Biopolitics, Materiality and Meaning in Modern European Drama

Biopolitics, Materiality and Meaning constitutes a literary-critical breath of fresh air, insofar as it takes contemporary biopolitics - with its primary emphasis on the post-human emergence of new materialist force - onto the terrain of modernist drama, putting the performativity of matter literally center stage. * Jeffrey T. Nealon, Penn State University *
It is one of biopolitical reflection’s most significant contemporary blindspots: what might theater have to tell us about the return of the immunitarian paradigm set in motion by the event of Covid-19? In this remarkable　study, Professor Fraunhofer employs an avowedly feminist reading of gender to challenge ontological isolation, patriarchy and fascism in four male authors. Among the many highlights of　Biopolitics, Materiality and　Meaning in Modern European Drama　is how Fraunhofer updates　　Kristeva’s notion of abjection 　to offer powerfully prescient readings of contagion and performance. The result is a masterful account of how the modern stage generates and confounds modern immunitary boundaries. * Timothy Campbell, Cornell University *