Aristotle and Black Drama

Aristotle and Black Drama PDF Author: Professor of Classics Patrice D Rankine
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781602584532
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Civil disobedience has a tattered history in the American story. Described by Martin Luther King Jr. as both moral reflection and political act, the performance of civil disobedience in the face of unjust laws is also, Patrice Rankine argues, a deeply artistic practice. Modern parallels to King's civil disobedience can be found in black theater, where the black body challenges the normative assumptions of classical texts and modes of creation. This is a theater of civil disobedience. Utilizing Aristotle's Poetics, Rankine ably invokes the six aspects of Aristotelian drama--character, story, thought, spectacle, song, and diction. He demonstrates the re-appropriation and rejection of these themes by black playwrights August Wilson, Adrienne Kennedy, and Eugene O'Neill. Aristotle and Black Drama frames the theater of civil disobedience to challenge the hostility that still exists between theater and black identity.

Aristotle and Black Drama

Aristotle and Black Drama PDF Author: Professor of Classics Patrice D Rankine
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781602584532
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
Civil disobedience has a tattered history in the American story. Described by Martin Luther King Jr. as both moral reflection and political act, the performance of civil disobedience in the face of unjust laws is also, Patrice Rankine argues, a deeply artistic practice. Modern parallels to King's civil disobedience can be found in black theater, where the black body challenges the normative assumptions of classical texts and modes of creation. This is a theater of civil disobedience. Utilizing Aristotle's Poetics, Rankine ably invokes the six aspects of Aristotelian drama--character, story, thought, spectacle, song, and diction. He demonstrates the re-appropriation and rejection of these themes by black playwrights August Wilson, Adrienne Kennedy, and Eugene O'Neill. Aristotle and Black Drama frames the theater of civil disobedience to challenge the hostility that still exists between theater and black identity.

Aristotle and Black Drama

Aristotle and Black Drama PDF Author: Patrice D. Rankine
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781602584525
Category : African American aesthetics
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Civil disobedience has a tattered history in the American story. Described by Martin Luther King Jr. as both moral reflection and political act, the performance of civil disobedience in the face of unjust laws is also, Patrice Rankine argues, a deeply artistic practice. Modern parallels to King's civil disobedience can be found in black theater, where the black body challenges the normative assumptions of classical texts and modes of creation. This is a theater of civil disobedience. Utilizing Aristotle's Poetics, Rankine ably invokes the six aspects of Aristotelian drama--character, story, thought, spectacle, song, and diction. He demonstrates the re-appropriation and rejection of these themes by black playwrights August Wilson, Adrienne Kennedy, and Eugene O'Neill. Aristotle and Black Drama frames the theater of civil disobedience to challenge the hostility that still exists between theater and black identity.

Classicisms in the Black Atlantic

Classicisms in the Black Atlantic PDF Author: Ian Moyer
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192543865
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
The historical and cultural space of the Black Atlantic - a diasporic world of forced and voluntary migrations - has long provided fertile ground for the construction and reconstruction of new forms of classicism. From the aftermath of slavery up to the present day, black authors, intellectuals, and artists in the Atlantic world have shaped and reshaped the cultural legacies of classical antiquity in a rich variety of ways in order to represent their identities and experiences and reflect on modern conceptions of race, nation, and identity. The studies presented in this volume range across the Anglophone, Francophone, and Hispanophone worlds, including literary studies of authors such as Derek Walcott, Marlene NourbeSe Philip, and Junot Díaz, biographical and historical studies, and explorations of race and classicism in the visual arts. They offer reflections on the place of classicism in contemporary conflicts and debates over race and racism, and on the intersections between classicism, race, gender, and social status, demonstrating how the legacies of ancient Greece and Rome have been used to buttress racial hierarchies, but also to challenge racism and Eurocentric reconstructions of antiquity.

