Kissing as Telling: Some Thoughts on the Cultural History of Media Performance

Abstract

uch of my research has involved the analysis of types of per- formance as they have developed through history and moved between media forms and genres. My experience with that type of work has convinced me of the potential benefits of an interdisciplinary dialogue between Studies and Media Studies. This is not the place for a lengthy discussion of all the pos- sible synergies between these disciplines, but let me briefly mention two. First, the analysis of performance can help scholars to study the dynamics of trans- or intermediality—the relationships among media forms. Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett writes that, since performance lacks a distinctive medium, Studies starts from the premise that its objects of study are not to be divided up and par- celed out, medium by medium. 1 Second, the study of performance is inherently concerned with process and change, with the relationship between tradition and innovation, between the doing and the already done. 2 Studies can thus provide methodological tools for scholars embarking on what Rick Altman calls a approach to media history. Altman reminds us that nineteenth-century American entertainment was organized around acts and the people who performed them, as opposed to media products, and he suggests that film scholars must put aside a firmly entrenched film-oriented approach to cinema in favor of a performer-oriented position. 3 A performer-oriented or performance-oriented approach has much to offer media historians, but it is not without its challenges. How does 1 Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Performance Studies, Rockefeller Foundation, Culture and