Discourse on Corporeality and the Logic of Control in the Works of Contemporary post-Yugoslav Women Playwrights
Discourse on Corporeality and the Logic of Control in the Works of Contemporary post-Yugoslav Women Playwrights

Summary/Abstract: The issue of corporeality is one of the dominant motifs in contemporary women’splaywriting in the countries formed after the collapse of Yugoslavia. At the turn of the 20th and21st centuries women’s bodies function as a specific open register in their works, where real-lifecontent is included. The body is also an instrument which detects the meanings of social actionsand interactions. According to the authors – mainly from Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia andHerzegovina, and Montenegro – the body becomes a constantly-transforming palimpsestic,multi-layered body-text which delivers information about the logic of control. The body-centricperspective here is connected with the problematization of the characters’ reactions tosome mechanisms of normalization, classification, and increasing productivity of the bodiesin their population. The changes in the configuration of control modes and everyday practicesin some areas of women’s life activity are presented. The female authors, e.g.: Milena Bogavac,Maja Pelević (Serbia), Lada Kaštelan, Ivana Sajko (Croatia), Jasna Šamić, Elma Tataragić (Bosniaand Herzegovina), Nataša Nelević (Montenegro), Simona Semenič (Slovenia) illustratesome rituals and transgressions concerning procreation, female visual representations and thebody losing its fitness and becoming isolated. In their artistic descriptions the authors confirmthe relationship between the cultural and psychological inscription of the female body andfemale difference in language and text.

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