‘Introduction’ in Pinchbeck, M and Westerside, A. (2018) Staging Loss: Performance as Commemoration. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

<p>This introductory chapter sets the critical stage for the book by considering the commemorative in relation to the cultural and theoretical landscape of the early twenty-first century. It provides a macro-level overview of the sections and chapters of Staging Loss and begins to identify the threads and fragments that evolve and coalesce across the book’s fifteen chapters.</p>