kottman argues convincingly, have their origins in the metaphor of the stage, even while they seek to deny its significance. This book contests what Kottman calls the 'figural ground' from which political theory emerges in the West and attempts to replace that theory with a new category for thinking about political life today: the scene."—Jon Snyder, University of California, Santa Barbara "The brilliance and originality of this book consist specifically in its radical recasting of the metaphorical, figural use of 'theater' and 'drama.' 'Theory' and 'theater,' Kottman reminds us, come from the same etymological root. This splendid book should considerably interest both theorists and those attracted to the immediacy, particularity, and relationality of the theatrical experience." —Robert Henke, Washington University

• Contents Introduction000 Part One: Political Theory and the Expropriation of the Scene 1. From Theater to Theory000 2. Plato: Mimesis000 3. Hobbes; or, Politics Without a Scene000 4. The Image of the Leviathan: Figural Unity at the Limits of Representation 000 Part II: Toward a Politics of the Scene 5. Toward a Politics of the Scene000 6. Memory, Mimesis, Tragedy: The Scene Before Philosophy000 7. "Speaking As One Witness to Another:" Hamlet and the "Cunning of the 000 Scene"000 8. A Scene of Speaking: Convocation and the Suspension of Tragedy in000 Romeo and Juliet000 Epilogue: The World-Stage000 Notes000 Index000