African American Performance And Theatre History : A Critical Reader - 01 edition

Elam, Harry J. (Ed.) : Stanford University

Harry J. Elam, Jr. is Christensen Professor for the Humanities, Director of the Introduction to the Humanities, Director of Graduate Studies for Drama, and Director of the Committee on Black Performing Arts at Stanford University.

Krasner, David (Ed.) : Yale University

David Krasner is Director of Undergraduate Theater Studies at Yale University, where he teaches theater history, acting, and directing. His book,Resistance, Parody, and Double Consciousness in African-American Theatre 1895-1910, won the Errol Hill award from ASTR.

"An excellent collection of critical writings on issues of race, theater, and performance.... This volume offers compelling insights into producing and performing blackness on the American stage.... A vital reference work for anyone interested in cultural studies, American theater, and literature."

--Choice

Oxford University Press Web Site, January, 2002

The Device of Race: An Introduction, Harry J. Elam, Jr.

PART I: SOCIAL PROTEST AND THE POLITICS OF REPRESENTATION

1. Uncle Tom's Women, Judith Williams
2. Political Radicalism and Artistic Innovation in the Works of Lorraine Hansberry, Margaret B. Wilkerson
3. The Black Arts Movement: Performance, Neo-Orality, and the Destruction of the "White Thing", Mike Sell
4. Beyond a Liberal Audience, William Sonnega

PART II: CULTURAL TRADITIONS, CULTURAL MEMORY, AND PERFORMANCE

5. Deep Skin: Reconstructing Congo Square, Joseph R. Roach
6. "Calling on the Spirit": The Performativity of Black Women's Faith in the Baptist Church Spritual Traditions and Its Radical Possibilities for Resistance, Telia U. Anderson
7. The Chitlin Circuit, Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
8. Audience and Africanisms in August Wilson's Dramaturgy: A Case of Study, Sandra G. Shannon

PART III: INTERSECTIONS OF RACE AND GENDER

9. Black Minstrelsy and Double Inversion, Circa 1890, Annemarie Bean
10. Black Salome: Exoticism, Dance, and Racial Myths, David Krasner
11. Uh Tiny Land Mass Just Outside of My Vocabulary: Expression of Creative Nomadism and Contemporary African American Playwrights, Kimberly D. Dixon
12. Attending Walt Whitman High: The Lessons of Pomo Afro Homos' Dark Fruit, Jay Plum

PART IV: AFRICAN AMERICAN PERFORMATIVITY AND THE PERFORMANCE OF RACE

13. Acting Out Miscegenation, Diana R. Paulin
14. Birmingham's Federal Theater Project Negro Unit: The Administration of Race, Tina Redd
15. The Black Performer and the Performance of Blackness: The Escape, or, A Leap to Freedom by William Wells Brown and No Place To Be Somebody by Charles Gordone, Harry J. Elam, Jr.
16 The Costs of Re-Membering: What's at Stake in Gayl Jones's Corregidora. , Christina E. Sharpe

PART V: ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION WITH SENIOR SCHOLARS

17. African American Theater: The State of the Profession, Past, Present, and Future, Round-table discussion edited by Harry J. Elam, Jr. and David Krasner

Afterword: Change Is Coming, David Krasner
Selected Bibliography
Index