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COURSE CODE: AN33006BA04
SPRING SEMESTER 2014
Course Designation: BA Genre Studies in American Literature
Title: POSTMODERNISM in RECENT AMERICAN DRAMA and THEATRE
Time & Place: 10. 00 – 11. 40, Thursday, Rm 119, Mbl
Office Hours: Wed 13.00 - 14.00,
Thu 12.00 - 13.00 Rm 118, Mbl
Instructor: Dr. Lenke Németh
nemeth.lenke@arts.unideb.hu
Tel.: 512-900/22069
Course Description
This course is designed to study how American drama has responded to the irreversible
cultural changes and challenges of the “postmodern condition” in the last three decades
of the twentieth century. Through a representative sample of plays from the closing
decades of the twentieth century we will explore the extent to which postmodern thought
has generated significant transformations both in the theme and form of American drama
and will also attempt to establish the distinctive aesthetic and stylistic features that
collectively coalesce to identify postmodern American drama.
The works selected for study are illustrative of the thematic diversity (Otherness,
construction of ethnic, racial, and gender identity, sexual harassment) as well as the
formal innovations (blending various genres and styles, split character, fragmentation of
time and space) in postmodern drama. Screening excerpts from film adaptations of now
“classic” postmodern plays will allow us to compare and study the unique postmodern
vision in drama and film. The authors selected for the course include African American
women dramatists Adrienne Kennedy and Suzan-Lori Parks, Asian American David
Henry Hwang, Chicana Cherri Moraga, Chicano Luis Valdez, and white canonical
dramatists David Mamet and Sam Shepard.
Instructional Method
The course will be organized in a seminar format where most of the class time will be
devoted to the discussion of the assigned dramatic works. To facilitate active
participation in discussions you are expected to come prepared to the sessions, and raise
two questions pertaining to the plays.
Requirements and evaluation criteria
Attendance and participation.
Oral Presentation: a 5-minute presentation of a scholarly study related to the play on the
agenda.
Writing Assignments
[1] Midterm paper: an in-class paper that assesses your familiarity with the material
covered in the first half of the course.
[2] Essay: a 7-page analytical paper that studies one of the texts (or several) the seminar
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covers.
Format: typed in Times New Roman, 12 pt, 2,5 cm margins, double spaced, full and
correct citation, alphabetical bibliography (consult MLA), fastened, student’s name on
each page.
 Due no later than 1.00 p. m. May 5th.
 No extensions will be granted on written work, except in cases of documented
misadventure or illness.
Evaluation Criteria
Presentation: 20%
Participation: 20%
Mid-term paper: 30%
Out-of-class paper: 30%
COURSE SCHEDULE
(1) Feb 20
Orientation
(2) Feb 27
Adrienne Kennedy, A Movie Star Has to Star in Black and White (1976)
(3) March 6
Luiz Valdez, I Don’t Have to Show You No Stinking Badges! (1986)
(4) March 13 Cherrie Moraga, Giving Up the Ghost (1994)
(5) March 20 CONSULTATION WEEK
(6) March 27 David Mamet, Sexual Perversity in Chicago (1974); excerpts from the
movie version About Last Night . . . (1986, Dir. Edward Zwick)
(7) April 3
Midterm Test
(8) April 10
David Henry Hwang, M. Butterfly (1988); excerpts from the movie
version M. Butterfly (1993, Dir. David Cronenberg)
(9) Apr 17
David Mamet, Oleanna (1992); excerpts form the movie version Oleanna
(1994, Dir. David Mamet)
(10) Apr 24
Sam Shepard, True West (1980)
(11) May 1
HOLIDAY
ESSAYS DUE MAY 5th
(12) May 8
Closing
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Required Readings:
All the plays on the agenda as well as the scholarly studies recommended for
presentations are available either in print or electronically in the Institute library.
SUGGESTED SECONDARY SOURCES1
Bigsby, C. W. E. A Critical Introduction to Twentieth-Century American Drama:
Beyond Broadway. 3 vols. New York: Cambridge UP, 1985. *
---. Modern American Drama, 1945-1990. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1994.*
---. Contemporary American Playwrights. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999.*
---, ed. The Cambridge Companion to David Mamet. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2004.
Bottoms, Stephen J. The Theatre of Sam Shepard. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998.
Brater, Enoch and Ruby Cohn, eds. Around the Absurd: Essays on Modern and
Postmodern Drama. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1990.
