Research Seminar: ‘Performing Power’

Performing Power proposes an analysis of social power not as a material or ideal resource, but as a dramatic and aesthetic act.

This talk will introduce a recently published book, Performing Power (Polity, 2025). This book argues for the importance of considering social power not just in terms of who holds the most resources, or whose ideas come to triumph in any particular setting, but also how dramatic acts themselves are capable of mobilising, and not just expressing, social power. It will address the differences and similarities between social performance and artistic performance and elaborate how social performances draw upon artistic performances for many of their aesthetic tools and structures. It will also suggest a way of accounting for how some social performances succeed, rendering them capable of mobilising power, whilst others fail, rendering them incapable of doing so.

Marcus Morgan is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology in the School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies at the University of Bristol.