Tony Kushner

The playwrights covered in this study have among them won most of the available awards and experienced considerable success in the theater. They have not, however, found their way so easily into the academic canon. Christopher Bigsby examines, in some detail, the developing careers of some of America's most fascinating and original dramatic talent: John Guare, Tina Howe, Tony Kushner, Emily Mann, Richard Nelson, Marsha Norman, David Rabe, Paula Vogel, Wendy Wasserstein, and Lanford Wilson. In addition to the well-known works, Bigsby discusses some of their latest plays to reach the stage. This lively and accessible book will be of interest to students, scholars and general theatergoers alike.

The kidnaping and beating death of a gay University of Wyoming student; the dragging death of a black man in Jasper, Texas, by advocates of "white pride" -- these two isolated incidents of violent crime occurred in 1998, not 1898, and are painful reminders that bigotry and prejudice stubbornly remain well entrenched in American culture.

What, in today's seemingly enlightened society, compels a bigot? How do prejudice and hatred emerge, and sometimes lead to such horrific violence? What can be done to overcome this subversive social undercurrent?

Updated and augmented with new essays on crimes against religious groups, gay bashing, and current court cases, this is a concise and relevant collection of essays that pinpoints the definitions, origins, and outcomes of intolerance in America.

This unique and absorbing book looks at the ways in which images and memories of war have emerged and endured in the twentieth century. Through a number of studies by the leading experts in the field, ranging from the construction of memorials through to film and personal testimonies, the complex identities of war memories and their social, cultural and political significances are thoroughly discussed.War and Memory in the Twentieth Century explores differing ways in which memories of conflicts are constructed from a multitude of perspectives and representations, including:· the written and spoken word· cinematic and film images· photography· monuments and memorials· museums· rituals and public celebrationThe book also discusses how memories of war differ between nations and individuals, and between proximity and distance in time. Wide-ranging and original, individual essays cover topics such as Anne Frank, British war crimes, the Gulf War in British popular culture, German memory and identity, and popular film. This truly interdisciplinary and wide-ranging book will be of interest to the general reader as well as students and academics of history, war and society, political science, cultural studies and media studies.Contributors include:Tony Kushner, Southampton University; David Cesarani, Southampton University; Bernice Archer, Essex University; Jane Leonard, Queens University, Belfast; Lucy Noakes, Sussex University; Margaretta Joly, Sussex University; Catherine Moriarty, Sussex University; Bill Kidd, Stirling University; Sue Harper, Portsmouth University; Martin Shaw, Sussex University; Jeffrey Walsh, Manchester Metropolitan University; Barry Doyle, Durham University; Gerd Knischewski, Portsmouth University.

From the Beat poets' incarnation of the "white Negro" through Iron John and the Men's Movement to the paranoid masculinity of Timothy McVeigh, white men in this country have increasingly imagined themselves as victims. In Taking It Like a Man, David Savran explores the social and sexual tensions that have helped to produce this phenomenon. Beginning with the 1940s, when many white, middle-class men moved into a rule-bound, corporate culture, Savran sifts through literary, cinematic, and journalistic examples that construct the white man as victimized, feminized, internally divided, and self-destructive. Savran considers how this widely perceived loss of male power has played itself out on both psychoanalytical and political levels as he draws upon various concepts of masochism - the most counterintuitive of the so-called perversions and the one most insistently associated with femininity.

Theater has often served as a touchstone for critical moments of political change or national definition. Steve Wilmer selects key historical moments in American history to examine the theater's response. The selected events range from the Colonial fight for independence through Native American struggles, the Socialist Worker play and the Civil Rights Movement, to those of the last decade. Wilmer also considers audience reception and critical response.

In this new edition of the widely-acclaimed Modern American Drama Christopher Bigsby completes his survey of postwar theater and brings the reader up to 2000. While retaining the key elements of the first edition, including surveys of major figures such as Eugene O'Neill, Tennessee Williams, David Mamet, and Sam Shepard, Bigsby also explores recent works by established dramatists.

Combining his skills as both a professional reviewer of theatre and a literary critic, Robert J. Andreach finds himself in a unique position to provide coherence to what most observers perceive as an unrelated welter of contemporary theatrical experiences. Exploring the theatre from the 1960s to the present, he shows the various ways in which the contemporary American theatre creates a personal, theatrical, and national self.

Andreach argues that the contemporary American theatre creates multiple selves that reflect and give voice to the many communities within our multicultural society. These selves are fragmented and enclaved, however, which makes necessary a counter movement that seeks, through interaction among the various parts, to heal the divisions within, between, and among them.

In his examination of the contemporary theatre, Andreach demonstrates that the plays and the performance art of the feminist, African-American, Hispanic-American, Asian-American, and Native American theatres are equal to the works created within the dominant Eurocentric culture.

He then turns to comparable works created within the culture of what performance artist Karen Finley calls the "one male god", works that reflect the breakup of an old order. He discusses the experimental theatre, which turns to the imagination to reveal the nature of the self, and concludes with an examination of recent American works, pointing out in each either the presence or absence of resolution within the divisions of self.

With a few notable exceptions, gay artists of earlier generations felt compelled to avoid sexual candor in their writings. Conversely, most contemporary gay poets and playwrights are free from such constraints and have created a remarkable body of work. This reference is a guide to their creative achievements. Alphabetically arranged entries present 62 contemporary gay American poets and dramatists. A number of these writers are well known, including Edward Albee, Harvey Fierstein, and Allen Ginsberg. Others, such as Alan Bowne, Timothy Liu, and Robert O'Hara, merit wider recognition. Each entry is written by an expert contributor and includes a biography, a discussion of major works and themes, an overview of the author's critical reception, and primary and secondary bibliographies.