Download or read book The Dramatic Genius of Charles Fuller An African American Playwright written by Molefi Kete Asante and published by . This book was released on 2015-01-16 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: BOOK OVERVIEW Charles Fuller is a pre-eminent American dramatist. The Dramatic Genius of Charles Fuller is an accessible and appropriate introduction to the mind of Fuller for those who know his work and those who do not. For an author who did not set out to be a Pulitzer Prize winner but rather one who would use every dimension of his multifaceted life to dramatize the narratives of African American people he has succeeded in being an influential voice in the dramatic arena. Few critics have examined Fuller seriously and in some ways his work, like that of other black writers, has fallen outside the gaze of contemporary literary and dramatic writers even though he has received some of the highest awards in the nation. Part of this is because few African American dramatists have been looked at critically or studied in classrooms or spoken of in terms of their philosophy, style, originality, and brilliance. This book brings a critical reading and sympathetic location of Fuller's drama in the center of African American dramatic and social history Anyone who teaches drama or who performs or produces African American drama should use this book as a supplemental reading for theater and literary classes at the undergraduate level. Serious scholars of the philosophy of African American drama can use the book at the graduate level. In Theater, English or African American Studies the book is sure to be used in the classes on African American Drama or Theater, Black Writers, and The History of American Drama. Charles H. Fuller, Jr., was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on March 5, l939. He was educated at Roman Catholic High School and Villanova University. In l959 he joined the United States Army and served in Japan and Korea. When he completed his service in the army he went to LaSalle University in l965-1967 where he received a DFA. During l967 he co-founded the Afro-American Arts Theatre in Philadelphia. In the late l960s he teamed with Larry Neal as Philadelphia's dynamic duo in the arts. No one was more intellectually involved with the early thinking and writing of Larry Neal than Charles Fuller. Their interactive relationship from the time that stole away as teenagers to hear Ralph Ellison to the death of Neal was the foundation for much of what Fuller developed as his thesis about human beings. Although he found many of his characters on Broad Street in Philadelphia he was already a mature revolutionary thinker when he moved to New York, Los Angeles, and Toronto. Fuller's travels, including his major tour of the Soviet Union, must be seen as a part of his aesthetic, ethical, social, and literary influences. In the strictest sense of the word Charles Fuller is an intellectual, not merely someone who writes, but someone who reflects on the entire process of bringing into existence new ideas. Thinking outside of the box could have been invented by him because his parents taught him that things are not always as they seem. He knew this from his early childhood and became involved in the drama of ordinary lives from listening to the provocative conversations that took place in his house when he was still a young man. This book is an attempt to understand how this prize-winning writer articulates what he sees in human nature.

Download or read book The America That I Didn t Know Existed written by Francis Kwarteng and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2020-09-09 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The American Dream is a popular concept. It is a celebrated mantra. But does it really exist? Even if it does, is it for everyone? The American experiment tells a different story. Examples abound of many for whom the American Dream is an empty rhetoric. Although America prides itself on liberal ideas of equity, social justice and equality for all, harnessing the potential benefits of the American Dream is far from true for many hardworking, educated Americans. Inasmuch as the American Dream may exist for some, white privilege, employment and educational discrimination, racism...may stand in the way of achieving one's fullest potential. This is compounded by the Eurocentric content of the American curriculum which denies equal representation to non-white Americans in the marketplace of ideas, reinforcing their sociopolitical and epistemic marginalization. "In a remarkably wide ranging and moving book Francis Kwarteng has provided us with one of the most honest and earnest assessments of what immigrants find in the United States. The book The America That I Didn't Know Existed reminds me of the complex reasons people are attracted to the American society and the disappointment that they find when they sometimes discover that what one reads about America is not truly the best way to know America. Kwarteng has lived, studied, and learned in America and he counts these experiences as blessings as anyone would who has seen possibilities. However, this determined intellectual has shown us a path forward with acceptance and humanity. This riveting book has the making of an incredibly powerful drama as well." Molefi Kete Asante, author of Erasing Racism: The Survival of the American Nation "Francis Kwarteng's book recounts his personal journey to America by reliving the challenges and struggles he had to overcome to realize that the dream he once imagined was only a mirage. The author provides the rationale behind his decision to come to America and the subsequent disillusion with the gap between his aspirations and realities on American soil. Framed within the intellectual lens of Afrocentricity, Kwarteng exposes and critiques the prevailing dominance of Eurocentric constructs that systemically dehumanizes, and perforce disempowers, persons of African descent. The result of this is a readable, empowering page-turning memoir that will resonate with every African immigrant." Kwame Akonor is Associate Professor of Political Science at Seton Hall University (USA), founding director of the New York-based African Development Institute, and author of African Economic Institutions.

