"The title 'Performing Hysteria: Contemporary Images and Imaginations of Hysteria' already reveals the central focus of this volume: How are the current manifestations surrounding hysteria informed by historical performance practices and how do they, in turn, produce new ways of performing hysteria? To understand these hysterical images, I contend, one needs to locate them within their broader visual culture, furthermore drawing on the cross-disciplinary potential of performance studies, foregrounding images of hysteria in visual representation and in textual discourse."