Dramatic Literature, Criticism and Theory Commons^™

Review Of Barbara K. Seeber, Jane Austen And Animals, Lucinda Cole

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

In this review of Barbara K. Seeber's Jane Austen and Animals (Ashgate, 2013) Lucinda Cole summarizes this foundational book and emphasizes the role of animal studies scholars in linking feminism and environmental issues.

Review Of Helen E.M. Brooks, Actresses, Gender, And The Eighteenth-Century Stage: Playing Women, Leslie Ritchie

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

No abstract provided.

The Puzzling Origin Of The Acquaintance Between Charlotte Lennox And Thomas Birch, Patricia L. Hamilton

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

Scholars have puzzled over the origin of the relationship between Charlotte Lennox and Thomas Birch. That the two shared a cordial professional relationship in 1759 is not surprising, but it is unclear how and when Birch obtained the poem "The Dream, an ode by Miss Ramsey of 15" (ca. 1744-45) for his manuscript collection. Possibly Edward Cave, publisher of The Gentleman’s Magazine, or other professional associates such as Samuel Johnson or Samuel Richardson supplied it. But archival evidence indicates that Lady Isabella Finch, Lennox’s earliest patroness, was in contact with Birch in 1749, raising the question of whether she …

Mansfield Park Comes To Life: Teaching And Staging Elizabeth Inchbald’S Lovers’ Vows In An Austen Course, Misty Krueger

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

This essay discusses how I incorporated readers theatre into a senior seminar on Jane Austen and her contemporaries. The article recounts how my students read Elizabeth Inchbald’s 1798 drama, Lovers’ Vows, and Austen’s 1814 novel, Mansfield Park, and then were inspired at the end of the seminar to take part in a readers theatre production of the play. In order to set up this pedagogical example, the essay addresses the theatrical episode of Mansfield Park, the controversies surrounding Lovers’ Vows, and the ways in which I edited the play and prepared students to create a “little …

Notes On How To Rework A Ph.D. Dissertation For Publication As A Book, Steven Tötösy De Zepetnek

CLCWeb Library

No abstract provided.

Living By The Code: Authority In Gerard Stembridge's The Gay Detective, Kathleen A. Heininge

Faculty Publications - Department of English

Irish drama has few representations of police officers as anything but a trope for authority, tending to avoid any substantive character development. Likewise, it has few representations of homosexual characters, and when such representations do exist they are often caricatures. Reductive portrayals of police often arise from the complex relationship the Irish have with authority and with the legal system. But one of the few exceptions to this trend, and the only play to tackle the representation of a police officer and a homosexual at once, is Gerard Stembridge’s play The Gay Detective (1996). The play offers up the character …

They Said, She Said: Making The Case For Rape In Fuenteovejuna, Stacey L. Parker Aronson

Spanish Publications

Despite the allegations of a number of literary critics to the contrary, textual and cultural evidence exists in Lope’s Fuenteovejuna to suggest that Laurencia was indeed raped. First, a consideration of her physical appearance is in order. Second, an overlooked comment by Jacinta evidences Laurencia’s rape. Third, the quality attributed to Laurencia, namely her virtue, should be understood within its socio-historical context during the early modern period, its understanding superseding an exclusively sexual meaning. Finally, this drama can be considered in light of its adherence to and subversion of what Wendy S. Hesford terms “rape scripts.”

Shakespeare In The Nineteenth Century; Shakespeare, Time And The Victorians: A Pictorial Exploration, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner

Faculty Publications

Daniel Pollack-Pelzner reviews Shakespeare in the Nineteenth Century (edited by Gail Marshall) and Shakespeare, Time and the Victorians: A Pictorial Exploration (by Stuart Sillars) for Victorian Studies.

Hamlet Reinvents Himself, William Walsh

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

We see the early modern as an open carry society. Hamlet’s success in the swordplay at the end is usually seen as his triumph, fulfilling his father’s injunction at last. The 2013 RSC production of Hamlet projected ambiguity, which I share. The most intriguing angle was Hamlet’s costume. Jonathon Slinger very quickly donned half of a fencing jacket; but the straps of the jacket dangled, strongly suggesting a straight jacket. Half mad, half resolute, Hamlet is driven through much of the play until, I will argue, he reinvents himself as a mad version of divine providence. The providential idea is …

Of The Beast, Leila Teitelman

Theater Honors Papers

No abstract provided.

