Download or read book Understanding Contemporary American Drama written by William Herman and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Contemporary American Drama written by Annette Saddik and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2007-09-13 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the development of contemporary theatre in the United States in its historical, political and theoretical dimensions. It focuses on representative plays and performance texts that experiment with form and content, discussing influential playwrights and performance artists such as Tennessee Williams, Adrienne Kennedy, Sam Shepard, Tony Kushner, Charles Ludlum, Anna Deavere Smith, Karen Finley and Will Power, alongside avant-garde theatre groups. Saddik traces the development of contemporary drama since 1945, and discusses the cross-cultural impact of postwar British and European innovations on American theatre from the 1950s to the present day in order to examine the performance of American identity. She argues that contemporary American theatre is primarily a postmodern drama of inclusion and diversity that destabilizes the notion of fixed identity and questions the nature of reality.
Download or read book Contemporary American Drama written by Annette J. Saddik and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the development of contemporary theatre in the United States in its historical, political and theoretical dimensions.
Download or read book Understanding Contemporary American Drama written by William Herman and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Understanding Contemporary American Science Fiction written by Darren Harris-Fain and published by Univ of South Carolina Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Understanding Contemporary American Science Fiction: The Age of Maturity, 1970-2000 explores the major trends and developments during three decades that witnessed science fiction's most dramatic progression from subliterary escapist entertainment to a more sophisticated literature of ideas. Darren Harris-Fain suggests that to understand American science fiction fully, it is essential to realize that the current field with all its variety results from the proceeding decades of writings. In addition, he contends that although much science fiction of merit was written in America prior to 1970, the latter decades of the twentieth century witnessed a dramatic improvement in quality, even as the field fragmented into a variety of subgenres and as writers sought to transcend earlier critical dismissals. Harris-Fain discusses significant and representative works, most of which mainstream literary scholars and critics ignore, as he charts the historical and literary development of contemporary American science fiction. the internal divisions along both literary and political lines experienced during the Vietnam era; the influence of the feminist movement and other contemporary concerns; the increasing contributions of female, African American, and gay and lesbian writers; and the emergence of such significant trends as hard science fiction, cyberpunk, alternate history, and shared-world stories. Harris-Fain also considers literary science fiction's relationship to the mass media, the effects the popularity of fantasy has on the field, and academia's continued misprizing of the genre.
Download or read book Understanding Contemporary American Literary Theory written by Michael Paul Spikes and published by Univ of South Carolina Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this revised edition of Understanding Contemporary American Literary Theory, Michael P. Spikes adds Stanley Fish and Susan Bordo to the critics whose careers, key texts, and central assumptions he discusses in introducing readers to developments in American literary theory during the past thirty-five years. Underscoring the largely heterogeneous mix of strategies and suppositions that these critics, along with Paul de Man, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Edward W. Said, and Stephen Greenblatt, represent, Spikes offers concise analyses of their principal claims and illustrates how their works reflect a range of critical perspectives, from deconstruction, African American studies, and reader-response theory to political criticism, the new historicism, and feminism.
Download or read book Popular Culture Icons in Contemporary American Drama written by Konstantinos Blatanis and published by Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The discussion addresses the task of theater images in a cultural field where the real is mistaken for its reflection, originality constantly played against seriality, at a moment when simulacra, clones, and emulations of selves and texts become firmly established as the norm. The accommodation of pop icons on stage and the results this framing yields constitute this work's primary interests and aims."--Jacket.
Download or read book Essays on Contemporary American Drama written by Hedwig Bock and published by Munich : M. Hueber. This book was released on 1981 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Understanding Contemporary Irish Fiction and Drama written by Margaret Hallissy and published by Univ of South Carolina Press. This book was released on 2016-08-01 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of the key themes and events essential to understanding Irish fiction and drama In Understanding Contemporary Irish Fiction and Drama, Margaret Hallissy examines the work of a cross-section of important Irish writers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries who are representative of essential issues and themes in the canon of contemporary Irish literature. Included are early figures John Millington Synge and James Joyce; dramatists Brian Friel, Conor McPherson, and Tom Murphy; and prize-winning contemporary fiction writers such as Edna O'Brien, Joseph O'Connor, William Trevor, Roddy Doyle, and Colum McCann. Each chapter focuses on one significant representative piece of contemporary Irish fiction or drama by filling in its cultural, historical, and literary background. Hallissy identifies a key theme or key event in the Irish past essential to understanding the work. She then analyzes earlier literary compositions with the same theme and through a close reading of the contemporary work provides context for that background. The chapters are organized chronologically by relevant historical events, with thematic discussions interspersed. Background pieces were chosen for their places in Irish literature and the additional insight they provide into the featured works.
