Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Introduction: The Intersection of War and Performance

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
War as Performance

  • 225 Accesses

Abstract

The introduction establishes the long historical relation between performance and war and articulates the ways in which performance operates as both a mode and an object of analysis. After offering historical background on the Persian Gulf War in Iraq (1991), the chapter describes the 2003 Iraq War and the subsequent conflict with the so-called Islamic State or Daesh. These conflicts in Iraq involve conventional weapons and well-rehearsed public performances; political theatricality is both a tool for war and an aesthetic approach to resistance. The final section of this chapter introduces subsequent chapters, which are organized by performance genre and includes protest performance, adaptations of Greek tragedies, theater of the real, satirical news programs, and post-apocalyptic narratives in popular culture.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    For an excellent study on the Ghost Army, see Rick Beyer and Elizabeth Sayles, The Ghost Army: How One Top-Secret Unit Deceived the Enemy with Inflatable Tanks, Sound Effects, and Other Audacious Fakery (Princeton: Princeton Architectural Press, 2015).

  2. 2.

    Sara Brady and Lindsey Mantoan, “Introduction: In the Absence of the Gun: Performing Militarizing,” Performance in a Militarized Culture, eds. Brady and Mantoan (New York: Routledge, 2017), 3.

  3. 3.

    Gillis, cited in Mantoan and Brady , 3.

  4. 4.

    John Bell, “Performance Studies in an Age of Terror,” The Performance Studies Reader ed. Herry Bial (New York: Routledge, 2004), 57.

  5. 5.

    For a thorough study on casualties related to the war—either due to direct violence or the collapse of infrastructure, see: “Iraq Study Estimates War-Related Deaths at 461,000,” BBC News, 18 Oct 2003 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-24547256 (accessed 5 Sept 2017). For figures on internal displacement and other statistics, see: “Iraq War in Figures,” BBC News, 15 Dec 2011 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-11107739 (accessed 10 Apr 2014).

  6. 6.

    Michael R. Gordon and General Bernard E. Trainor, Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq (New York: Vintage Books, 2007), xxxiii.

  7. 7.

    Judith Butler, Frames of War: When is Life Grievable? (New York: Verso, 2010), xii.

  8. 8.

    Butler Frames ix.

  9. 9.

    Michael Kimmelman, “Abu Ghraib Photos Return, This Time As Art,” New York Times 10 Oct 2004 https://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/10/arts/design/abu-ghraib-photos-return-this-time-as-art.html (accessed 10 April 2018).

  10. 10.

    Butler Frames xiii.

  11. 11.

    Cami Rowe, The Politics of Protest and US Foreign Policy: Performative Construction of the War on Terror (New York: Routledge, 2013), 1.

  12. 12.

    Susan Sontag, “Real Battles and Empty Metaphors,” The New York Times, 10 Sept 2002 http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/10/opinion/real-battles-and-empty-metaphors.html (accessed 10 Jul 2013).

  13. 13.

    Marvin Carlson, “9/11, Afghanistan, and Iraq: The Response of the New York Theater,” Theatre Survey (May 2004), 13.

  14. 14.

    Carlson 16.

  15. 15.

    James Harding, “Counterbalancing the Pendulum Effect: Politics and the Discourse of Post-9/11 Theater” Theatre Survey 48.1 (May 2007), 20.

  16. 16.

    Larry Bogad, “Patriot Acts: All-American Tactical Performance in the Age of Permawar,” Political and Protest Theatre After 9/11 : Patriotic Dissent, ed. Jenny Spencer (New York: Routledge, 2012), 191.

  17. 17.

    Bogad 204.

  18. 18.

    Rowe 16.

  19. 19.

    Harding 20.

  20. 20.

    George Packer, Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005), 46.

  21. 21.

    Gordon and Trainor 71.

  22. 22.

