Postcolonial Opera : William Kentridge and the Unbounded Work of Art

Opera has long been known for its ability to be used as a tool for colonial expression.But it is increasingly used to narrate histories of colonial trauma, oppression, and struggle.What does it mean for a colonial form to represent the experiences of those it used to exclude and undermine?How can opera adapt to meet the challenges of ethical representation and reparation?In response to these questions, Postcolonial Opera: William Kentridge and the Unbounded Work of Art examines the social and political role of opera in the postcolony.Taking the multimedia operatic experiments of William Kentridge, South Africa's most celebrated contemporary visual artist, as a starting point, author Juliana M.Pistorius investigates contemporary opera's potential to process the troubled histories that haunt post- and decolonial societies.Centered around the critical-theoretical themes of return, confession, mourning, time, displacement, and totality, the book considers Kentridge's productions for puppet