Destruction in the Performative is divided into three sections, each titled by three of nine keywords – Language, Music, Noise, Embodiment, Identity, Ecstasy, Things, Spaces and Networks. Section 1, for instance, is titled ‘Language, Music, Noise’. The keywords are nearly all-encompassing and provide many opportunities for an examination of the various ways in which ‘destructivity such as the destabilization and destruction of orders, subjects and bodies can be grasped by concepts of performativity’ (p. 9). The impetus for this collection, as the authors put it, comes from ‘a drive to uncover, as it were, the “flipside” of performativity by addressing not just the positive phenomena of human action, production, language and presence, but also the negative counterparts of these’ (p. 5). While, as a whole, the ten essays that make up this volume represent a broad swath of performance research, individually each one addresses a specific case study, touching upon other disciplines and art forms, such as philosophy, sculpture, music and history.

The collection of essays represents the work of an interdisciplinary group of scholars who met over the course of three years. If the essays are any indication, the years of seminars and debates that shaped this volume must have been particularly productive. Steffen K. Herrman's essay on Hegel, Katje Rothe's on Gabriel Tarde's economic theory, Volker Woltersdorff's on masochism, and Nikita Dhawan's on post-colonial speech and silence by way of Spivak, Foucault and Derrida present important rereadings of highly theorized ideas in light of performativity and its potentially destructive powers. Rebecca Wolf's chapter engages Schiller, Kleist and Goethe in a consideration of the power of the auditive. Renate Lorenz attempts to construct a ‘Queer Archeology of Destructiveness’ through historical instances of the figure of Salome. Jenny Schrödl, Barbara Gronau and Kristian Hasselmann provide more current case studies through contemporary German theatre, hunger strikes and the sculptures of Richard Serra, respectively. Robert Schmidt's essay is especially compelling, taking up performativity and computer coding that deteriorates as it becomes more complex, destroying itself through its own performance. The essay provides the intriguing possibility of exploring ‘a destructive, organizational, socio-technical dynamic’ (p. 195).

Certainly the true asset of the collection is that each essay could stand on its own, but it is also true that the volume as a whole comes across as disjointed. One wonders, given the extensive collaboration among the authors, why the essays in the volume have not been further integrated. While the ‘destructive’ aspects of performance are examined closely and specifically in each essay, the book does not develop a more general theory of destruction in the performative. Certainly, this volume represents an opening to that possibility and the essays in the volume provide the field with fine starting points.