Performing Dream Homes: Theater and the Spatial Politics of the Domestic Sphere

by Emily Klein (Editor), Jennifer-Scott Mobley (Editor), Jill Stevenson (Editor)

New
Hardcover
2019
$126.87

This anthology explores how theatre and performance use home as the prism through which we reconcile shifts in national, cultural, and personal identity. Whether examining parlor dramas and kitchen sink realism, site-specific theatre, travelling tent shows, domestic labor, border performances, fences, or front yards, these essays demonstrate how dreams of home are enmeshed with notions of neighborhood, community, politics, and memory. Recognizing the family home as a symbolic space that extends far beyond its walls, the nine contributors to this collection study diverse English-language performances from the US, Ireland, and Canada. These scholars of theatre history, dramaturgy, performance, cultural studies, feminist and gender studies, and critical race studies also consider the value of home at a time increasingly defined by crises of homelessness - a moment when major cities face affordable housing shortages, when debates about homeland and citizenship have dominated international elections, and when conflicts and natural disasters have displaced millions. Global struggles over immigration, sanctuary, refugee status and migrant labor make the stakes of home and homelessness ever more urgent and visible, as this timely collection reveals.

Synopsis

This anthology explores how theatre and performance use home as the prism through which we reconcile shifts in national, cultural, and personal identity. Whether examining parlor dramas and kitchen sink realism, site-specific theatre, travelling tent shows, domestic labor, border performances, fences, or front yards, these essays demonstrate how dreams of home are enmeshed with notions of neighborhood, community, politics, and memory. Recognizing the family home as a symbolic space that extends far beyond its walls, the nine contributors to this collection study diverse English-language performances from the US, Ireland, and Canada. These scholars of theatre history, dramaturgy, performance, cultural studies, feminist and gender studies, and critical race studies also consider the value of home at a time increasingly defined by crises of homelessness - a moment when major cities face affordable housing shortages, when debates about homeland and citizenship have dominated international elections, and when conflicts and natural disasters have displaced millions. Global struggles over immigration, sanctuary, refugee status and migrant labor make the stakes of home and homelessness ever more urgent and visible, as this timely collection reveals.

$126.87

Quantity

20+ in stock

More Information

Format: Hardcover
Pages: 254
Edition: 1st ed. 2019
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Published: 05 Feb 2019
ISBN 10: 3030015807
ISBN 13: 9783030015800

Author Bio

Emily Klein is Associate Professor of English at Saint Mary's College of California, USA. Her book, Sex and War on the American Stage: Lysistrata in Performance 1930-2012 (2014) was featured in The New York Times, Ms. and Vice. Her work has also appeared in Frontiers, Women and Performance, and Theatre Journal.
Jennifer-Scott Mobley is Assistant Professor of Theatre at East Carolina University, USA. She is the author of Female Bodies on the American Stage: Enter Fat Actress (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) and co-editor of Lesbian & Queer Plays from the Jane Chambers Prize (2018).
Jill Stevenson is Professor of Theatre Arts at Marymount Manhattan College, USA. She is the author of Sensational Devotion: Evangelical Performance in 21st-Century America (2013/2015) and Performance, Cognitive Theory, and Devotional Culture: Sensual Piety in Late Medieval York (Palgrave, 2010).