Performing theory/embodied writing

Abstract

This essay performatively expresses specific theoretical ruminations on class, language, and race. This writing is a performance, while it is or is not necessarily for the “stage.” The performance seeks a felt‐sensing meeting between theory, writing, and performing. The performer claims an uneasy possession of performance as a means of both subjectivity and freedom. Theory becomes another way to know performance better; and performance becomes the desired illuminator of theory. From the burlesque to the sublime, the performer conjures four different encounters with her theoretical fathers: Karl Marx, Ferdinand de Saussure, Jacques Derrida, and Frantz Fanon. Needing useful theory‐from the ‘high’ ground of scholarship to the ‘low’ ground of ancient re/tellings‐for useful purposes, the performer must first remember where theories begin.