From Saturday’s Boston Globe G section:
Celebrating a proud, joyful Haiti
Brown, RISD exhibit offers hopeful perspective of strife-ridden country
The exhibit in question is titled “Reframing Haiti: Art, History and Performativity.”
Performativity? Is that even a word?
The hardsearching staff plugged it into the Googletron and found this (via The Free Dictionary):
per·for·ma·tive (p
r-fôr
m
v)
adj.Relating to or being an utterance that peforms an act or creates a state of affairs by the fact of its being uttered under appropriate or conventional circumstances, as a justice of the peace uttering I now pronounce you husband and wife at a wedding ceremony, thus creating a legal union, or as one uttering I promise, thus performing the act of promising.
Sorry – I still don’t know what it means.
Campaign Outsider 
Without a doubt the writer ‘did’ EST many moons ago.
Without a doubt.
Going by that definition, “Let there be light” was the first performative act. And “Let there be lite beer” the most reprehensible.
Thanks for clearing that up, Arafat. Very helpful.
I exist to serve, sir!
(By “serve” I mean anything except lite beer.)
Google and Free Dictionary are behind the curve on this one.
“Performativity” is but the newest language-mangle courtesy of Sarah Palin, as in “The voters are clearly disappointed with Barack Obama’s performativity. Will we rise up and make sure he hears the American people next year? You betcha.”
Well, to be honest, the way Obama was touted as the Messiah in 2008, it was more like a performanativity. Zing!!!