Download or read book Branches of Asanteism written by Abdul Karim Bangura and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-10-03 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Branches of Asanteism explores the epistemologies and research methodologies that have sprung from Mwalimu Molefi Kete Asante’s treatises on Afrocentricity. The book identifies and analyzes thirteen such epistemologies and methodologies while defining and explicating the various “branches” of Asante’s idea of Afrocentricity.

Download or read book Transcendence and the Africana Literary Enterprise written by Christel N. Temple and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2017-11-22 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Africana literary critic and cultural theory scholar, Christel N. Temple, whose groundbreaking books, Literary Pan-Africanism: History, Contexts, and Criticism (2005) and Literary Spaces: Introduction to Comparative Black Literature (2007),have been some of the most influential models of contemporary Africana Studies-based literary criticism, responds to the demand for a core disciplinary source that comprehensively defines and models literary praxis from the vantage point of Africana Studies. This highly anticipated seminal study finally institutionalizes the discipline’s literary enterprise. Framing the concept of transcendence, she covers over a dozen traditional African American works in an original and thought-provoking analysis that places canonical approaches in enlightened discourse with Africana studies reader-response priorities. This study makes traditional literature come alive in conversation with topics of masculinity, womanism, Black Lives Matter, humor, Pan-Africanism, transnationalism, worldview, the subject place of Africa, cultural mythology, hero dynamics, Black psychology, demographics, history, Black liberation theology, eulogy, cultural memory, Afro-futurism, the Kemetic principle of Maat, social justice, rap and hip hop, Diaspora, and performance.Scholars now have a focused Africana Studies text—for both introductory and advanced literature courses—to capture the power of the African American literary canon while modeling the most dynamic practical applications of humanities-to-social science practices.

Download or read book Black Acting Methods written by Sharrell Luckett and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2016-10-04 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Black Acting Methods seeks to offer alternatives to the Euro-American performance styles that many actors find themselves working with. A wealth of contributions from directors, scholars and actor trainers address afrocentric processes and aesthetics, and interviews with key figures in Black American theatre illuminate their methods. This ground-breaking collection is an essential resource for teachers, students, actors and directors seeking to reclaim, reaffirm or even redefine the role and contributions of Black culture in theatre arts. Chapter 7 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Download or read book No Place to Be Somebody written by Charles Gordone and published by Broadway Play Publishing. This book was released on 2018-06-20 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NO PLACE TO BE SOMEBODY received the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Charles Gordone's Pulitzer signified two "firsts" he was the first African American playwright to receive a Pulitzer, and NO PLACE TO BE SOMEBODY was the first off-Broadway play to receive the award. "Charles Gordone's NO PLACE TO BE SOMEBODY...seemed to grow in theatrically, raw energy, power and stature.... The denizens of Johnny's bar, like those of Harry Hope's saloon in THE ICEMAN COMETH, are waiting for a fulfillment of their dreams, which are illusions, and in some cases delusions.... ...Its humor is full of bile. On one level this was an extraordinarily funny play and it now seems even funnier in the most malicious way.... ...NO PLACE TO BE SOMEBODY is a drama of great force and commitment, one that must be seen--wherever it is playing. If nothing else--and there is much else--Gordone has a marvelous talent for dialogue, for bitter epithets and insults; for confrontations (each one a striking set piece); for small details that reveal character...and for creating whole and vivid characters." Mel Gussow, The New York Times

