Theatre in Theory is the most complete anthology documenting 20th-century dramatic and performance theory to date, offering a rich variety of perspectives from the century’s most prominent playwrights, directors, scholars, and philosophers. Includes major theoretical and critical manifestos, hypotheses, and theories from the field Wide-ranging and broadly constructed, this text has both interdisciplinary and global appeal Includes a thematic index, section introductions, and supporting commentary Helps students, teachers, and practitioners to think critically about the nature of theatre
The book uses the long-standing theatre metaphor to bring political spectators out into the open, finding that they can be politically powerful. Filling out the metaphor with theatre theory, the book also finds that the metaphor can produce a viable model of democratic politics that incorporates spectators in a positive, meaningful way.
Dramatic Theory takes readers on a comprehensive journey through the rich and varied landscape of dramatic theory. Organized by key topics and presented chronologically, this book connects writers and theorists across different eras, revealing how their discussions have evolved and intertwined. Six fundamental questions are explored, ranging from the nature and purpose of theatre to the implications of performance on society. Each chapter delves into these essential questions, offering insights into how theoretical discourse has influenced theatrical styles and practices over time. From Aristotle's foundational Poetics to avant-garde movements of the twentieth century, Dramatic Theory covers a wide array of perspectives and debates. Issues of identity, the political implications of performance, and the subjective nature of theatrical quality are thoroughly examined. The book also investigates how meaning is constructed on stage and explores modern performance theory's redefinition of theatre. By engaging with the vibrant, never-ending conversations of dramatic theory, this text inspires a deeper understanding and appreciation of the performing arts.
This volume explores the dynamics of myths throughout time and space, along with the mythmaking processes in various cultures, literatures and languages, in a wide range of fields, ranging from cultural studies to the history of art. The papers brought together here are motivated by two basic questions: How are myths made in diverse cultures and literatures? And, do all different cultures have different myths to be told in their artistic pursuits? To examine these questions, the book offers a wide array of articles by contributors from various cultures which focus on theory, history, space/ place, philosophy, literature, language, gender, and storytelling. Mythmaking across Boundaries not only brings together classical myths, but also contemporary constructions and reconstructions through different cultural perspectives by transcending boundaries. Using a wide spectrum of perspectives, this volume, instead of emphasising the different modes of the mythmaking process, connects numerous perceptions of mythmaking and investigates diversities among cultures, languages and literatures, viewing them as a unified whole. As the essays reflect on both academic and popular texts, the book will be useful to scholars and students, as well as the general reader.
Theatre History Studies is a peer-reviewed journal of theatre history and scholarship published annually since 1981 by the Mid-American Theatre Conference (MATC), a regional body devoted to theatre scholarship and practice. The purpose of MATC is to unite people and organizations in their region with an interest in theatre and to promote the growth and development of all forms of theatre.
The fifteen original essays in Staging Philosophy make useful connections between the discipline of philosophy and the fields of theater and performance and use these insights to develop new theories about theater. Each of the contributors—leading scholars in the fields of performance and philosophy—breaks new ground, presents new arguments, and offers new theories that will pave the way for future scholarship. Staging Philosophy raises issues of critical importance by providing case studies of various philosophical movements and schools of thought, including aesthetics, analytic philosophy, phenomenology, deconstruction, critical realism, and cognitive science. The essays, which are organized into three sections—history and method, presence, and reception—take up fundamental issues such as spectatorship, empathy, ethics, theater as literature, and the essence of live performance. While some essays challenge assertions made by critics and historians of theater and performance, others analyze the assumptions of manifestos that prescribe how practitioners should go about creating texts and performances. The first book to bridge the disciplines of theater and philosophy, Staging Philosophy will provoke, stimulate, engage, and ultimately bring theater to the foreground of intellectual inquiry while it inspires further philosophical investigation into theater and performance. David Krasner is Associate Professor of Theater Studies, African American Studies, and English at Yale University. His books include A Beautiful Pageant: African American Theatre, Drama, and Performance in the Harlem Renaissance, 1910-1920 and Renaissance, Parody, and Double Consciousness in African American Theatre, 1895-1910. He is co-editor of the series Theater: Theory/Text/Performance. David Z. Saltz is Professor of Theatre Studies and Head of the Department of Theatre and Film Studies at the University of Georgia. He is coeditor of Theater Journal and is the principal investigator of the innovative Virtual Vaudeville project at the University of Georgia.
August Strindberg and Visual Culture addresses the multiplicity of Strindberg's artistic and literary output. The book charts the vital intersections between theatre, aesthetic theory, and visual elements in his work that have been left largely unexplored. Rather than following traditional genre-bound critical approaches, this book focuses on the intermediality of individual works, the corpus as a whole, and their connections to a wide array of historical and contemporary artists, writers, photographers, film, theatre and museum practitioners. The book is beautifully illustrated, with many never-before-seen images from Strindberg's work, and includes contributions from actress Liv Ullmann, director Robert Wilson, and curator and museum director Daniel Birnbaum.
This incredibly useful volume offers an introduction to the history of literary criticism and theory from ancient Greece to the present. Grounded in the close reading of landmark theoretical texts, while seeking to encourage the reader's critical response, Pelagia Goulimari examines: major thinkers and critics from Plato and Aristotle to Foucault, Derrida, Kristeva, Said and Butler; key concepts, themes and schools in the history of literary theory: mimesis, inspiration, reason and emotion, the self, the relation of literature to history, society, culture and ethics, feminism, poststructuralism, postcolonialism, queer theory; genres and movements in literary history: epic, tragedy, comedy, the novel; Romanticism, realism, modernism and postmodernism. Historical connections between theorists and theories are traced and the book is generously cross-referenced. With useful features such as key-point conclusions, further reading sections, descriptive text boxes, detailed headings, and with a comprehensive index, this book is the ideal introduction to anyone approaching literary theory for the first time or unfamiliar with the scope of its history.
The Harlem Renaissance (1918–1937) was the most influential single movement in African American literary history. Its key figures include W. E. B. Du Bois, Nella Larsen, Zora Neale Hurston, Claude McKay, and Langston Hughes. The movement laid the groundwork for all later African American literature, and had an enormous impact on later black literature world-wide. With chapters by a wide range of well-known scholars, this 2007 Companion is an authoritative and engaging guide to the movement. It first discusses the historical contexts of the Harlem Renaissance, both national and international; then presents original discussions of a wide array of authors and texts; and finally treats the reputation of the movement in later years. Giving full play to the disagreements and differences that energized the renaissance, this Companion presents a set of new readings encouraging further exploration of this dynamic field.
