Satire, surveillance, and the state: a classified primer

This article explores the use of ironic performance in education, particularly around issues of human rights. I examine my own efforts to engage audiences with the history of domestic espionage and sabotage by the intelligence agencies of the United States. This is a history well known to some marginalized counterpublics (see Fraser, 19973. Fraser , N. 1997 . Justice interruptus: critical reflections on the ‘postsocialist’ condition , London : Routledge .

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The piece's relevance has increased since I first performed it in 1997. The images and declassified government documents in my slideshow are from the Sixties era, but the civil-rights ramifications of the PATRIOT Act suggest that it is time once again to ask: Who watches the watchmen? What are the advantages or drawbacks of irony and humor in taking on such a topic? Is there a point to performing such a piece to the ‘converted’? How might such a piece serve as a provocation for active learning on the part of audience members, rather than a didactic and closed text?