In the early eighteenth century, a delegation of Iroquois visited Britain, exciting the imagination of the London crowds with images of the "feathered people" and warlike "Mohocks." Today, performing in a popular Afrodiasporic tradition, "Mardi Gras Indians" or "Black Masking Indians" take to the streets of New Orleans at carnival time and for weeks thereafter, parading in handmade "suits" resplendent with beadwork and feathers. What do these seemingly disparate strands of culture share over three centuries and several thousand miles of ocean? Interweaving theatrical, musical, and ritual performance along the Atlantic rim from the eighteenth century to the present, Cities of the Dead explores a rich continuum of cultural exchange that imaginatively reinvents, recreates, and restores history. Joseph Roach reveals how performance can revise the unwritten past, comparing patterns of remembrance and forgetting in how communities forge their identities and imagine their futures. He examines the syncretic performance traditions of Europe, Africa, and the Americas in the urban sites of London and New Orleans, through social events ranging from burials to sacrifices, auctions to parades, encompassing traditions as diverse as Haitian Voudon and British funerals. Considering processes of substitution, or surrogation, as enacted in performance, Roach demonstrates the ways in which people and cultures fill the voids left by death and departure. The twenty-fifth anniversary edition of this classic work features a new preface reflecting on the relevance of its arguments to the politics of performance and performance in contemporary politics.

"A thick, tangled and deliciously idiosyncratic history of hair." Times Literary Supplement The Enlightenment (1650-1800) was the Golden Age of hair. Hair dominated fashion as never before or since, with more men and women than ever donning elaborate wigs and hairdos. Such unprecedentedly extravagant styling naturally increased the demand for the services of professional hairdressers, whose numbers grew apace throughout the period. They, in turn, created a new range of hair-care products and a new literature of hair-care advice, ranging from hairstyles to hygiene, thus enlarging the market and further stimulating consumption. A Cultural History of Hair in the Enlightenment offers a record of their marketing success, mindful that the ultimate product of this culture of consumption was the consumer. Literary and visual arts celebrated the ambitious tetes and coifs of the period, but they also lampooned and caricatured the most fashionable in society. By exploring paintings, prints, plays, poems, novels, treatises, and advice manuals, the contributors to this volume show how hair in this period expanded beyond the fashionable and the superstitious, and became newly understood as material, inspiring empirical research and powering applications such as in the woolen goods industry. The essays in this volume-covering Religion and Ritualized Belief, Self and Society, Fashion and Adornment, Production and Practice, Health and Hygiene, Gender and Sexuality, Race and Ethnicity, Class and Social Status, and Cultural Representations-explore hair's many meanings and its importance during the Enlightenment period.

The Enlightenment (1650-1800) was the Golden Age of hair. Hair dominated fashion as never before or since, with more men and women than ever donning elaborate wigs and hairdos. Such unprecedentedly extravagant styling naturally increased the demand for the services of professional hairdressers, whose numbers grew apace throughout the period. They, in turn, created a new range of hair-care products and a new literature of hair-care advice, ranging from hairstyles to hygiene, thus enlarging the market and further stimulating consumption. A Cultural History of Hair in the Enlightenment offers a record of their marketing success, mindful that the ultimate product of this culture of consumption was the consumer. Literary and visual arts celebrated the ambitious tetes and coifs of the period, but they also lampooned and caricatured the most fashionable in society. By exploring paintings, prints, plays, poems, novels, treatises, and advice manuals, the contributors to this volume show how hair in this period expanded beyond the fashionable and the superstitious, and became newly understood as material, inspiring empirical research and powering applications such as in the woolen goods industry. The essays in this volume-covering Religion and Ritualized Belief, Self and Society, Fashion and Adornment, Production and Practice, Health and Hygiene, Gender and Sexuality, Race and Ethnicity, Class and Social Status, and Cultural Representations-explore hair's many meanings and its importance during the Enlightenment period.

In the early eighteenth century, a delegation of Iroquois visited Britain, exciting the imagination of the London crowds with images of the "feathered people" and warlike "Mohocks." Today, performing in a popular Afrodiasporic tradition, "Mardi Gras Indians" or "Black Masking Indians" take to the streets of New Orleans at carnival time and for weeks thereafter, parading in handmade "suits" resplendent with beadwork and feathers. What do these seemingly disparate strands of culture share over three centuries and several thousand miles of ocean? Interweaving theatrical, musical, and ritual performance along the Atlantic rim from the eighteenth century to the present, Cities of the Dead explores a rich continuum of cultural exchange that imaginatively reinvents, recreates, and restores history. Joseph Roach reveals how performance can revise the unwritten past, comparing patterns of remembrance and forgetting in how communities forge their identities and imagine their futures. He examines the syncretic performance traditions of Europe, Africa, and the Americas in the urban sites of London and New Orleans, through social events ranging from burials to sacrifices, auctions to parades, encompassing traditions as diverse as Haitian Voudon and British funerals. Considering processes of substitution, or surrogation, as enacted in performance, Roach demonstrates the ways in which people and cultures fill the voids left by death and departure. The twenty-fifth anniversary edition of this classic work features a new preface reflecting on the relevance of its arguments to the politics of performance and performance in contemporary politics.