Download or read book The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature written by William L. Andrews and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2001-02-15 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A breathtaking achievement, this Concise Companion is a suitable crown to the astonishing production in African American literature and criticism that has swept over American literary studies in the last two decades. It offers an enormous range of writers-from Sojourner Truth to Frederick Douglass, from Zora Neale Hurston to Ralph Ellison, and from Toni Morrison to August Wilson. It contains entries on major works (including synopses of novels), such as Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Richard Wright's Native Son, and Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun. It also incorporates information on literary characters such as Bigger Thomas, Coffin Ed Johnson, Kunta Kinte, Sula Peace, as well as on character types such as Aunt Jemima, Brer Rabbit, John Henry, Stackolee, and the trickster. Icons of black culture are addressed, including vivid details about the lives of Muhammad Ali, John Coltrane, Marcus Garvey, Jackie Robinson, John Brown, and Harriet Tubman. Here, too, are general articles on poetry, fiction, and drama; on autobiography, slave narratives, Sunday School literature, and oratory; as well as on a wide spectrum of related topics. Compact yet thorough, this handy volume gathers works from a vast array of sources--from the black periodical press to women's clubs--making it one of the most substantial guides available on the growing, exciting world of African American literature.

Download or read book The Precarious Center Or When Will the African Narrative Hold written by Molefi Kete Asante and published by Academic. This book was released on 2021-03-06 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Molefi Kete Asante, one of the major Afrocentric thinkers, argues in this book that the African narrative based on African cultural values could underpin a new academic paradigm, which is brutally necessary. The problem is the degree to which Africans have become enamored through Greek, English, French, German, Spanish, and Portuguese with Westernity to the detriment of African ideas and ideals. Only in the re-centering of the African World in its own narrative subjectivity can true freedom of thought, innovation, and liberation exist as a way to enhance human knowledge. The Pan European Academy with all of its structural capital amassed over the centuries and enshrined in the educational systems of Africans has continued to dominate the theoretical base of African inquiries. The Precarious Center, or When will the African Narrative Hold, is a response to the dangers of a rampant racist ideology. It advances an African value quest in the discourse of humanity.

Download or read book The Lever of Riches written by Joel Mokyr and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1992-04-09 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a world of supercomputers, genetic engineering, and fiber optics, technological creativity is ever more the key to economic success. But why are some nations more creative than others, and why do some highly innovative societies--such as ancient China, or Britain in the industrial revolution--pass into stagnation? Beginning with a fascinating, concise history of technological progress, Mokyr sets the background for his analysis by tracing the major inventions and innovations that have transformed society since ancient Greece and Rome. What emerges from this survey is often surprising: the classical world, for instance, was largely barren of new technology, the relatively backward society of medieval Europe bristled with inventions, and the period between the Reformation and the Industrial Revolution was one of slow and unspectacular progress in technology, despite the tumultuous developments associated with the Voyages of Discovery and the Scientific Revolution. What were the causes of technological creativity? Mokyr distinguishes between the relationship of inventors and their physical environment--which determined their willingness to challenge nature--and the social environment, which determined the openness to new ideas. He discusses a long list of such factors, showing how they interact to help or hinder a nation's creativity, and then illustrates them by a number of detailed comparative studies, examining the differences between Europe and China, between classical antiquity and medieval Europe, and between Britain and the rest of Europe during the industrial revolution. He examines such aspects as the role of the state (the Chinese gave up a millennium-wide lead in shipping to the Europeans, for example, when an Emperor banned large ocean-going vessels), the impact of science, as well as religion, politics, and even nutrition. He questions the importance of such commonly-cited factors as the spill-over benefits of war, the abundance of natural resources, life expectancy, and labor costs. Today, an ever greater number of industrial economies are competing in the global market, locked in a struggle that revolves around technological ingenuity. The Lever of Riches, with its keen analysis derived from a sweeping survey of creativity throughout history, offers telling insights into the question of how Western economies can maintain, and developing nations can unlock, their creative potential.

