Circus as multimodal discourse : performance, meaning, and ritual
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Circus as multimodal discourse : performance, meaning, and ritual
Bloomsbury, 2014
- : pb
Available at 2 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
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  United States of America
Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. [209]-213) and index
"First published by Continuum International Publishing Group 2012. Paperback edition first published by Bloomsbury Academic 2014"--T.p. verso
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Now available in paperback, this volume presents a theory of the circus as a secular ritual and introduces a method to analyze its performances as multimodal discourse.
The book's chapters cover the range of circus specialties (magic, domestic and wild animal training, acrobatics, and clowning) and provide examples to show how cultural meaning is produced, extended and amplified by circus performances. Bouissac is one of the world's leading authorities on circus ethnography and semiotics and this work is grounded on research conducted over a 50 year span in Europe, Asia, Australia and the Americas.
It concludes with a reflection on the potentially subversive power of this discourse and its contemporary use by activists. Throughout, it endeavours to develop an analytical approach that is mindful of the epistemological traps of both positivism and postmodernist license. It brings semiotics and ethnography to bear on the realm of the circus.
Table of Contents
Introduction, 'Playing with Fire'
1. Circus performances as rituals: participative ethnography
2. The 'textility' of circus acts: disentangling cognition and pleasure
3. Magic in the ring
4. Horses which speak, count, and laugh
5. Steeds and symbols: multimodal metaphors
6. The staging of actions: heroes, anti-heroes, and animal actors
7. Circus animals as symbols, actors, and persons
8. Dancing with tigers, lying with lions: translating biology into art
9. Clowns at work: a socio-critical discourse
10. The imaginary circus
11. Ideology and Politics in the Circus Ring
12. The post-animal circus
Conclusion
References
Index
by "Nielsen BookData"