Marc Maufort Livres

Recherche littéraire / Literary Research has for mission to inform comparative literature scholars worldwide of recent contributions to the field. Recherche littéraire / Literary Research vise à faire connaître aux comparatistes du monde entier les développements récents de la discipline.

The emergence of contemporary Australian and English-Canadian multicultural drama undoubtedly constitutes a fascinating development in the history of international literatures written in English. These postcolonial plays offer ideal vantage points from which to observe the struggle of two comparable Commonwealth countries to accommodate the pluralism of their social fabric. As the prominent theatre scholars of this collection cogently argue, the articulation of otherness forms a central concern in the drama of these two countries. The postcolonial playwrights studied in this book interpret marginality as an expression of resistance against the legacy of Empire, often through the weapon of subversive mimicry. The organising spatial metaphor of the book suggests new readings of the «other» as an evolving site of contestation. This volume articulates a new form of comparative poetics, in which dramatic texts are used as reflecting mirrors, as privileged tools to explore the similarity and otherness that Australia and Canada share.

This volume seeks to determine how contemporary American playwrights and theatre practitioners translate the current debate on cultural pluralism in the United States. While offering re-visions of the Melting Pot, they often challenge its idealistic assumptions, thus inscribing in their work the cultural difference of minorities. Up to now, scholars have studied isolated aspects of this phenomenon. Staging Difference tries to offer a more comprehensive vision, examining the influence of multiculturalism both on performance and dramatic literature.

Taking its cue from Eugene O'Neill's questioning of «faithful realism», voiced by Edmund Tyrone in Long Day's Journey into Night, this book examines the distant legacy of the Irish American playwright in contemporary multiethnic drama in the U.S. It explores the labyrinth of formal devices through which African American, Latina/o, First Nations, and Asian American dramatists have unconsciously reinterpreted O'Neill's questioning of mimesis. In their works, hybridizations of stage realism function as aesthetic celebrations of the spiritual potentialities of cultural in-betweenness. This volume provides detailed analyses of over forty plays authored by such key artists as August Wilson, Suzan-Lori Parks, José Rivera, Cherríe Moraga, Hanay Geiogamah, Diane Glancy, David Henry Hwang, and Chay Yew, to give only a few prominent examples. All in all, Labyrinth of Hybridities invites its readers to reassess the cross-cultural patterns characterizing the history of twentieth century American drama.

Over the last three decades of the twentieth century, theatre and drama in Aotearoa/New Zealand have experienced remarkable growth. This groundbreaking anthology of essays and interviews attempts to document the diversity of these multiple dramatic voices and performative dimensions, as they reflect the evolving New Zealand identity in an age of transition moving towards twentyfirst century globalization. This comprehensive volume comprises a wide range of chapters focusing on key figures in the development of New Zealand theatre and drama, such as, among others, Robert Lord, Ken Duncum, Gary Henderson, Stephen Sinclair, Hone Kouka, Briar-Grace Smith, Jacob Rajan, Lynda Chanwai-Earle, Nathaniel Lees, and Victor Rodger. It is hoped that this volume will shed light on a hitherto neglected field of the canon of English-language drama. By extension, the issues discussed in this anthology will provide new vistas from which to study the postcolonial condition in the wider context of the contemporary Commonwealth.

The fast-growing body of postcolonial drama is progressively gaining its just recognition in the twentieth-century canon of English-language plays. From the vantage point of various samplings along the Trans-Pacific axis linking English Canada, Australia and New Zealand, this monograph seeks to document the significance of this emerging postcolonial theater. More specifically, it examines the myriad ways in which, over the last two decades, representative mainstream, ethnic and First Nations playwrights have dramatized Europe’s «Other» in its multiple guises. In their efforts to match new content with innovative form, these artists have followed transgressive itineraries, redrawing the boundaries of conventional Western stage realism. Their new aesthetics often relies on techniques akin to Homi Bhabha’s notions of hybridity and mimicry. The present study offers detailed analyses of the modes of hybridization through which Judith Thompson, Louis Nowra, Tomson Highway, Jack Davis, Hone Kouka, and other prominent writers have articulated subtle forms of psychic, grotesque, and mythic magic realism. Their legacy will undoubtedly affect the postcolonial dramaturgies of the twenty-first century.

The dawn of a new millennium offers an opportunity to reappraise the achievements of contemporary English-language theatre and drama in an increasingly cross-cultural age. New multicultural voices are gaining access to the international English stage, which today more than ever is becoming a crucible of cultures. The many challenging essays gathered in this volume reflect this developing mosaic. Written by prominent theatre scholars from Europe, the United States, Canada, Asia, and Australia, these contributions explore recent drama not only in the United Kingdom and the United States, but also in such countries of the former British Empire as Canada, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. Focusing on major Anglophone dramatists of the past few decades, these essays provide a fascinating survey of the myriad ways in which English-language drama in transition transcends traditional aesthetic and cultural boundaries.