Download or read book Historical Dictionary of African American Theater written by Anthony D. Hill and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-11-09 with total page 755 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This second edition of Historical Dictionary of African American Theater reflects the rich history and representation of the black aesthetic and the significance of African American theater’s history, fleeting present, and promise to the future. It celebrates nearly 200 years of black theater in the United States and the thousands of black theater artists across the country—identifying representative black theaters, playwrights, plays, actors, directors, and designers and chronicling their contributions to the field from the birth of black theater in 1816 to the present. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of African American Theater, Second Edition contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 700 cross-referenced entries on actors, playwrights, plays, musicals, theatres, -directors, and designers. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know and more about African American Theater.

Download or read book African American Culture written by Omari L. Dyson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2020-07-23 with total page 1141 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covering everything from sports to art, religion, music, and entrepreneurship, this book documents the vast array of African American cultural expressions and discusses their impact on the culture of the United States. According to the latest census data, less than 13 percent of the U.S. population identifies as African American; African Americans are still very much a minority group. Yet African American cultural expression and strong influences from African American culture are common across mainstream American culture—in music, the arts, and entertainment; in education and religion; in sports; and in politics and business. African American Culture: An Encyclopedia of People, Traditions, and Customs covers virtually every aspect of African American cultural expression, addressing subject matter that ranges from how African culture was preserved during slavery hundreds of years ago to the richness and complexity of African American culture in the post-Obama era. The most comprehensive reference work on African American culture to date, the multivolume set covers such topics as black contributions to literature and the arts, music and entertainment, religion, and professional sports. It also provides coverage of less-commonly addressed subjects, such as African American fashion practices and beauty culture, the development of jazz music across different eras, and African American business.

Download or read book Willis Richardson Forgotten Pioneer of African American Drama written by Christine R. Gray and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 1999-12-30 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the 1920s and 1930s, Willis Richardson (1889-1977) was highly respected as a leading African-American playwright and drama anthologist. His plays were performed by numerous black high school, college, and university drama groups and by theater companies in Chicago, New York, Washington D.C., Cleveland, Baltimore, and Atlanta. With the opening of The Chip Woman's Fortune (1923), he became the first African American to have a play produced on Broadway. Several of his 46 plays were published in assorted magazines, and in his essays, he urged black Americans to seek their dramatic material in their own lives and circumstances. In addition, he edited three anthologies of plays by African-Americans. But between 1940 and his death in 1977, Richardson came to realize that his plays were period pieces and that they no longer reflected the problems and situations of African-Americans. In the years before his death, he attempted vigorously yet unsuccessfully to preserve several of his plays through publication, if not production. But the man who has been called the father of African-American drama and who was considered the hope and promise of African-American drama died in obscurity. Richardson has even been neglected by the scholarly community. This critical biography, the first extensive consideration of his life and work, firmly reestablishes his pioneering role in American theater. The book begins with a detailed chronology, followed by a thoughtful biographical essay. The volume then examines the nature of African-American drama in the 1920s, the period during which Richardson was most productive, and it analyzes his approach to drama as a means of educating African-American audiences. It then explores the African-American community as the central theme in Richardson's plays, for Richardson typically looks at the consequences of refusals by blacks to help one another. The work additionally considers Richardson's history plays, his anthologies, his dramas intended for black children, and his essays. A concluding chapter summarizes his lasting influence; the book closes with a listing of his plays and an extensive bibliography.

Download or read book Early Black American Playwrights and Dramatic Writers written by Bernard L. Peterson Jr. and published by Greenwood. This book was released on 1990 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Peterson has done a great service to students of African-American theater. . . . Peterson's scholarship is impressive; the book's format is inviting . . . an indispensable reference book for academic libraries. Choice This reference volume addresses an often overlooked area in the history of the American theatre, the contributions of early black playwrights and dramatic writers. At a time when they were denied full participation in many aspects of American life, including the mainstream of the theatre itself, black artists were compiling an impressive record of achievement on the American stage. This book, the most comprehensive on the subject, provides a complete look at these achievements by offering biographical information and a catalog of works for approximately 200 writers, including playwrights, librettists, screenwriters, and radio scriptwriters. From the emergence of black playwrights in the time prior to the Civil War, to the early days of film and radio in this century, the efforts of early black writers are fully documented in this work. The book begins with an author's preface and is followed by an introductory essay that discusses the development of black American playwrights from the antebellum period to World War II. The heart of the book, the biographical directory, is organized alphabetically, with each entry providing highlights of the author's life and career; collected anthologies that include any works; and an annotated chronological list of individual dramatic works, including genre, length, synopses, production history, prizes and awards, and script sources. Three appendixes offer information on other playwrights and their works, additional librettists and descriptions of their shows, and a chronology of dramatic works by genre. A bibliography cites such information sources as reference books and critical studies, dissertations, play anthologies, and newspapers and periodicals frequently consulted, as well as significant libraries and repositories. The book concludes with title and general indexes and an index to early black theatre organizations. This work will be an important reference source for courses in black American drama and theatre history, and a valuable addition to both public and academic libraries.

