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Protagorians among us: Rhetorical performances at Occupy

Protagorians among us: Rhetorical performances at Occupy
Protagorians among us: Rhetorical performances at Occupy
Protagoras, Plato recounted, taught how to harness word and action and use them to make an effective contribution to the affairs of the City. Far beyond public speaking, this was an indictment to use performance and philosophy in tandem to insinuate public demands. On the 9th of October 2011, Slavoj Zizek joined fellow Protagorians at Occupy Wall Street in solidarity. He delivered a speech encouraging those assembled to keep going and was followed, on the 23rd of October, by Judith Butler who did the same. Both of these visiting philosophers were rather crudely hoisted onto a raised platform in front of protesters who repeated their words in unison as a means of amplification and in order to pass their messages to all present. A little over a month later an online journal –Theory & Event –published a supplement focusing on just this combination of contributions. In this paper I would like to consider The Occupy Movement’s rebellious representations of Protagoras’ indictment. Specifically, I would like to consider the geographies of occupied place and space and what power and knowledge is delivered and viewed in such formations. Spectatorship and the sharing-as-witness of politicized performance “happenings”seems to indicate a new performance form and yet, as early as the late Modern period (1910 –1915) there are examples of art “happenings”offering similar anti-authoritarian contribution. So, is this theatricality new, or did this transnational performance collective occupy, not just land, but performance forms as well?
Protest Movements, Performance, Public Display, Protagoras, Rhetoric, Discourse
2529-1793
166 - 176
Millette, Holly
909906ff-426b-47ab-a71a-5788ea36c213
Millette, Holly
909906ff-426b-47ab-a71a-5788ea36c213

Millette, Holly (2017) Protagorians among us: Rhetorical performances at Occupy. Gramma: Journal of Theory and Criticism, 24 (4), 166 - 176.

Record type: Article

Abstract

Protagoras, Plato recounted, taught how to harness word and action and use them to make an effective contribution to the affairs of the City. Far beyond public speaking, this was an indictment to use performance and philosophy in tandem to insinuate public demands. On the 9th of October 2011, Slavoj Zizek joined fellow Protagorians at Occupy Wall Street in solidarity. He delivered a speech encouraging those assembled to keep going and was followed, on the 23rd of October, by Judith Butler who did the same. Both of these visiting philosophers were rather crudely hoisted onto a raised platform in front of protesters who repeated their words in unison as a means of amplification and in order to pass their messages to all present. A little over a month later an online journal –Theory & Event –published a supplement focusing on just this combination of contributions. In this paper I would like to consider The Occupy Movement’s rebellious representations of Protagoras’ indictment. Specifically, I would like to consider the geographies of occupied place and space and what power and knowledge is delivered and viewed in such formations. Spectatorship and the sharing-as-witness of politicized performance “happenings”seems to indicate a new performance form and yet, as early as the late Modern period (1910 –1915) there are examples of art “happenings”offering similar anti-authoritarian contribution. So, is this theatricality new, or did this transnational performance collective occupy, not just land, but performance forms as well?

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e-pub ahead of print date: 3 April 2017
Published date: 2017
Keywords: Protest Movements, Performance, Public Display, Protagoras, Rhetoric, Discourse

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 426155
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/426155
ISSN: 2529-1793
PURE UUID: 4c51ca2c-da99-44c6-9a63-225f41b8a613
ORCID for Holly Millette: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-4731-3138

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Date deposited: 15 Nov 2018 17:30
Last modified: 06 Jun 2024 01:51

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