Combining phenomenological analysis and affect theory, this book takes stock of the various ways in which the body in Samuel Becketts drama participates in the affective ecology of performance. If the post-human innovation up until the present has worked to decentre the human, by rendering notions of thinking, experience, and affect impersonal and by developing new models of expression and communication, then this innovation seems to be already underway in Becketts theatre of affect where the assault against language is made possible through the thematising of the body as a mode of encountering presence. The corporeal turn in Becketts drama therefore has far-reaching implications for the production of meaning in his work.
Paul Stewart is Professor of Literature at the University of Nicosia. He is the author of two books on BeckettSex and Aesthetics in Samuel Becketts Works (Palgrave, 2011) and Zone of Evaporation: Samuel Becketts Disjunctions (Rodopi, 2006)and the series editor for Samuel Beckett in Company, published by ibidem Press. He has published widely on Beckett in such journals as The Journal of Beckett Studies and Samuel Beckett Today / Aujourdhui. He is also a creative writer (his novel Now Then was published by Armida in 2014) and a performer in theatre, television, and film.