Download or read book Contemporary African American Theater written by Nilgun Anadolu-Okur and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-01-11 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Black Arts Movement was sparked by the Civil Rights movement and the urge to produce and revitalize functional, realistic, and holistic symbols to express African American creativity. When Larry Neal began his quest for a new dramatic form to epitomize African American self-determination he laid the foundation upon which his friends and compatriots-Amiri Baraka and Charles Fuller-would build. Expressing their individual protests through their writings, these artists soon united in their attack against Eurocentrism, which traditionally minimized or neglected the roles played by Africans and African Americans on the world stage. Their writings signaled a radical change in the form and content of African American writing, particularly drama. In this insightful examination of African American cultural history, the author explores the heart of the dramatic imagination of African Americans during the turbulent years of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements. The analysis of the works of these three important dramatists reveals the roots of an Afrocentric approach to the theater, and introduces a new methodology for exploring Afrocentrism that is particularly suited to classes in African American drama and literature.ࠁ

Download or read book Margaret Fuller written by Megan Marshall and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2013 with total page 501 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The award-winning author of The Peabody Sisters takes a fresh look at the trailblazing life of a great American heroine Thoreau s first editor, Emerson s close friend, the first female war correspondent, and a passionate advocate of personal liberation and political freedom. "Megan Marshall's brilliant Margaret Fuller brings us as close as we are ever likely to get to this astonishing creature. She rushes out at us from her nineteenth century, always several steps ahead, inspiring, heartbreaking, magnificent." Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, author of Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity "Megan Marshall gives new meaning to close reading from words on a page she conjures a fantastically rich inner life, a meld of body, mind, and soul. Drawing on the letters and diaries of Margaret Fuller and her circle, she has brought us a brave, visionary, sensual, tough-minded intellectual, a first woman who was unique yet stood for all women. A masterful achievement by a great American writer and scholar. Evan Thomas, author of Ike s Bluff: President Eisenhower s Secret Battle to Save the World "Megan Marshall s Margaret Fuller: A New American Life is the best single volume ever written on Fuller. Carefully researched and beautifully composed, the book brings Fuller back to life in all her intellectual vivacity and emotional intensity. Marshall s Fuller overwhelms the reader, just as Fuller herself overwhelmed everyone she met. A masterpiece of empathetic biography, this is the book Fuller herself would have wanted. You will not be able to put it down." Robert D. Richardson, author of Emerson: The Mind on Fire Praise for The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism A stunning work of biography and intellectual history. Deftly weaving material from the letters and journals of all three sisters, Ms. Marshall . . . performs the intellectual equivalent of a triple axel. William Grimes, New York Times This beautifully written book is at once an intimate portrait of three remarkable sisters and a study of women s place in the vibrant intellectual and literary culture of nineteenth-century New England. The product of twenty years of research, Megan Marshall s tour de force is impossible to put down. Drew Gilpin Faust, author of The Republic of Suffering "

Download or read book Three Plays written by August Wilson and published by Pittsburgh, Pa. : University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 1991 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contains three plays about twentieth century African-American lives.

Download or read book Africana Studies written by Delores P. Aldridge and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Twenty-seven essays previously published in the Western Journal of Black Studies challenge assumptions, misconceptions, and negative stereotypes within academic fields, and portray the strength, resilience, and diversity of African and African American peoples.