J. Ellen Gainor - Böcker

The Routledge Anthology of Women's Theatre Theory and Dramatic Criticism is the first wide-ranging anthology of theatre theory and dramatic criticism by women writers. Reproducing key primary documents contextualized by short essays, the collection situates women’s writing within, and also reframes the field’s male-defined and male-dominated traditions. Its collection of documents demonstrates women’s consistent and wide-ranging engagement with writing about theatre and performance and offers a more expansive understanding of the forms and locations of such theoretical and critical writing, dealing with materials that often lie outside established production and publication venues. This alternative tradition of theatre writing that emerges allows contemporary readers to form new ways of conceptualizing the field, bringing to the fore a long-neglected, vibrant, intelligent, deeply informed, and expanded canon that generates a new era of scholarship, learning, and artistry. The Routledge Anthology of Women's Theatrical Theory and Dramatic Criticism is an important intervention into the fields of Theatre and Performance Studies, Literary Studies, and Cultural History, while adding new dimensions to Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies.

The Routledge Anthology of Women's Theatre Theory and Dramatic Criticism is the first wide-ranging anthology of theatre theory and dramatic criticism by women writers. Reproducing key primary documents contextualized by short essays, the collection situates women’s writing within, and also reframes the field’s male-defined and male-dominated traditions. Its collection of documents demonstrates women’s consistent and wide-ranging engagement with writing about theatre and performance and offers a more expansive understanding of the forms and locations of such theoretical and critical writing, dealing with materials that often lie outside established production and publication venues. This alternative tradition of theatre writing that emerges allows contemporary readers to form new ways of conceptualizing the field, bringing to the fore a long-neglected, vibrant, intelligent, deeply informed, and expanded canon that generates a new era of scholarship, learning, and artistry. The Routledge Anthology of Women's Theatrical Theory and Dramatic Criticism is an important intervention into the fields of Theatre and Performance Studies, Literary Studies, and Cultural History, while adding new dimensions to Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies.

Imperialism is a transnational and transhistorical phenomenon; it occurs neither in limited areas nor at one specific moment. In cultures from across the world theatrical performance has long been a site for both the representation and support of imperialism, and resistance and rebellion against it. Imperialism and Theatre is a groundbreaking collection which explores the questions of why and how the theatre was selected within imperial cultures for the representation of the concerns of both the colonizers and the colonized. Gathering together fifteen noted scholars and theatre practitioners, this collection spans global and historical boundaries and presents a uniquely comprehensive study of post-colonial drama. The essays engage in current theoretical issues while shifting the focus from the printed text to theatre as a cultural formation and locus of political force. A compelling and extremely timely work, Imperialism and Theatre reveals fascinating new dimensions to the post-colonial debate. Contributors: Nora Alter; Sudipto Chatterjee; Mary Karen Dahl; Alan Filewood; Donald H. Frischmann; Rhonda Garelick; Helen Gilbert; Michael Hays; Loren Kruger; Josephine Lee; Robert Eric Livingston; Julie S. Peters; Michael Quinn; Edward Said; Elaine Savory.

Imperialism is a transnational and transhistorical phenomenon; it occurs neither in limited areas nor at one specific moment. In cultures from across the world theatrical performance has long been a site for both the representation and support of imperialism, and resistance and rebellion against it. Imperialism and Theatre is a groundbreaking collection which explores the questions of why and how the theatre was selected within imperial cultures for the representation of the concerns of both the colonizers and the colonized. Gathering together fifteen noted scholars and theatre practitioners, this collection spans global and historical boundaries and presents a uniquely comprehensive study of post-colonial drama. The essays engage in current theoretical issues while shifting the focus from the printed text to theatre as a cultural formation and locus of political force. A compelling and extremely timely work, Imperialism and Theatre reveals fascinating new dimensions to the post-colonial debate. Contributors: Nora Alter; Sudipto Chatterjee; Mary Karen Dahl; Alan Filewood; Donald H. Frischmann; Rhonda Garelick; Helen Gilbert; Michael Hays; Loren Kruger; Josephine Lee; Robert Eric Livingston; Julie S. Peters; Michael Quinn; Edward Said; Elaine Savory.