The Oxford Handbook of Greek Drama in the Americas

The Oxford Handbook of Greek Drama in the Americas PDF Author: Kathryn Bosher
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191637335
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1047

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Book Description
The Oxford Handbook of Greek Drama in the Americas is the first edited collection to discuss the performance of Greek drama across the continents and archipelagos of the Americas from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the present. The study and interpretation of the classics have never been restricted by geographical or linguistic boundaries but, in the case of the Americas, long colonial histories have often imposed such boundaries arbitrarily. This volume tracks networks across continents and oceans and uncovers the ways in which the shared histories and practices in the performance arts in the Americas have routinely defied national boundaries. With contributions from classicists, Latin American specialists, theatre and performance theorists, and historians, the Handbook also includes interviews with key writers, including Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott, Charles Mee, and Anne Carson, and leading theatre directors such as Peter Sellars, Carey Perloff, H?ctor Daniel-Levy, and Heron Coelho. This richly illustrated volume seeks to define the complex contours of the reception of Greek drama in the Americas, and to articulate how these different engagements - at local, national, or trans-continental levels, as well as across borders - have been distinct both from each other, and from those of Europe and Asia.

Theater and Crisis

Theater and Crisis PDF Author: Patrice D Rankine
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 1643150596
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
Demonstrates how myth, literature, and theater are part of and respond to public or political events

Black Mirror and Philosophy

Black Mirror and Philosophy PDF Author: David Kyle Johnson
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119578264
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 403

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Book Description
A philosophical look at the twisted, high-tech near-future of the sci-fi anthology series Black Mirror, offering a glimpse of the darkest reflections of the human condition in digital technology Black Mirror―the Emmy-winning Netflix series that holds up a dark, digital mirror of speculative technologies to modern society—shows us a high-tech world where it is all too easy to fall victim to ever-evolving forms of social control.In Black Mirror and Philosophy, original essays written by a diverse group of scholars invite you to peer into the void and explore the philosophical, ethical, and existential dimensions of Charlie Brooker’s sinister stories. The collection reflects Black Mirror’s anthology structure by pairing a chapter with every episode in the show’s five seasons—including an interactive, choose-your-own-adventure analysis of Bandersnatch—and concludes with general essays that explore the series’ broader themes. Chapters address questions about artificial intelligence, virtual reality, surveillance, privacy, love, death, criminal behavior, and politics, including: Have we given social media too much power over our lives? Could heaven really, one day, be a place on Earth? Should criminal justice and punishment be crowdsourced? What rights should a “cookie” have? Immersive, engaging, and experimental, Black Mirror and Philosophy navigates the intellectual landscape of Brooker’s morality plays for the modern world, where humanity’s greatest innovations and darkest instincts collide.

Epic Performances from the Middle Ages into the Twenty-First Century

Epic Performances from the Middle Ages into the Twenty-First Century PDF Author: Fiona Macintosh
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192526243
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 666

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Book Description
Greek and Roman epic poetry has always provided creative artists in the modern world with a rich storehouse of themes. Tim Supple and Simon Reade's 1999 stage adaptation of Ted Hughes' Tales from Ovid for the RSC heralded a new lease of life for receptions of the genre, and it now routinely provides raw material for the performance repertoire of both major cultural institutions and emergent, experimental theatre companies. This volume represents the first systematic attempt to chart the afterlife of epic in modern performance traditions, with chapters covering not only a significant chronological span, but also ranging widely across both place and genre, analysing lyric, film, dance, and opera from Europe to Asia and the Americas. What emerges most clearly is how anxieties about the ability to write epic in the early modern world, together with the ancient precedent of Greek tragedy's reworking of epic material, explain its migration to the theatre. This move, though, was not without problems, as epic encountered the barriers imposed by neo-classicists, who sought to restrict serious theatre to a narrowly defined reality that precluded its broad sweeps across time and place. In many instances in recent years, the fact that the Homeric epics were composed orally has rendered reinvention not only legitimate, but also deeply appropriate, opening up a range of forms and traditions within which epic themes and structures may be explored. Drawing on the expertise of specialists from the fields of classical studies, English and comparative literature, modern languages, music, dance, and theatre and performance studies, as well as from practitioners within the creative industries, the volume is able to offer an unprecedented modern and dynamic study of 'epic' content and form across myriad diverse performance arenas.

