For about thirty years in the middle of the twentieth century, Samuel Beckett and Bertolt Brecht dominated Western theater by virtue of their difference. Beckett represented a theater of the absurd and Brecht a theater of political commitment, each defining the other by their incompatibilities. Only their successors began to question the dichotomies and to draw on both their legacies. This volume looks back at the common ground of these two dramatists: their modernism and its legacy, their innovations in new media, the ways they directed their own work, and the shape of their thinking and writing. This territory is explored from the various perspectives of directors, dramaturgs, actors, and theorists in these contributions from a 2001 symposium at the University of Dublin. Distributed for the International Brecht Society In English and German
On the cusp of memory and history, the story of Scotland's twentieth-century is contested territory: international yet parochial; prosperous yet ailing; and, passionate yet temperate. This thematic account of Scotland's twentieth century examines the economic, social, political and cultural aspects that shaped the country during the period. Catroina MacDonald underlines the tensions inherent in the life of a nation distinguished by stark changes and surprising continuities, a fragmented identity, a shifting and at times uneasy accommodation in the UK nation state, and an ongoing engagement with globalising tendencies. In identifying the choices, ambitions, possibilities and contradictions that Scotland experienced during a century of profound change, she uncovers a country in which one can truly say extremes met.
What can two countries at the edge of Europe with very different histories, people and climates have in common? When brought together as they are in this book, probably for the first time, Sicily and Scotland prove to have some surprising similarities as well as more predictable differences. Both once independent nations, they are now part of larger nation states, but each still retains a deep sense of independent cultural and political identity rooted in its separate history and language which is explored in literature and film. Both favoured destinations of tourists, they have proved immensely attractive to travel writers, here represented by studies of Scottish travellers writing about Sicily. Finally they have both been great emigrant nations, sending their people across the globe to settle in faraway places, although their experiences in their new nations were very different. This book focuses on these three major strands of comparison and contrast: literature and film, travel writing and emigration. It explores the work of some of each nation's most famous writers (Sciascia, Lampedusa, Scott and Stevenson) and some well known and acclaimed films by directors of the stature of Visconti, Tornatore, Forsyth and Loach. It considers the string of Scots who, before it was discovered by tourists, made the long and unfamiliar journey to Sicily culminating in Patrick Brydone's Tour Through Sicily and Malta which proved to be immensely popular and went through many editions after its first appearance in 1773. Finally it provides a comparison of the experience of Sicilian and Scottish emigrants through a general survey of Scottish migration, the particular case study of Sicilians in Australia, and one man's personal account of the lives of his Sicilian and Scottish ancestors in America. The writers of this book present a fascinating comparison of these two places which have been much studied but almost never brought together before.
"In Going to Extremes, renowned legal scholar and best-selling author Cass R. Sunstein offers startling insights into why and when people gravitate toward extremism."--Inside jacket.
Drawing on more than 20 years of interviews, anecdotes and personal experiences, Uninvited: Confessions of a Hollywood Party Crasher recounts the unique journey of a former Los Angeles Times reporter who, struggling with the collapse of his industry and personal tragedies, falls in with a group of intrepid gatecrashers who routinely pierce Tinseltown's celebrity party circuit. Author Adrian Maher is the first to chronicle this unique subterranean culture in La La Land—a group of social strivers, ambitious outliers, compulsive risk-takers and dysfunctional characters seeking access to a famous and exclusive society from which they've been banned. Uninvited uses all the author's skills as a veteran reporter, television producer, private investigator, archivist and humorous storyteller to reveal the unseen capers, snafus and mishaps behind Hollywood's palace gates against a backdrop of America's fascination with celebrity culture. And it exposes the personal struggles of an adrenaline-addicted gatecrasher facing perpetual moral challenges, physical dangers and psychological stressors that culminate in near disaster.
