Katerina Paramana – författare

Contemporary Performance and Political Economy examines haunting concepts, relations, and artworks that demand our attention. Under capitalism, political and ethical considerations are subordinated to economic ones, and this subordination creates ghost worlds. Performance works, however, can offer insights into alternative politico-economic models.

In this major contribution to the fields of contemporary performance and political economy, Katerina Paramana proposes that the investigation of performance works as economies can make the insights performance works offer visible. She positions the examination in relation to contemporary critiques of capitalism, neo-feudalism, and their by-products, and proposes and develops the notion of "oikonomia" as a means to theorize artworks which, through their house (oikos) rules (nomoi), propose ethico-political challenges to the economies in which they are embedded. For this, Paramana looks at politically positioned performance works created and presented in Cuba, Europe, Mexico, the UK, and the US. Her interest is in the politics, ethics, and effects of these works’ "house rules", and the insights they offer to the reconceptualization of political economy. Ultimately, this book aims to transform our understanding of economy’s purpose. It contributes to the development of a new ethico-political paradigm upon which a reconceptualization of political economy can be based. This inspiring study seeks to keep the fire for change alive by demonstrating that political economies, much like performances, are experiments that can be changed.

This work will be of great interest to students and scholars in performance studies, theatre, visual cultures, politics, cultural studies, dance, and visual arts, and critical theorists.

Contemporary Performance and Political Economy examines haunting concepts, relations, and artworks that demand our attention. Under capitalism, political and ethical considerations are subordinated to economic ones, and this subordination creates ghost worlds. Performance works, however, can offer insights into alternative politico-economic models.

In this major contribution to the fields of contemporary performance and political economy, Katerina Paramana proposes that the investigation of performance works as economies can make the insights performance works offer visible. She positions the examination in relation to contemporary critiques of capitalism, neo-feudalism, and their by-products, and proposes and develops the notion of "oikonomia" as a means to theorize artworks which, through their house (oikos) rules (nomoi), propose ethico-political challenges to the economies in which they are embedded. For this, Paramana looks at politically positioned performance works created and presented in Cuba, Europe, Mexico, the UK, and the US. Her interest is in the politics, ethics, and effects of these works’ "house rules", and the insights they offer to the reconceptualization of political economy. Ultimately, this book aims to transform our understanding of economy’s purpose. It contributes to the development of a new ethico-political paradigm upon which a reconceptualization of political economy can be based. This inspiring study seeks to keep the fire for change alive by demonstrating that political economies, much like performances, are experiments that can be changed.

This work will be of great interest to students and scholars in performance studies, theatre, visual cultures, politics, cultural studies, dance, and visual arts, and critical theorists.

This interdisciplinary book brings together essays that consider how the body enacts social and cultural rituals in relation to objects, spaces, and the everyday, and how these are questioned, explored, and problematised through, and translated into dance, art, and performance. The chapters are written by significant artists and scholars and consider practices from various locations, including Central and Western Europe, Mexico, and the United States. The authors build on dialogues between, for example, philosophy and museum studies, and memory studies and post-humanism, and engage with a wide range of theory from phenomenology to relational aesthetics to New Materialism. Thus this book represents a unique collection that together considers the continuum between everyday and cultural life, and how rituals and memories are inscribed onto our being. It will be of interest to scholars and practitioners, students and teachers, and particularly those who are curious about the intersections between arts disciplines.