Abstract: By dint of pondering on "the heterogeneous nature [...] of the performing arts," Patrice Pavis has produced an encyclopedic body of work which is unique in his field. Looking back on a career that has been able to dialogue with structuralism, semiology, pragmatics, and performance studies, he distinguishes three stages dominated in turn by “a certain conception of theater, but also a politics of knowledge, and behind it, a university politics as well as a politics in general.”
