Signatures of the Past

Cultural Memory in Contemporary Anglophone North American Drama

314 Seiten, Taschenbuch

Kurzbeschreibung des Verlags

In the last decades of the twentieth century, North American drama has powerfully enacted the problematic notions of cultural memory and identity, as the essays assembled in this critical anthology demonstrate. Echoing Derrida’s non-essentialist interpretation of the term «signature», this collection provides an innovative focus on North American theatre and drama as a site of latent cultural memories. In this volume, the concept of cultural memory offers a privileged vantage point from which to redefine issues of diasporic identities, exilic predicaments, and multi-ethnic subject positions at the dawn of a new century. Playwrights examined here include noted Canadian and US artists such as Marie Clements, Eva Ensler, Lorraine Hansberry, Tomson Highway, Cherríe Moraga, Djanet Sears, Guillermo Verdecchia, August Wilson, and Chay Yew, to cite but a few. In the process of remembering, North American dramatists develop new aesthetic modes in which the signatures of the past merge with the present and foreshadow an imagined future.

• Reihe: Dramaturgies
• Themen: Biographie, Literatur und Literaturwissenschaft Geschichte und Kritik Literaturwissenschaft, allgemein 1900 bis 2000
• ISBN: 9789052014548
• Sprache: Englisch
• Erscheinungsdatum: 07.10.2008
• Größe: 21 x 14.8 cm
• Verlag: Peter Lang AG, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften
• Band herausgegeben von: Marc Maufort, Caroline De Wagter