“Frailty, Thy Name Is Woman”: Depictions Of Female Madness, Julianna Little

Theses and Dissertations

Concepts of mental health and normality cannot be understood apart from cultural norms and values. The most significant of cultural constructions that shape our view of madness is gender. Madness has been perceived for centuries metaphorically and symbolically as a feminine illness and continues to be gendered into the twenty-first century. Works of art and literature and psychiatric medicine influence each other as well as our understanding and perception of mental illness. Throughout history, images of mental illness in women send the message that women are weak, dangerous, and require containment. What are the cultural links between femininity and insanity, …

Redefining Irishness: Fragmentation Or Intercultural Exchange, Rania M Rafik Khalil

English Language and Literature

The traditional definition of Irishness has been overwritten by internationalization, cultural and political discourses. Globalisation today sets the ground for the redefinition of a “new Ireland” altering the ethnocultural base to the definitions of Irish national identity. Recent cultural criticism on modern Irish studies have described the Irish nation as undergoing moments of crisis and instability within a global context. This paper explores and analyzes the process by which literary dramatic works dealing with Irish national distinctiveness have been put subject to being written and re-written as the Irish nation passes through periods of instabilities and problematisations. Ireland has been …

The Story Of Us: College As A Modern Rite Of Passage For Emerging Adults, Tamara Ulana Bodnar

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

The movement from adolescence to adulthood has often been identified by certain rites of passage across cultures. These rites are ceremonious, ritualistic events such as a bar/bat mitzvah, marriage, and graduation, They indicate a transition from one stage of life to another and sometimes contain difficult obstacles and challenges that assist in the maturation process. College provides contemporary American students with a modern rite of passage; it is a time of transition between youth and the "real world" of adulthood. At its core, the purpose of going to college is to become educated, so that by the time one leaves, …

A 'Paradox Of Expression': Bertolt Brecht's Verfremdungseffekt In Performance, Cohen L. Ambrose Mr.

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

"Nayles Large And Lang": Masculine Identity And The Anachronic Object In The York Crucifixion Play, Daisy Black

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

The Curse Of The V: Contemporary Feminist Movements And Performative Dichotomies In The Plays Of Caryl Churchill, Meredith A. Connelly

Honors Program Theses

Caryl Churchill mixes historical setting with shallowly defined characters and dissociative references to the contemporary within her vast body of work. She seeks to deny her audience the opportunity to blindly accept the entertainment of narrative theater, forcing them instead into a realm of discomfort where they must identify the unsavory elements of history with their own lived experience. This research began with the questioning of previous critical models which examine characters as autonomous beings rather than as personified themes, and asks how Churchill responds radically with theater as a medium to events pervading her own experience as a woman …

Hamlet #Princeofdenmark: Exploring Gender And Technology Through A Contemporary Feminist Re-Interpretation Of Hamlet, Allegra B. Breedlove

Scripps Senior Theses

Exploring the process of designing, producing, directing and starring in a multimedia feminist re-interpretation of Shakespeare's Hamlet set in a contemporary social media landscape.

Interdisciplinary Connections Between Science & Theatre, Jessica N. Dotson

Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

INTERDISCIPLINARY CONNECTIONS BETWEEN SCIENCE & THEATRE

Jessica Nicole Dotson

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Virginia Commonwealth University, 2015.

Major Director: Dr. Noreen C. Barnes, Director of Graduate Studies, Associate Professor of Theatre

In the 1990s, astronomer Peter Usher was searching for new ways to teach his introductory astronomy class at Pennsylvania State University. He began to engage his students by searching for astronomical connections from other disciplines. His focus was turned to the arts, especially the works of William Shakespeare. Usher found, while …

The Absurd Reality Of Satire In Neil Labute's 'Fat Pig', Hermione Gehle

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This research project examines the misreading of satire in some productions of Neil LaBute’s play, Fat Pig. This practice led project aims to investigate why such misinterpretations occur and explore the theatrical styles that emphasise the satire in the text via rehearsal processes and production.

There will be three preliminary paths undertaken in this research heading toward a new production of Fat Pig; an exploration of the responses of audiences and critics to past productions; an analysis of the background to Neil LeBute and his work; and an examination of theatrical expressions of satire, experimental theatre, contemporary theatre, …

Robot Saints, Christopher B. Swift

Publications and Research

In the Middle Ages, articulating religious figures like wooden Deposition crucifixes and ambulatory saints were tools for devotion, techno-mythological objects that distilled the wonders of engineering and holiness. Robots are gestures toward immortality, created in the face of the undeniable fact and experience of the ongoing decay of our fleshy bodies. Both like and unlike human beings, robots and androids occupy a nebulous perceptual realm between life and death, animation and inanimation. Masahiro Mori called this in-between space the “uncanny valley.” In this essay I argue that unlike a modern person apprehending an android (the uncanny human-like object that resides …