Jane Braaten – författare

This book provides an understanding of the content and aims of Habermas's critical theory of society - the theory that analyzes the causes of our cultural lack of direction, polical apathy, and the increasing complexity of modern society. The author offers a foothold on the current debates regarding the credibility and cogency of the theory. Braaten presents Habermas's defense of his critique of reason in his most recent work concerning the confrontation between postmodernists and neoconservatives, and modernists and liberal theorists. She also explores the possibility of applying Habermas's critical resources in the United States in ways that he himself may not have considered.

The playwright grew up working in a bowling alley. She cooked, she waitressed and she became an avid bowler. In high school, she won a state tournament, all events, scratch. As ad adult, she joined the 600 Club during league bowling and won money back at statewide tournaments. Her last average was 172. But, she also did theater. This is her first attempt at script writing.

There was a lonely time when lovers were rampant. I mean rampant. It was like, there was this race to compete, to conquer and to find someone to marry? Really marry again. And then, just like that, none of the quest mattered. For those who I did conquer, or they conquered me, for a while, it was never intended, ever to create spoiled love affairs. There was a peaked loneliness, I imagine, that faded, like our night stars and our night lovers. Poof!

Four fucking degrees, I mean it. I worked my ass off to prove what? That I should? That I would? that I could? And then, how to use those degrees in an ever-changing, violently demeaning educational worl. Hellcation it was. None of these words are lies.

Family Haunts. Worth remembering. Remembering worth. Born to an educator and a carpenter with three sisters and three brothers, I never stopped working hard, laughing the most and questioning how survival happened. Families share ghosts. Ghosts share families.

As a famous cosmetics counter technician, miracle worker and side gigger, this playwright also attended an Advanced Creative Writing class at a research university so she could keep her teaching certficate. The professor asked her genre speciality and the playwright responded, I do plays and I write poetry. Thus began a journey to bring some cosmetics into the theater. Since this was written (Spring 2004), Broadway has seen a war paint or two. But, this is an original with the soundtrack still in the skull of the playwright.

Because the traumatic shadows created such haunting darkness in my early universes, my inner energy had to find a route that would allow me to shine, to create, to survive. Neighborhood kids would play dress up in the summertime. We had old clothes over at the neighbor's when her grandkids visited. We would sing and dance and play act like we were queens, not princesses. But those idyllic days of summer in elementary school would change as the family moved from small town, to smaller town, to a town with a seedy gas pump and a malnourished slough. With four moves in four years, my older brother lettered in four high schools but couldn't afford a letter jacket; but I,  I kept reading and singing and play acting.  I also babysat my little brothers and cooked and cleaned and did laundry for a family of 9. The choirs and the bands took me in. I never felt talented. I felt included. That was the most precious gift of my early universes.