Wayne Jeffrey Froman is associate professor of philosophy at George Mason University. John Burt Foster, Jr., is professor of English at George Mason University.

• Part 1 General IntroductionPart 2 Part One: Second Thoughts on the Cultural TurnChapter 3 IntroductionChapter 4 1. A Culture of Inclusion: Politics and PoetryChapter 5 2. The Narrative of Culture: "Burkean" PerspectivesChapter 6 3. The Spectacle of Cultural Studies: Marcel Duchamp and the Return of the RepressedPart 7 Part Two: Dramatic Categories in Cultural DiscourseChapter 8 IntroductionChapter 9 4. Setting the Scene: Judging Kenneth Burke JudgingChapter 10 5. Politics as Melodrama: Revolutions, Empty Signifiers, and the Political SublimeChapter 11 6. Gendering Tragic Conflict: Hegel's Antigone and the Vicissitudes of the DialecticPart 12 Part Three: Rethinking TragedyChapter 13 IntroductionChapter 14 7. Heidegger's Antigone: From Agonistic Nietzscheanism to Reconciliation with OthernessChapter 15 8. Characterless Tragedy: The Limits of Philosophical CatharsisChapter 16 9. Choreography of Fate: Lorca's Reconfiguration of the TragicPart 17 Part Four: Staging History, Posthistory, ParahistoryChapter 18 IntroductionChapter 19 10. Shakespeare's Richard II: History as ShadowplayChapter 20 11. Molière's Don Juan: Breaking Promises, But Not a Date with HistoryChapter 21 12. Heiner Müller's Parahistory: Beyond Marx and Brecht

Twelve astute critics assess the cultural turn in literary and historical studies. Focusing on philosophers and theorists ranging from Edmund Burke to Martin Heidegger, and writers and artists from Sophocles and Shakespeare to Marcel Duchamp, these engaging essays rethink questions of history, performance, and dramatic theory in the perspective of recent debates in cultural politics. Together the contributors stage and articulate major themes, including the conflicting emancipatory and oppressive potentials of culture, the multiplicity of possible dramatizations of history, and the philosophy and practice of performance. Informed by current literary, philosophical, and rhetorical theory, the essays constitute a rich source for readers exploring the conjunction of culture, drama, and performance..