Alisa Solomon – författare

Women Mobilizing Memory, a transnational exploration of the intersection of feminism, history, and memory, shows how the recollection of violent histories can generate possibilities for progressive futures. Questioning the politics of memory-making in relation to experiences of vulnerability and violence, this wide-ranging collection asks: How can memories of violence and its afterlives be mobilized for change? What strategies can disrupt and counter public forgetting? What role do the arts play in addressing the erasure of past violence from current memory and in creating new visions for future generations?Women Mobilizing Memory emerges from a multiyear feminist collaboration bringing together an interdisciplinary group of scholars, artists, and activists from Chile, Turkey, and the United States. The essays in this book assemble and discuss a deep archive of works that activate memory across a variety of protest cultures, ranging from seemingly minor acts of defiance to broader resistance movements. The memory practices it highlights constitute acts of repair that demand justice but do not aim at restitution. They invite the creation of alternative histories that can reconfigure painful pasts and presents. Giving voice to silenced memories and reclaiming collective memories that have been misrepresented in official narratives, Women Mobilizing Memory offers an alternative to more monumental commemorative practices. It models a new direction for memory studies and testifies to a continuing hope for an alternative future.

Women Mobilizing Memory, a transnational exploration of the intersection of feminism, history, and memory, shows how the recollection of violent histories can generate possibilities for progressive futures. Questioning the politics of memory-making in relation to experiences of vulnerability and violence, this wide-ranging collection asks: How can memories of violence and its afterlives be mobilized for change? What strategies can disrupt and counter public forgetting? What role do the arts play in addressing the erasure of past violence from current memory and in creating new visions for future generations?Women Mobilizing Memory emerges from a multiyear feminist collaboration bringing together an interdisciplinary group of scholars, artists, and activists from Chile, Turkey, and the United States. The essays in this book assemble and discuss a deep archive of works that activate memory across a variety of protest cultures, ranging from seemingly minor acts of defiance to broader resistance movements. The memory practices it highlights constitute acts of repair that demand justice but do not aim at restitution. They invite the creation of alternative histories that can reconfigure painful pasts and presents. Giving voice to silenced memories and reclaiming collective memories that have been misrepresented in official narratives, Women Mobilizing Memory offers an alternative to more monumental commemorative practices. It models a new direction for memory studies and testifies to a continuing hope for an alternative future.

Re-Dressing the Canon examines the relationship between gender and performance in a series of essays which combine the critique of specific live performances with an astute theoretical analysis. Alisa Solomon discusses both canonical texts and contemporary productions in a lively jargon-free style. Among the dramatic texts considered are those of Aristophanes, Ibsen, Yiddish theatre, Mabou Mines, Deborah Warner, Shakespeare, Brecht, Split Britches, Ridiculous Theatre, and Tony Kushner.Bringing to bear theories of 'gender performativity' upon theatrical events, the author explores:* the 'double disguise' of cross-dressed boy-actresses* how gender relates to genre (particularly in Ibsens' realism)* how canonical theatre represented gender in ways which maintain traditional images of masculinity and femininity.

Re-Dressing the Canon examines the relationship between gender and performance in a series of essays which combine the critique of specific live performances with an astute theoretical analysis. Alisa Solomon discusses both canonical texts and contemporary productions in a lively jargon-free style. Among the dramatic texts considered are those of Aristophanes, Ibsen, Yiddish theatre, Mabou Mines, Deborah Warner, Shakespeare, Brecht, Split Britches, Ridiculous Theatre, and Tony Kushner.Bringing to bear theories of 'gender performativity' upon theatrical events, the author explores:* the 'double disguise' of cross-dressed boy-actresses* how gender relates to genre (particularly in Ibsens' realism)* how canonical theatre represented gender in ways which maintain traditional images of masculinity and femininity.

