Staging authority: Introduction

This handbook focuses on how the presentation, embodiment, and performance of authority changed in the long nineteenth century. It examines how the diversification of authority led to new forms and expressions of authority, how traditional authority figures responded and adapted to those changes, and how the public increasingly participated in constructing and validating authority. The handbook's fourteen chapters draw on innovative methodologies in cultural history and the aligned fields of the history of emotions, urban geography, persona studies, gender studies, media studies, and sound studies. This Introduction reviews the main concepts that guide the individual chapters. It explains what the term 'staging' means in all its facets: physical spaces, embodiment, choreography, dramaturgy, impression management, and media presence. It then reviews the conceptual difference between authority, power, and persuasion, drawing on works by Max Weber, Hannah Arendt, and Pierre Bourdieu. It provides an overview of the diversification of authority over the course of the nineteenth century and finishes with a synopsis of each chapter.