New Directions

editorial New Directions In our tenth anniversary issue, PAJ 26/27, we indicated our intention to expand the journal specifically in two areas of interest. One of them was to address new directions in science and scientific thought and their intersection with current areas of research and development in performance and performance theory. The second issue of exploration would link theatre culture and literary culture in a larger context around the issues of textuality , performance, and interpretation-to trade textual knowledge, as it were, rather than isolate theatre and the world of letters. The "Body, Brain, Performance" section in this issue features our first attempt to integrate directly issues in performance, and the more comprehensive ideas of representation and reception, to some of the recent thinking in the human and social sciences, technology, and political theory. Thinking about performance now encompasses a much larger frame-it might include ritual, interaction in cities, information theory, attitudes toward the body-than simply analyzing theatre productions. In the same light, current interest in literary theory and reading/writing has made the borders of drama and fiction seem unjustifiably rigid. Especially when it concerns writers such as Isak Dinesen who was deeply attracted to the idea of the theatrical and made it a part of her writing, and Vassily Aksyonov who writes both novels and plays-both authors make an appearance in PAJ 29. The features in PAJ signal a far more significant move, however, than what can be termed interest or exploration. Performing Arts JournalIPAJ Publications will enter a new phase of publishing in the 1987-88 season when the house begins publishing fiction and other books not related to theatre. We will, however, continue to publish plays and theatre essays, as part of our list. For us at PAJ it seems an inevitable move, part of our continuing desire to publish a journal, and attract an audience, which would find no separation between kinds of knowledge; to publish books that would carry performance into worlds beyond the theatre. The Editors 4 ...