Staging Monstrous Bodies

Michael Mark Chemers is a Professor of Dramatic Literature and Chair of the Department of Performance, Play & Design at the University of California Santa Cruz, USA. He is the author and co-editor of several books on monsters in performance, freak shows, and dramaturgy.Ekaterina Trachsel is a Theater Scholar and Theater-Maker currently working as a post-doctoral researcher at the Justus Liebig University in Giessen, Germany. Her research focuses on contemporary dramaturgies, institutional change, and theatrical stagings of monstrous bodies and orders.Gerald Siegmund is a Professor of Applied Theatre Studies at the Justus-Liebig University in Giessen, Germany. His research focuses on forms of contemporary theatre, dance, and performance, aesthetics, theories of memory, and the intermediality of theatre in relation to the visual arts.

• Introduction: Towards a monstrous orderPart One: The Mise-En-Scène of Monstrous Bodies1. The monstrous does not exist: Epistemological and queer-feminist reflections on non-binary figures2. Breaking the Mold: Building Bodies between Gender Conformity and Monstrosity3. Dress Eats Woman: Monstrous Costumes in Contemporary Performances4. From Monster to Freak: A Latin American Genealogy of Corporeal Difference5. ROUNDTABLE PART ONE: The Mise-En-Scène of Monstrous Bodies – Theses and MotifsPart Two: De-Montage of the Monstrous6. A Rhineland Werewolf and its Theatrical Legacy7. LE SOUTENEUR NATUREL DES JUGEURS : Staging the Monstrosity of the Norm8. Medusa from afar with the sounding body9. Women Cut Open on Stage: Performing the De-Montage of Femininity as a Monstrous Practice10. To Open the Shut Eyes of the Corpse: Performing Resurrections in Cadela Força – The bride and the goodnight Cinderella by Carolina Bianchi y Cara de Cavalo11. ROUNDTABLE PART TWO: De-Montage of the Monstrous – Theses and MotifsPart Three: Monstrous Orders12. “There are only monsters here.” On the theatrical uncovering of the no-longer-so-hidden in current political contexts13. Appropriation as Expulsion: Claire Vivianne Sobottke’s Performance Velvet as a Feminist Practice of Becoming Unrecognizable14. Score for: Where Are The Monsters?15. Monstrous Imagination: Denis Diderot and the Body of the Actor16. ROUNDTABLE PART THREE: Monstrous Orders –Theses and MotifsCODA: A Collection of Questions and Thesis to be Continued…