Remapping Genre through Performance: From “American” to “Hemispheric” Studies

Abstract

Performance as a genre allows for alternative mappings, providing a set of strategies and conventions that allow scholars to see practices that scripted genres might occlude. Like other genres, performance encompasses a broad range of rehearsed and codified behaviors, such as dance, theater, music recitals, sports events, and rituals. A performance lens allows scholars to look at acts, things, and ideas as performance. Looking at America as performance might explain why it is difficult to approach it as a disciplinary field of study. What might the shift in genres—from the scripted genres associated with thearchiveto the live, embodied behaviors that are therepertoireof cultural practices—enable? This essay proposes that an analysis of the performance of America might allow scholars to rethink not only their object of analysis but also their scholarly interactions.