The Dybbuk Between Several Worlds: Spectropolitics, the Demon, and the Devastation of the Future in Tony Kushner

Vanessa Cianconi

doi:10.35699/2317-2096.2026.61257

Autores/as

Vanessa Cianconi Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (UERJ) | Rio de Janeiro | RJ | BR Autor/a https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1175-4919

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.35699/2317-2096.2026.61257

Palabras clave:

Tony Kushner, A Dybbuk, Jewish lore, spectropolitics, Performance Philosophy, Walter Benjamin

Resumen

The dybbuk is a malevolent spirit that possesses the bodies of the living. Rooted in Jewish folklore and mysticism, the dybbuk is believed to be the soul of a dead person who cannot find rest. The purpose of this article is to reconcile Tony Kushner’s glimpse of apocalyptic anxiety in adapting S. Ansky’s text, The Dybbuk (2000). By placing ghostly characters on stage that echo the past and its resonance by bringing in a demon who now considers not only the claims of this past on the present, but also the historical devastations projected into the future, I look at Kushner’s play in light of the immateriality of its characters in relation to the uncanny experience of recognizing theater as the possibility of materializing a link between Sigmund Freud’s concern of the unfamiliar (or the unheimlich) and Walter Benjamin’s concern of experience.

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Biografía del autor/a

Vanessa Cianconi, Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (UERJ) | Rio de Janeiro | RJ | BR

Vanessa Cianconi é professora de Literatura Norte-Americana no Departamento de Línguas e Literaturas Anglo-Germânicas da UERJ e também faz parte do corpo docente da pós-graduação em Literaturas de Língua Inglesa. Doutora em Literatura Comparada com período sanduíche no Departamento de Teatro da Universidade de Pittsburgh e pesquisa durante a Mellon School of Theater and Performance Research na Universidade de Harvard. Autora do livro “As bruxas como desculpa” (2014). Atualmente faz parte do GT “Dramaturgia e Teatro” da ANPOLL e do grupo de pesquisa “Escritos Suspeitos” ligado ao CNPq.

Referencias

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