The colorful handmade costumes of beads and feathers swirl frenetically, as the Mardi Gras Indians dance through the streets of New Orleans in remembrance of a widely disputed cultural heritage. Iroquois Indians visit London in the early part of the eighteenth century and give birth to the "feathered people" in the British popular imagination.

What do these seemingly disparate strands of culture share over three hundred years and several thousand miles of ocean? Artfully interweaving theatrical, musical, and ritual performance from the eighteenth century to the present in London and New Orleans, "Cities of the Dead" takes a look at a rich continuum of intercultural exchange that reinvents, recreates, and restores history.

Complemented with fifty-five illustrations, including spectacular photos of the famed Mardi Gras Indians, this fascinating work employs an entirely unique approach to the study of culture. Rather than focusing on one region, "Cities of the Dead" explores broad cultural connections over place and time, showing through myriad examples how performance can revise the unwritten past.

The colorful handmade costumes of beads and feathers swirl frenetically, as the Mardi Gras Indians dance through the streets of New Orleans in remembrance of a widely disputed cultural heritage. Iroquois Indians visit London in the early part of the eighteenth century and give birth to the "feathered people" in the British popular imagination.

What do these seemingly disparate strands of culture share over three hundred years and several thousand miles of ocean? Artfully interweaving theatrical, musical, and ritual performance from the eighteenth century to the present in London and New Orleans, "Cities of the Dead" takes a look at a rich continuum of intercultural exchange that reinvents, recreates, and restores history.

Complemented with fifty-five illustrations, including spectacular photos of the famed Mardi Gras Indians, this fascinating work employs an entirely unique approach to the study of culture. Rather than focusing on one region, "Cities of the Dead" explores broad cultural connections over place and time, showing through myriad examples how performance can revise the unwritten past.

Herbert Blau (1926-2013) was the most influential theater theorist, practitioner, and educator of his generation. He was the leading American interpreter of the works of Samuel Beckett and as a director was instrumental in introducing works of the European avant-garde to American audiences. He was also one of the most far-reaching and thoughtful American theorists of theater and performance, and author of influential books such as The Dubious Spectacle, The Audience, and Take Up the Bodies: Theater at the Vanishing Point. In The Very Thought of Herbert Blau, distinguished artists and scholars offer reflections on what made Blau's contributions so visionary, transformative, and unforgettable, and why his ideas endure in both seminar rooms and studios. The contributors, including Lee Breuer, Sue-Ellen Case, Gautam Dasgupta, Elin Diamond, S. E. Gontarski, Linda Gregerson, Martin Harries, Bill Irwin, Julia Jarcho, Anthony Kubiak, Daniel Listoe, Clark Lunberry, Bonnie Marranca, Peggy Phelan, Joseph Roach, Richard Schechner, Morton Subotnick, Julie Taymor, and Gregory Whitehead, respond to Blau's fierce and polymorphous intellect, his relentless drive and determination, and his audacity, his authority, to think, as he frequently insisted, "at the very nerve ends of thought.

The essays in this collection were originally delivered as part of the esteemed lecture series at Trinity College Dublin, Samuel Beckett's alma mater. The eminent contributors shed new light on Beckett's enigmatic theater, taking up an engaging array of topics. Included are new perspectives on Beckett's use of language and silence, on his attitudes toward the body, on those who influenced him and on those he has influenced (including Suzan-Lori Parks and Femi Osofisan), and on Beckett and the art of self-collaboration. Each contributor places the playwright into a network of genealogies and legacies and his work into important historical, cultural, and aesthetic contexts. Together, the essays demonstrate Beckett's impact on theater, performance, and visual arts during the latter half of the twentieth century and serve to open up new directions for Beckett studies well into the twenty-first. This is an indispensable volume for anyone interested in Beckett, whether scholar, student, or enthusiast.

Anna McMullan is Chair of Drama Studies at Queens University Belfast and author of "Theatre on Trial: Samuel Beckett's Later Drama."

S. E. Wilmer is Associate Professor of Drama Studies at Trinity College Dublin and author of "Theatre, Society and the Nation: Staging American Identities."

Illustration: Samuel Beckett at the rehearsal of "Waiting for Godot." (c) Bruce Davidson/Magnum Photos.

A volume in the series Theater: Theory/Text/Performance