From theater to virtual reality, we find ourselves making sense of imagined worlds that surround us. Our experience of democracy in the twenty-first century is similar: we are spectators to politics, immersed in 24-hour news, joining candidates on the campaign trail, reflecting on civic life and national memory in spaces of culture. Theater and Democracy in an Era of Immersion draws on extensive interviews with artists to develop a theory of immersive spectatorship as political action, arguing that through our experience of art, we can cultivate practices to navigate the disorientations and disenchantments of our democracy. This theory complements and complicates debates over the democratic promise of participatory performance by theorizing a mode of spectatorship that cuts across media, disciplines, genres, and everyday experiences. 

James R. Ball III investigates phenomena that compose our experience of democracy, including campaign trail debates and rallies; electoral microtargeting; misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theory; sonic weapons and psychic spying; political assassination; racist state violence; public commemoration; AI in government; and the democratic work of mourning. Theater and Democracy in an Era of Immersion provides a unique performance studies intervention into political theory, indicating new avenues for research into political spectatorship and the theatricality of deliberative and ocular democracy.

James R. Ball III is Associate Professor of Performance Studies and Chair of Visual, Material, and Performance Cultures at Texas A&M University.