    Howard Schneider, “Iraq Threatens Broader Attacks,” The Washington Post, 16 Feb 1999 https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1999/02/16/iraq-threatens-broader-attacks/f5f6fd52-aa47-4dbe-9e9b-0e0a9c4ee881/?utm_term=.85475d17315b (accessed 7 Sept 2017).

  23. 23.

    Gordon and Trainor 14.

  24. 24.

    See “If You’re Not With Us, You’re Against Us,” CNN, 6 Nov 2001 http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/11/06/gen.attack.on.terror/ (accessed 15 Sept 2017).

  25. 25.

    Patrick Anderson and Jisha Menon, eds. Violence Performed: Local Roots and Global Routes of Conflict. New York: Palgrave, 2009. 1.

  26. 26.

    “The President’s State of the Union Address,” White House Archives, 29 Jan 2002 https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020129-11.html (accessed 14 Sept 2017).

  27. 27.

    “Text of President Bush’s 2003 State of the Union Speech,” Washington Post, 28 Jan 2003 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/onpolitics/transcripts/bushtext_012803.html (accessed 14 Sept 2017).

  28. 28.

    Erving Goffman, The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life (London: Allen Lane, 1969), 17.

  29. 29.

    “President Discusses the Beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom,” White House Archives, 22 Mar 2003 https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030322.html (accessed 14 Sept 2017).

  30. 30.

    tyler boudreau, “Soldier Street Theater,” Performance in a Militarized Culture, Sara Brady and Lindsey Mantoan eds. (New York: Routledge, 2018).

  31. 31.

    See, for example, Faisal Irshaid, “ISIL, ISIS, IS, or Daesh? One Group, Many Names,” The BBC, 2 Dec 2015 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-2799427 (accessed 14 Sept 2017).

  32. 32.

    Simone Molin Friis, “‘Beyond Anything We Have Ever Seen’: Beheading Videos and the Visibility of Violence in the War Against ISIS,” International Affairs 91.4 (2015): 727.

  33. 33.

    Michael D. Shear, “Obama Says Iraq Airstrike Effort Could Be Long-Term,” The New York Times, 9 Aug 2014 https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/10/world/middleeast/us-airstrikes-on-militants-in-iraq.html (accessed 14 Sept 2017).

  34. 34.

    See “Operation Inherent Resolve: Operation to Defeat ISIS,” US Department of Defense https://www.defense.gov/OIR/ (accessed 14 Sept 2017).

  35. 35.

    See, for example: Mark Thompson, “How Disbanding the Iraqi Army Fueled ISIS,” Time Magazine, 28 May 2015 http://time.com/3900753/isis-iraq-syria-army-united-states-military/ (accessed 14 Sept 2017); Dilly Hussain, “ISIS: The ‘Unintended Consequences’ of the US-Led War on Iraq,” Foreign Policy, 23 Mar 2015 https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2015/03/23/isis-the-unintended-consequences-of-the-us-led-war-on-iraq/ (accessed 14 Sept 2017); and Michael Kinsley, “How the Bush Wars Opened the Door for ISIS,” Vanity Fair, 14 April 2015 https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/04/iraq-war-bush-isis (accessed 14 Sept 2017).

  36. 36.

    Numerous people liken the “Mission Accomplished” speech to Top Gun, including journalists to scholars. See, for example, David E. Sanger, “In Full Flight Regalia, the President Enjoys a ‘Top Gun’ Moment,” The New York Times, 2 May 2003 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/02/international/worldspecial/02PLAN.html (accessed 10 Apr 2014). See also Michael Lempert and Michael Silverstein, Creatures of Politics: Media, Message, and the American Presidency (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 2012), 77.

  37. 37.

    Sara Brady, Performance, Politics, and the War on Terror : “Whatever it Takes” (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 111–112.

  38. 38.

    Jenny Hughes, Performance in a Time of Terror: Critical Mimesis and the Age of Uncertainty (New York: Manchester University Press, 2011), 2.

  39. 39.

