Cover -- The Explicit Body in Performance -- Copyright -- Contents -- List of plates -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- GHOST OF THE AVANT-GARDE -- DESIRE AND THE SATIATE BODY -- TWISTING THE MAP -- 1 Binary terror and the body made explicit -- RE-VAMPING THE GHOSTS OF MODERNISM -- BESIDE HERSELF: POSTMODERN ARTISTS AND MODERN WHORES -- EYE/BODY: CAROLEE SCHNEEMANN BESIDE HERSELF -- 2 Logic of the twister, eye of the storm -- IMPASSE: UNNATURAL ACTS -- TWISTER: LOOKING INTO LOOKING OUT -- 3 Permission to see -- GENDER IN PERSPECTIVE: HAVE WE REALLY GONE BEYOND? -- REFUSAL TO VANISH -- GHOSTLY HORRORS: LOOKING AT THE PAST, SEEING THROUGH THE BODY -- 4 The secret's eye -- NO ACCIDENT: COMMODITY BODIES -- EMBODYING DISEMBODIMENT -- RADICAL SEX ACTIVISM, SATIABILITY, AND THE COMMODITY -- TWO-WAY STREETWALKERS -- EXPLOSIVE LITERALITY -- LITERAL SHROUDS AND DREAMSCAPE RE-INTERMENTS -- 5 After us the savage goddess -- SEEING BACK THROUGH -- PRIMITIVE TECHNIQUES -- DARK CONTINENCE: READING THE THRALL AND THE THREAT -- DARK INCONTINENCE: UBU ROJ AND SAVAGE PRIMITMSM -- DADA'S BIG DRUM: PRIMITIVISM AND THE PERFORMATIVE -- HARD PRIMITMSM, BASE MATTER, AND THE BLIND SPOT -- LITERAL PRIMITIVES -- 6 Seeing the big show -- FIRST, A STORY ABOUT DOUBT THAT INCLUDES AREVE RBERATION -- WHITE NOSTALGIA, AUTHENTICITY, AND THE SPLIT SUBJECT -- SPIDER WOMAN: THE EARLY DAYS -- VIGILANT REPETITIONS, THE COMIC TURN, AND COUNTER-MIMICRY -- THE IRRUPTION OF "REAL STUFF" AND THE POLITIC OF SACRALITY -- THE IRRUPTION OF GRANDMOTHERS AND THE REALITY OF DREAMS -- Epilog: returning from the dead -- Notes -- Works Cited -- Index.