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Performative writing
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{{Multiple issues| {{Unref|date=May 2023}} {{Original research|date=December 2023}} }} '''Performative writing''' is a form of [[post-modernist]] or [[avant-garde]] academic writing, often taking as its subject a work of visual art or [[performance art]]. It is heavily informed by [[critical theory]], but arises ultimately from [[linguistics|linguistic]] ideas around [[performative utterance]]s. The term is often applied to a [[bricolage]] of other writing styles. It is claimed to be politically radical, because it thus 'defies' literary conventions and traditions. ==Overview== Performative writing is often practiced by [[feminist]] writers. A notable current writer in performative writing is the performance art theorist Peggy Phelan. She describes the form as one which.... :''"enacts the death of the 'we' that we think we are before we begin to write. A statement of allegiance to the radicality of unknowing who we are becoming, this writing pushes against the ideology of knowledge as a progressive movement forever approaching a completed end-point."'' (''Mourning Sex'', 1997) Such a writing form is claimed to be, in itself, a form of performance. It is said to more accurately reflect the fleeting and ephemeral nature of a performance, and the various mechanisms of memory and [[referential]]ity that happen during and after the performance. ==Distinction== The term performative writing should not be confused with "writing that is performed", i.e.: [[Play (theatre)|plays]], [[radio]] or [[poetry]] readings. Performative writing is sometimes referred to by the alternative name of 'creative critical writing'βwhich is not to be confused with straightforward [[creative writing]]. Critics of performative writing have described it, in practice, as: self-indulgent; insular; politically neutered due to its tiny elite audience and its [[neo-romanticism|neo-romantic]] [[individualism]]; [[obscurantist]]; often bearing only a loose relationship to the works of art it claims to be about; and dependent on the funding (of universities and public arts funding) of the very [[State (polity)|state]] that it claims to be against. Also that, when taught, it often paradoxically expects students to reveal personal truths and use experimental forms within a strict classroom regimen of grades, lesson attendance and exams. It can generally be seen to follow the pattern of much [[modernist]] writing, in that it seeks to create complex new literary approaches in order to seal off 'high art culture' from the attention of ordinary people and from a [[mass culture]].{{Citation needed|date=January 2011}} ==See also== * [[Belles-lettres]] * [[Performance studies]] * [[Post-structuralism]] ==Further reading== *Lynn Miller & Pelias Ronald (Eds.) ''The Green Window: Proceedings of the Giant City Conference on Performative Writing'' (Southern Illinois Press; 2001). [[Category:Writing]]
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