Book excerpt: "Performativity" refers to the emergent, ambiguous, and unexpected dimensions of any performance in the social, political, and artistic arena. The volume presents case studies of performativity in: linguistic translation; the city as stage of political performances; the theatricality of courtrooms and documentary film; contemporary theatre's political inheritance; and the historically punctured fabric of festival time. Its contributions to performance and theatre studies, sociology and folklore, and German studies, reflect this concept in a transdisciplinary and transatlantic dialogue.