Performing America provides fresh perspectives on the development of visions of both America and "America"--that is, the actual community and the constructed concept--on a variety of theatrical stages. It explores the role of theater in the construction of American identity, highlighting the tension between the desire to categorize American identity and the realization that such categorical uniformity may neither be desirable nor possible. The topics covered include the links between politics and the stage during the Federalist period, the appropriation of "Indian" artifacts, an exploration of early gender roles, and the metaphorical connections between the theater and western expansion. Other essays treat vaudeville's artistically colonized cultures; Chautauqua's attempt to homogenize culture and commercialize American ideals; W. E. B. Du Bois's pageant, The Star of Ethiopia, as a strategy for constructing "African-American" as "Other" in an attempt to promote a vision of black nationalism; and how theater was used to help immigrants form a new sense of community while joining the resident culture.The collection then turns to questions of how various ethnic minorities through their recent theatrical work have struggled to argue their identities, especially in relation to the dominant white culture. Two final essays offer critiques of contrasting aspects of the American male. Throughout, the collection addresses questions of marginality and community, exclusion and inclusion, colonialism and imperialism, heterogeneity and homogeneity, conflict and negotiation, repression and opportunity, failure and success, and, above all, the relationship of American stages at large. It will appeal to readers of a wide range of disciplines including history, American culture, gender studies, and theater studies. Jeffrey D. Mason is Professor of Theatre, California State University, Bakersfield. J. Ellen Gainor is Associate Professor of Theatre Studies and Women's Studies, Cornell University.

For almost a century critics of George Bernard Shaw's dramatic works have accepted the characterization of Shaw as an artist and thinker well ahead of his time with regard to social issues—women's liberation in particular. Since the first wave of feminist criticism in the 1960s and 1970s, however, very little effort has been made to examine Shaw's works in the light of the most recent and challenging developments in feminist theory and gender studies. Now, at a time of renewed historical interest in his plays, J. Ellen Gainor brings the critical understanding of Shaw's work into the present day. Gainor introduces previously unexamined reviews and articles by Shaw's female contemporaries—and discovers among them a remarkable resistance to his depictions of women. Through an analysis of three major character tropes Gainor discovers dramaturgical patterns in Shaw's gender construction that work against the contention that the author created positive and progressive images of women and that situate his work well within the dominant social ideologies of the late Victorian and Edwardian eras. Gainor demonstrates that positioning Shaw firmly among his contemporaries may actually resolve some of the troubling issues in his dramaturgy, allowing us to understand more clearly the origins of a number of his female character types, and even to see continuities throughout his work where they have not been shown before.

The first complete collection of the works of American playwright Susan Glaspell, this book includes all of the Pulitzer Prize winner's works: Suppressed Desires, Trifles, The People, The Outside, Woman's Honor, Close the Book, Tickless Time, and Free Laughter (these eight are all one acts) and the full length plays Bernice, Inheritors, The Verge, Alison's House, The Comic Artist, Chains of Dew, and Springs Eternal, the last two of which are published here for the first time. Each play includes an introductory essay along with extended biographical and critical essays. Two appendices give details on both the first runs and select recent productions of the plays.

Susan Glaspell in Context provides new, accessible, and informative essays by leading international scholars and artists on Pulitzer Prize winner Susan Glaspell's life, career development, writing, and ongoing global creative impact. The collection features wide-ranging discussions of Glaspell's fiction, plays, and non-fiction in both historical and contemporary critical contexts, and demonstrates the significance of Glaspell's writing and other professional activities to a range of academic disciplines and artistic engagements. The volume also includes the first analyses of six previously unknown Glaspell short stories, as well as interviews with contemporary stage and film artists who have produced Glaspell's works or adapted them for audiences worldwide. Organized around key locations, influences, and phases in Glaspell's career, as well as core methodological and pedagogical approaches to her work, the collection's thirty-one essays place Glaspell in historical, geographical, political, cultural, and creative contexts of value to students, scholars, teachers, and artists alike.