Michael Y. Bennett is Associate Professor of English and affiliated faculty in Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin, Whitewater, where he teaches courses on modern drama. He is the author of Reassessing the Theatre of the Absurd (2011), Words, Space, and the Audience (2012) and Narrating the Past through Theatre (2012); the editor of Refiguring Oscar Wilde's Salome (2011); and the co-editor of Eugene O'Neill's One-Act Plays: New Critical Perspectives (2012). He is also Editor of The Edward Albee Review.

'In his latest book Michael Bennett sets out to provide a scholarly but reader-friendly appraisal of the literary and dramatic manifestations of the absurd. … this book manages to be both an accessible introduction to readers unfamiliar with the absurd and a thought-provoking addition to absurd criticism.' Pedro Querido, Modern Language Review

• 1. Introduction: overview of the absurd; 2. Setting the stage; 3. The emergence of a 'movement': the historical and intellectual contexts; 4. Samuel Beckett; 5. Beckett's notable contemporaries; 6. The European and American wave of absurdism; 7. Post-absurdism?; 8. Absurd criticism.

Michael Y. Bennett is Associate Professor of English and affiliated faculty in Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin, Whitewater, where he teaches courses on modern drama. He is the author of Reassessing the Theatre of the Absurd (2011), Words, Space, and the Audience (2012) and Narrating the Past through Theatre (2012); the editor of Refiguring Oscar Wilde's Salome (2011); and the co-editor of Eugene O'Neill's One-Act Plays: New Critical Perspectives (2012). He is also Editor of The Edward Albee Review.

'In his latest book Michael Bennett sets out to provide a scholarly but reader-friendly appraisal of the literary and dramatic manifestations of the absurd. … this book manages to be both an accessible introduction to readers unfamiliar with the absurd and a thought-provoking addition to absurd criticism.' Pedro Querido, Modern Language Review

• 1. Introduction: overview of the absurd; 2. Setting the stage; 3. The emergence of a 'movement': the historical and intellectual contexts; 4. Samuel Beckett; 5. Beckett's notable contemporaries; 6. The European and American wave of absurdism; 7. Post-absurdism?; 8. Absurd criticism.

Michael Y. Bennett is Associate Professor of English and affiliated faculty in Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin, Whitewater, where he teaches courses on modern drama. He is the author of Reassessing the Theatre of the Absurd (2011), Words, Space, and the Audience (2012) and Narrating the Past through Theatre (2012); the editor of Refiguring Oscar Wilde's Salome (2011); and the co-editor of Eugene O'Neill's One-Act Plays: New Critical Perspectives (2012). He is also Editor of The Edward Albee Review.

'In his latest book Michael Bennett sets out to provide a scholarly but reader-friendly appraisal of the literary and dramatic manifestations of the absurd. … this book manages to be both an accessible introduction to readers unfamiliar with the absurd and a thought-provoking addition to absurd criticism.' Pedro Querido, Modern Language Review

• 1. Introduction: overview of the absurd; 2. Setting the stage; 3. The emergence of a 'movement': the historical and intellectual contexts; 4. Samuel Beckett; 5. Beckett's notable contemporaries; 6. The European and American wave of absurdism; 7. Post-absurdism?; 8. Absurd criticism.