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Perform or Else: From Discipline to Performance
 
 

Perform or Else: From Discipline to Performance [Paperback]

Jon McKenzie (Author)
3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)

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Book Description

0415247691 978-0415247696 April 27, 2001 1
'Performance' has become one of the key terms for the new century. But what do we mean by 'performance'? In today's world it can refer to experimental art; productivity in the workplace; and the functionality of technological systems. Do these disparate fields bear any relation to each other?
In Perform or Else Jon McKenzie asserts that there is a relationship cultural, organisational, and technological performance. In this theoretical tour de force McKenzie demonstrates that all three paradigms operate together to create powerful and contradictory pressures to 'perform...or else'. This is an urgent and important intervention in contemporary critical thinking. It will profoundly shape our understanding of twenty-first century structures of power and knowledge.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

Overall, I find McKenzie's fluid essaying and profuse theorizing exhilarating. Alternately serious and ludic, vigorously interpretive and rewardingly idiosyncratic, this book is best read in the spirit in which it was written: as performance..
Theatre Journal, Arthur Sabatini, Arizona State University

In high-spirited prose that careens through both predictable and idiosyncratically selected texts and examples, McKenzie makes the case for rethinking performance as a concept and theory applicable far beyond theatre, performance, and cultural studies..
Theatre Journal, Arthur Sabatini, Arizona State University

...incredibly smart, provocative, and important..
–Janelle Reinelt, University of California, Irvine

Wholly original. Extremely valuable. A truly remarkable book..
–Philip Auslander, author of Liveness

This tour de force introduces 'performance' as a new practice giving access to a secret network connecting 'performance' in all its uses across the divisions of knowledge. The liminal hinge of this newtork is 'the Challenger Lecture Machine,' to whose seven Challengers may be added this eighth wonder of the performance world..
–Gregory L. Ulmer, Professor of English, University of Florida

About the Author

Jon McKenzie is Visiting Professor of Performance Studies at Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, where he teaches courses on globalization, experience design, and organizational performance. He also consults as a strategist in the new media industry. His essays include Laurie Anderson for Dummies and Towards a Sociopoetics of Interface Design: etoy, eToys, TOYWAR.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 320 pages
  • Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (April 27, 2001)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0415247691
  • ISBN-13: 978-0415247696
  • Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #489,581 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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1 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Philosophical discussion of performance, October 16, 2008
By 
Paul Baker (United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Perform or Else: From Discipline to Performance (Paperback)
As far as I can tell, this book is a philosophical discussion of "performance" in the context of 20th century U.S. business culture. The author starts the discussion by parsing the idea of "perform or else" into a few different perspectives. In doing so, the author shows how a simple, but common phrase has many meanings, intricate enough to expand into an entire book. The author argues that the idea of "performance" is to the 20th century what the idea of "discipline" was to the 19th century. Overall an interesting book. I think it gives some insight into the culture of work today. It is not a simple book about improving your performance. If you critique Dilbert, this may be interesting.
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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
Perform or Else initiates a challenge, one that links the performances of artists and activists with those of workers and executives, as well as computers and missile systems. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
performance stratum, performance studies paradigm, citational network, performative efficiency, liminal rites, performative efficacy, performance scholars, infrastructure performance, lecture machine, launch decision, theory explosion, cultural performance, technological performance, question concerning technology, performance management, sociotechnical systems, business creativity, performance paradigms, social efficacy
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
United States, Second World War, Professor Challenger, Jane Challenger, Third World, Western Europe, Chicken Woman, Gender Trouble, Professor Rutherford, National Performance Review, Critically Queer, Frankfurt School, High Performance Computing Act, Soviet Union, Third Reich, Thousand Plateaus, Victor Turner, Von Braun, Book Five, Flight Readiness Review, Joseph Roach, Judith Butler, Marshall Center Board, Martin Heidegger, Richard Schechner
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