Signatures of the Past
Cultural Memory in Contemporary Anglophone North American Drama
©2008
Conference proceedings
314 Pages
Series:
Dramaturgies, Volume 24
Summary
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.
Details
- Pages
- 314
- Publication Year
- 2008
- ISBN (Softcover)
- 9789052014548
- Language
- English
- Keywords
- Crises d'identité en Amérique du Nor USA Drama Kollektives Gedächtnis (Motiv) Kulturelle Identität (Motiv) Aufsatzsammlung Dramaturgie canadienne en anglais Théâtre aux États-Unis Mémoire culturelle Dramaturgie nord-américaine contemporaine
- Published
- Bruxelles, Bern, Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, New York, Oxford, Wien, 2008. 314 pp.
- Product Safety
- Peter Lang Group AG
