Performance, Prefiguration, and Politics at Attica
How do we define success in radical politics? This is a question I have asked myself throughout my research and writing on what many historians, politicians, and colleagues deem a sensational, unequivocal failure. The Attica Prison Uprising began with a flash of possibility yet ended with dozens killed and even more wounded, setting off a slew of pro-carceral propaganda from the Nixon and Rockefeller administrations amid intensifying mass incarceration. What does it mean to recognize the Attica Prison Uprising as a success, and what tools might we find in the language of performance for making this kind of political assessment?
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