This curated collection approaches literature as a performative practice that actively builds and sustains temporal communities across time. It understands literature as something that happens in action (through transmission, performance and use) within dynamic networks of human and non-human actors. Focusing on performativity as both a methodological lens and a field of inquiry, the contributions…

When viewed through the lens of performance theory, communities have always appeared temporal. Such a processual view is reflected in concepts such as the ‘theatrical community’ or the ‘aesthetic community’, which have been negotiated in the arts and humanities since the 1990s. However, according to the argument of this Insight, such communities have a strong…