    See, for example, Dana Milbank, “Bush Defends Assertions of Iraq-Al Qaeda Relationship,” Washington Post, 18 Jun 2004 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50679-2004Jun17.html (accessed 10 Apr 2014).

  40. 40.

    See Peter Baker and Michael A. Fletcher, “Bush Pledges to Spread Freedom,” Washington Post, 21 Jan 2005 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23519-2005Jan20.html (accessed 10 Apr 2014).

  41. 41.

    Vice-President Dick Cheney used this phrase in an interview with Tim Russert on 16 Mar 2003. Russert re-aired the comment six months into the war. See “Transcript for Sept 14, 2003,” Meet the Press, 14 Sept 2003 http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3080244/ns/meet_the_press/t/transcript-sept/#.U0c0e8eT7pE (accessed 10 Apr 2014).

  42. 42.

    “President Bush Addresses the Nation,” Washington Post, 20 Sept 2001 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/specials/attacked/transcripts/bushaddress_092001.html (accessed 10 Apr 2014).

  43. 43.

    Giorgio Agamben, State of Exception, trans. Kevin Attell (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 2.

  44. 44.

    My phrasing, used in “Place and Misplaced Rights in Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom” in Imaging Human Rights in Twenty-First Century Theater: Global Perspectives, eds. Florian Becker, Paola Hernandez, and Brenda Werth (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).

  45. 45.

    Gordon and Trainor 72.

  46. 46.

    Hughes 8, 17.

  47. 47.

    Hughes 2.

  48. 48.

    This phrasing, “we don’t want the smoking gun to become a mushroom cloud,” was first used by Condoleezza Rice in an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN on 8 Sept 2002. The transcript can be read here: http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0209/08/le.00.html (accessed 12 Nov 2011).

  49. 49.

    Wolf Blitzer, “Search for the Smoking Gun,” CNN.com , 10 Jan 2003 http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/01/10/wbr.smoking.gun/ (accessed 12 Nov 2011).

  50. 50.

    Judith Butler, Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence (New York: Verso, 2004), 57.

  51. 51.

    See Butler’s “Introduction to the Paperback” in Frames, specifically page xxvi.

  52. 52.

    Rowe 9.

  53. 53.

    Rowe 12.

  54. 54.

    Brady xv.

  55. 55.

    “The Magical History Tour, The Daily Show , 23 Aug 2007 http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-august-23-2007/magical-history-tour (accessed 1 Nov 2011).

  56. 56.

    Interview with Condoleezza Rice, The Daily Show , 1 Nov 2011 http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-november-1-2011/condoleezza-rice-pt--2 (accessed 1 Nov 2011).

  57. 57.

    Chris Hedges, War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning (New York: Anchor Books, 2002), 183.

  58. 58.

    Packer Assassins 384.

  59. 59.

    See Jeremy Gillick and Nonna Gorilovskaya, “The Most Trusted Man in America?” Patheos 29 June 2010 http://www.patheos.com/resources/additional-resources/2010/06/most-trusted-man-in-america (accessed 18 Feb 2014).

  60. 60.

    Alexandra Alter, “The Surge in Plays about Iraq: Audiences Recruited to Play Soldiers in Latest Attempt to Kick-Start Genre,” Wall Street Journal 31 Oct 2008 http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB122541854683986897 (accessed 14 Apr 2014).

  61. 61.

    See Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations (New York: Basic Books, 1976), 32–33.

  62. 62.

    Judith Butler, “Global Politics, Sexual Violence,” in City University of New York Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies’ Queer Ideas: The David R.Kessler Lectures in Lesbian and Gay Studies (New York: The Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 2003), 204.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Linfield College, McMinnville, OR, USA

    Lindsey Mantoan

Authors
  1. Lindsey Mantoan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2018 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Mantoan, L. (2018). Introduction: The Intersection of War and Performance. In: War as Performance. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94367-1_1

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation