Performance ─ An Alphabet of Performative Writing

Performance uses the alphabet as an organizational device to present a series of short pieces that approach performance from multiple perspectives and various compositional strategies. Pelias’s essays, poetry, dialogue, personal narratives, quick speculations, and other literary genres explore the key themes in this field, encapsulating the essence of performance studies for the novice and providing food for thought for the expert. Its brief, evocative, and reflexive pieces introduce performative writing as a method of research for those in performance and many other fields.

Ronald J. Pelias is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Speech Communication at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. He is the author of numerous books on performance studies and performance methodologies, including Performance Studies: The Interpretation of Aesthetic Texts, 2e (Kendall Hunt 2007), Writing Performance: Poeticizing the Researcher's Body (Southern Illinois University Press, 1999), A Methodology of the Heart: Evoking Academic and Daily Life (AltaMira, 2004), and Leaning: A Poetics of Personal Relations (Left Coast 2011). In 2000, he received the Lilla A. Heston Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Interpretation and Performance Studies from the National Communication Association. In addition to numerous published articles and book chapters, he also publishes performance texts and poetry.