Circus as Multimodal Discourse
Performance, Meaning, and Ritual| By: | Paul Bouissac |
| Publisher: | Bloomsbury UK |
| Print ISBN: | 9781472569479 |
| eText ISBN: | 9781441102614 |
| Edition: | 1 |
| Copyright: | 2012 |
| Format: | Page Fidelity |
eBook Features
Instant Access
Purchase and read your book immediately
Read Offline
Access your eTextbook anytime and anywhere
Study Tools
Built-in study tools like highlights and more
Read Aloud
Listen and follow along as Bookshelf reads to you
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 fifteen 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.