3 Review(s)

Explores the dynamic interactions of performance, politics, and literary criticism in three U.S. countercultures in the 1950s and 60s This pathbreaking book looks at the American avant-garde during the Cold War period, focusing on the interrelated questions of performance practices, cultural resistance, and the politics of criticism and scholarship in the U.S. counter-culture. It develops three case studies - the Living Theatre's influential production The Connection, the earliest productions of performance art, and the poetry and plays of the Black Arts Movement - and examines the role of the scholar and critic in the cultural struggles of radical artists and activists. The book also explores the popularization of the avant-garde, when formerly subversive art is discovered by the mass media, gobbled up by the marketplace, and eventually finds its way onto the syllabi of college and university courses.