IATC Book on "Theatre and Humanism in a World of Violence" Published

The proceedings of the 2008 IATC World Congress in Sofia, Bulgaria were published in a new book, Theatre and Humanism in a World of Violence, edited by Kalina Stefanova and Ian Herbert. The book was financed by the Bulgarian ministry of culture and published in Sofia by St. Kliment Ohridski University Press.

Theatre and Humanism in a World of Violence is the first attempt in a book-length form to answer such hot-button questions as: "What makes violence onstage today so sexy? Until recently, violence for its own sake was the prerogative of B-movies and junk mystery novels. What made theatre follow suit? What is the impact of the theatre of violence on the audience? Doesn't it actually make us conformists? Is there still a place for humanism among all the post-modern "isms," including post-human or meta-human theatre? What is the relationship between vilolence and the aesthetics of ugliness?"

Ranging from meditative essays and voices reflecting deliberately provocative and politically incorrect stances, Theatre and Humanism in a World of Violence contains challenging critical views from India to Argentina, South Africa to Finland, U.S.A. to Korea, as well as by respected theatremakers such as the Latvian director Alvis Hermanis and the British playwright David Edgar.

One ATCA members is represented in the new volume: Randy Gener's Nathan Award-winning essay "See Under: HOMELAND," a scholarly response on how Israeli and American theatre artists espouse humanism in a world of violence on U.S. stages.

As a bonus, the volume contains the acceptance speech of the second winner of the IATC Thalia Prize, the French critic, director and playwright Jean-Pierre Sarrazac, who can be said to have first identified the notion of a post-dramatic theatre. There is also a post-script: a text delivered to IATC immediately before its Congress by Richard Schechner, the distinguished American director and theatre scholar, on the notion of the five avant-gardes.

Copes were distributed at the Europe Theatre Prize in Wroclaw, Poland, exactly a year after the events it records. If you do not have a copy and wish to use it for teaching, please contact Kalina Stefanova (kalina@eurointegra.com) who may be able to arrange for her Ministry of Culture to send you an author's copy. Anyone else who would like to purchase a copy at the published price of 60 euros, the person to contact is Ian Herbert (ian@herbertknott.com), and he will try to arrange shipment. [Gener]