Using Dwight Conquergood’s description of execution as performance and Elaine Scarry’s explanation of the ideology of pain in the torture process, this essay explores how the Anabaptist Reformation martyrs resisted violent and ideologically charged state sanctioned performances of pain and death. By publicly performing heresy, claiming the stake as their own stage, and scripting and ritualizing public undisciplined bodies, these martyrs performed resistance to the social order that those who oversaw violent spectacle intended to preserve. This essay also examines the process of collecting and retelling martyr stories to guide performance studies scholars to challenge hegemonic sacrifices in contemporary culture.