The Trouble with Post-Blackness

The Trouble with Post-Blackness PDF Author: Houston A. Baker Jr.
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231538502
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
An America in which the color of one's skin no longer matters would be unprecedented. With the election of President Barack Obama in 2008, that future suddenly seemed possible. Obama's rise reflects a nation of fluid populations and fortunes, a society in which a biracial individual could be embraced as a leader by all. Yet complicating this vision are shifting demographics, rapid redefinitions of race, and the instant invention of brands, trends, and identities that determine how we think about ourselves and the place of others. This collection of original essays confronts the premise, advanced by black intellectuals, that the Obama administration marked the start of a "post-racial" era in the United States. While the "transcendent" and post-racial black elite declare victory over America's longstanding codes of racial exclusion and racist violence, their evidence relies largely on their own salaries and celebrity. These essays strike at the certainty of those who insist that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are now independent of skin color and race in America. They argue, signify, and testify that "post-blackness" is a problematic mythology masquerading as fact—a dangerous new "race science" motivated by black transcendentalist individualism. Through rigorous analysis, these essays expose the idea of a post-racial nation as a pleasurable entitlement for a black elite, enabling them to reject the ethics and urgency of improving the well-being of the black majority.

Diversifying Greek Tragedy on the Contemporary US Stage

Diversifying Greek Tragedy on the Contemporary US Stage PDF Author: Melinda Powers
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191083135
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 247

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Book Description
In its long history of performance and reception, Greek drama has been interpreted and adapted in countless ways and forms in response to and as a reflection of the preoccupations and tensions of particular historical moments. This volume continues this tradition by investigating a cross-section of theatrical productions on the contemporary American stage that have reimagined Greek tragedy in order to address the political and social concerns of minority communities. Studying performance and its role in creating and reflecting social, cultural, and historical identity in contemporary America, it draws on cutting-edge research in the field to move discussion away from the interpretation of dramatic texts in isolation from their performance context, and towards an analysis of the dynamic experience of live theatre. The discussion focuses particularly on the ability of engaged performances to pose critical challenges to the long-standing stereotypes that have contributed to the misrepresentation and marginalization of minority cultures. However, in the process it also uncovers the ways in which such performances can inadvertently reinforce the very stereotypes they aim to execute, demonstrating that ancient drama can be a powerful and dangerous tool in the search for social justice.

African American Performance and Theater History

African American Performance and Theater History PDF Author: Harry J. Elam
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198029284
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 382

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Book Description
African American Performance and Theater History is an anthology of critical writings that explores the intersections of race, theater, and performance in America. Assembled by two esteemed scholars in black theater, Harry J. Elam, Jr. and David Krasner, and composed of essays from acknowledged authorities in the field, this anthology is organized into four sections representative of the ways black theater, drama, and performance interact and enact continual social, cultural, and political dialogues. Ranging from a discussion of dramatic performances of Uncle Tom's Cabin to the Black Art Movement of the 1960s and early 1970s, articles gathered in the first section, "Social Protest and the Politics of Representation," discuss the ways in which African American theater and performance have operated as social weapons and tools of protest. The second section of the volume, "Cultural Traditions, Cultural Memory and Performance," features, among other essays, Joseph Roach's chronicle of the slave performances at Congo Square in New Orleans and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s critique of August Wilson's cultural polemics. "Intersections of Race and Gender," the third section, includes analyses of the intersections of race and gender on the minstrel stage, the plight of black female choreographers at the inception of Modern Dance, and contemporary representations of black homosexuality by PomoAfro Homo. Using theories of performance and performativity, articles in the fourth section, "African American Performativity and the Performance of Race," probe into the ways blackness and racial identity have been constructed in and through performance. The final section is a round-table assessment of the past and present state of African American Theater and Performance Studies by some of the leading senior scholars in the field--James V. Hatch, Sandra L. Richards, and Margaret B. Wilkerson. Revealing the dynamic relationship between race and theater, this volume illustrates how the social and historical contexts of production critically affect theatrical performances of blackness and their meanings and, at the same time, how African American cultural, social, and political struggles have been profoundly affected by theatrical representations and performances. This one-volume collection is sure to become an important reference for those studying black theater and an engrossing survey for all readers of African American literature.