Theatre and Human Rights: The Politics of Dramatic Form

This book develops theoretical intersections between theatre and human rights and provides methodologies to investigate human rights questions from within the perspective of theatre as a complex set of disciplines.

While human rights research and programming often employ the arts as representations of human rights-related violations and abuses, this study focuses on dramatic form and structure, in addition to content, as uniquely positioned to interrogate important questions in human rights theory and practice. This project positions theatre as a method of examination in addition to the important purposes the arts serve to raise consciousness that accompany other, often considered more primary modes of analysis. A main feature of this approach includes emphasis on dialectical structures in drama and human rights and integration of applied theatre and critical ethnography with more traditional theatre. This integration will demonstrate how theatre and human rights operates beyond the arts as representation model, offering a primary means of analysis, activism, and political discourse.

This book will be of great interest to theatre and human rights practitioners and activists, scholars, and students.

Gary M. English, a Distinguished Professor of Drama at the University of Connecticut and served as Head of the Department of Drama at the University of Connecticut and as Artistic Director for the Connecticut Repertory Theatre for 15 years.