As the Israeli-Palestinian conflict escalates, a dangerous illusion persists that the American Jewish community speaks with a single voice, expressing universal, uncritical support for the policies of the Sharon government. This appearance of unanimity does grave disservice to the heterogeneity of Jewish thought, and to the centuries-old Jewish traditions of lively dispute and rigorous, unapologetic skeptical inquiry. Wrestling with Zion brings together prominent poets, essayists, journalists, activists, academics, novelists, and playwrights, representing the diversity of opinion in the progressive Jewish-American community regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. All the participants share three things: a Jewish identity, an American identity, and a sense of urgency, refusing to ignore the catastrophic injustice that has been visited upon the Palestinian people, while at the same time being passionately committed to Jewish survival and American legacies of compassion and moral courage. The contributors — including Nathan Englander, Susan Sontag, Robert Pinsky, Daniel Wolfe, and many others — have considered certain essential questions: What is at the heart of the connection between Israel and American Jews? What is Israel's role in shaping Jewish-American identities? How has this role changed historically? And what is the history, both familiar and forgotten, of Zionism's political, cultural, and spiritual meaning?

From Shakespeare's gender-bending play Twelfth Night to the the critically-acclaimed Broadway hit Angels in America, from 17th century kabuki theater of Japan—performed by cross-dressing prostitutes—to the NEA-denounced performance art of Holly Hughes, theater has long been—as co-editor Alisa Solomon terms it—the queerest art.The Queerest Art is a pioneering collection of essays by and conversations among a diverse range of leading theater academics and artists. The first anthology to bring scholars and makers of queer theater into direct dialogue, the volume explores such subjects as same-sex desire in Restoration comedy, the racialized impact of colonial Shakespeare, the cuerpo politizado of a performance artist in contemporary Los Angeles, and the nitty-gritty of getting a queer show presented in Peoria. The Queerest Art rereads the history of performance as a celebration and critique of dissident sexualities, exploring the politics of pleasure and the pleasure of politics that drive the theater.Lively and accessible, The Queerest Art will be useful to scholars, students, artists, and theater-goers alike interested in what makes queer theater . . . and what makes theater queer.Contributors include: Jill Dolan, Brian Freeman, Randy Gener, George E. Haggerty, Holly Hughes, Ania Loomba, Tim Miller, José Esteban Muñoz, Deb Parks-Satterfield, Lola Pashalinski, Everett Quinton, David Román, David Savran, Laurence Senelick, Don Shewey, Carmelita Tropicana, Valerie Traub, Paula Vogel, Doric Wilson, and Stacy Wolf.

From Shakespeare's gender-bending play Twelfth Night to the the critically-acclaimed Broadway hit Angels in America, from 17th century kabuki theater of Japan—performed by cross-dressing prostitutes—to the NEA-denounced performance art of Holly Hughes, theater has long been—as co-editor Alisa Solomon terms it—the queerest art.The Queerest Art is a pioneering collection of essays by and conversations among a diverse range of leading theater academics and artists. The first anthology to bring scholars and makers of queer theater into direct dialogue, the volume explores such subjects as same-sex desire in Restoration comedy, the racialized impact of colonial Shakespeare, the cuerpo politizado of a performance artist in contemporary Los Angeles, and the nitty-gritty of getting a queer show presented in Peoria. The Queerest Art rereads the history of performance as a celebration and critique of dissident sexualities, exploring the politics of pleasure and the pleasure of politics that drive the theater.Lively and accessible, The Queerest Art will be useful to scholars, students, artists, and theater-goers alike interested in what makes queer theater . . . and what makes theater queer.Contributors include: Jill Dolan, Brian Freeman, Randy Gener, George E. Haggerty, Holly Hughes, Ania Loomba, Tim Miller, José Esteban Muñoz, Deb Parks-Satterfield, Lola Pashalinski, Everett Quinton, David Román, David Savran, Laurence Senelick, Don Shewey, Carmelita Tropicana, Valerie Traub, Paula Vogel, Doric Wilson, and Stacy Wolf.