Download or read book Dramatic Structure in the Contemporary American Theatre written by Robert Andreach and published by SCB Distributors. This book was released on 2017-11-21 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this follow-up to his 2012 The Contemporary American Dramatic Trilogy, Robert J. Andreach continues his unique study of dramatic structure as evidenced through the overarching themes of contemporary American trilogies. The themes of the first play in a trilogy, he shows, can be far different from those developed as the sequence continues, citing examples from playwrights as varied as David Rabe and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Quiara Alegráa Hudes. Looking at the ways structure in a tragedy can be substituted for the Aristotelian plot, Andreach makes clear that because creating or reinventing oneself can be such a primary motivating force in American culture, a character's failed attempt to change the structure or plot of his or her life may indeed be tragic. The dramatic trilogy has been flourishing for some time now in new works and revivals of older ones by American, British, and European playwrights, with examples such as the Hunger Games trilogy and the Fifty Shades trilogy moving more recently even into the popular sphere. Combining his skills as both a professional reviewer of theater and a literary critic, Robert Andreach is in a unique position to provide coherence to what most observers perceive as an unrelated welter of contemporary theatrical experiences.
Download or read book Understanding David Mamet written by Brenda Murphy and published by Univ of South Carolina Press. This book was released on 2012-08-27 with total page 143 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Understanding David Mamet analyzes the broad range of David Mamet's plays and places them in the context of his career as a prolific writer of fiction and nonfiction prose as well as drama. Over the past three decades, Mamet has written more than thirty produced plays and garnered recognition as one of the most significant and influential American playwrights of the post-World War II generation. In addition to playwriting and directing for the theater, Mamet also writes, directs, and produces for film and television, and he writes essays, fiction, poetry, and even children's books. The author remains best known for depicting men in gritty, competitive work environments and for his vernacular dialogue (known in the theater as "Mametspeak"), which has raised the expletive to an art form. In this insightful survey of Mamet's body of work, Brenda Murphy explores the broad range of his writing for the theater and introduces readers to Mamet's major writing in other literary genres as well as some of his neglected pieces. Murphy centers her discussion around Mamet's most significant plays—Glengarry Glen Ross, Oleanna, American Buffalo, Speed-the-Plow, The Cryptogram, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, Edmond, The Woods, Lakeboat, Boston Marriage, and The Duck Variations—as well as his three novels—The Village, The Old Religion, and Wilson. Murphy also notes how Mamet's one-act and less known plays provide important context for the major plays and help to give a fuller sense of the scope of his art. A chapter on his numerous essays, including his most anthologized piece of writing, the autobiographical essay "The Rake," reflects Mamet's controversial and evolving ideas about the theater, film, politics, religion, and masculinity. Throughout her study Murphy incorporates references to Mamet's popular films as useful waypoints for contextualizing his literary works and understanding his continuing evolution as a writer for multiple mediums.
Download or read book Postmodern Theatric k s written by Deborah R. Geis and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Assesses monologue's postmodern disruptions of linear narrative and character development.
Download or read book Masterpieces of 20th Century American Drama written by Susan C. W. Abbotson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2005-09-30 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American playwrights have made enormous contributions to world drama during the last century, and their works are widely read and performed. This reference conveniently introduces 10 of the most important modern American plays read by students. An introductory essay concisely overviews modern American drama, and each of the chapters that follow examines a particular play. Among the plays discussed are Thornton Wilder's Our Town, Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, and August Wilson's The Piano Lesson. Each chapter includes a biography, a plot summary, an analysis of the play's themes, characters, and dramatic art, and a review of its historical background and reception. Chapters list works for further reading, and the volume closes with a selected, general bibliography.
Download or read book Creating the Self in the Contemporary American Theatre written by Robert J. Andreach and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Understanding Contemporary Chicana Literature written by Deborah L. Madsen and published by Univ of South Carolina Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploring the work of six notable authors, this text reveals characteristic themes, images and stylistic devices that make contemporary Chicana writing a vibrant and innovative part of a burgeoning Latina creativity.
Download or read book American Drama written by and published by Ingram. This book was released on 2003 with total page 1157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Understanding Philip K Dick written by Eric Carl Link and published by Univ of South Carolina Press. This book was released on 2022-11-03 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A guide to the fantastic world of a science fiction legend Author of more than forty novels and myriad short stories over a three-decade literary career, Philip K. Dick (1928–1982) single-handedly reshaped twentieth-century science fiction. His influence has only increased since his death with the release of numerous feature films and television series based on his work, including Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly, and The Man in the High Castle. In Understanding Philip K. Dick, Eric Carl Link introduces readers to the life, career, and work of this groundbreaking, prolific, and immeasurably influential force in American literature, media culture, and contemporary science fiction. Dick was at times a postmodernist, a mainstream writer, a pulp fiction writer, and often all three simultaneously, but as Link illustrates, he was more than anything else a novelist of ideas. From this vantage point, Link surveys Dick's tragicomic biography, his craft and career, and the recurrent ideas and themes that give shape and significance to his fiction. Link finds across Dick's writing career an intellectual curiosity that transformed his science fiction novels from bizarre pulp extravaganzas into philosophically challenging explorations of the nature of reality, and it is this depth of vision that continues to garner new audiences and fresh approaches to Dick's genre-defining tales.