Brater, Enoch, ed. The Theatrical Gamut: Notes for a Post-Beckettian Stage. Ann Arbor:
The UP of Michigan Press, 1995.
Bryant-Jackson, Paul K. and Lois More Overbeck, eds. Intersecting Boundaries: The
Theatre of Adrienne Kennedy. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota, 1992. *
Chénetier, Marc, ed. Critical Angles: European Views of Contemporary American
Literature. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1986.
Cohn, Ruby. Anglo-American Interplay in Recent Drama. Cambridge: Cambridge UP,
1995.
---. “Phrasal Energies: Harold Pinter and David Mamet.” Cohn 58-93.
Fuchs, Elinor. The Death of Character: Perspectives on Theater after Modernism.
Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1996.
Garner, Stanton. B. Jr. Phenomelogy and Performance in Contemporary Drama. Ithaca:
Cornell UP, 1994.
Geis, Deborah R. Postmodern Theatric(k)s: Monologue in Contemporary American
Drama. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1993. *
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The sources marked with asterisks are placed on the not to be borrowed shelf in the institute library.
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Hall, Ann C. “A Kind of Alaska”: Women in the Plays of O’Neill, Pinter and Shepard.
Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1993.*
Hanlon, John, J. “`Niggers Got a Right to be Dissatisfied’: Postmodernism, Race, and
Class in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” Modern Drama 45:1 (2002) 95-124.
Harris, Trudier, ed, Jennifer Larson assistant ed. Reading Contemporary American
Drama: Fragments of History, Fragments of Self. New York: Peter Lang: 2007.
Herman, William. Understanding Contemporary American Drama. Columbia: U of
South Carolina, 1987.
Huerta, Jorge. Chicano Drama: Performance, Society and Myth. Cambridge: Cambridge
UP, 2000. *
Jenckes, Norma. New Readings in American Drama: Something’s Happening Here. New
York: Peter Lang, 2002.
Joki, Ilkka. Mamet, Bakhtin, and the Dramatic: The Demotic as a Variable of
Addressivity. Abo: Abo Akademi UP, 1993.
Kamm, Jürgen, ed. Twentieth-Century Theatre and Drama in English. Trier:
Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 1999
Schmidt, Kerstin. The Theater in Transformation: Postmodernism in American Drama.
Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2005.
Knowles, Ric, Joanne Tompkins, and W. B. Worthen. Modern Drama: Defining the
Field. Toronto: U of Toronto, 2003.
Mamet, David. Three Uses of the Knife: On the Nature and Purpose of Drama. New
York: Vintage, 2000.
McDonough, Carla J. Staging Masculinity: Male Identity in Contemporary American
Drama. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1997.*
McDonough, Carla. “Dueling Identities. Tooth of Crime and True West.” 42-50.
---. “Every Fear Hides a Wish: Unstable Masculinity in Mamet’s Drama.” Theatre
Journal 44.2 (1992): 195-205.
Macleod, Christine. “The Politics of Gender, Language and Hierarchy in Mamet’s
Oleanna.” Journal of American Studies 29.2 (1995): 199-213.
Murphy, Brenda, ed. The Cambridge Companion To American Women Playwrights.
Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999.
Németh, Lenke. ““All It Is, It’s a Carnival”: Reading David Mamet’s Women Characters
with Bakthin. Debrecen: Kossuth Egyetemi Kiadó, 2007.
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Ozieblo, Barbara and Maria Dolores Narbona-Carrion, eds. Codifying the National Self:
Spectators , Actors and the American Dramatic Text. Brussels: Peter Lang, 2006.
Pavis, Patrice. Theatre at the Crossroads of Culture. Trans. Loran Kruger. London:
Routledge, 1992.
Savran, David. In heir Own Words: Contemporary American Playwrights. New York:
Theatre Communication Group, 1988.
---. “Interview with Luiz Valdez.” Worthen 606-613.
Schlueter, June, ed. Modern American Drama: The Female Canon. Rutherford: Fairleigh
Dickinson UP, 1990.*
Schmidt, Kerstin. The Theater of Transformation: Postmodernism in American Drama.
Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2005. *
Shange, Ntozake. “-Foreword, unrecovered Losses/Black Traditions-“ Worthen. 863-66.
Showalter, Elaine. “Acts of Violence. David Mamet and the Language of Men.” Rev. of
Glengarrry Glen Ross, by David Mamet. Odeon Haymarket, London. Rev. of
Oleanna, by David Mamet. Orpheum Theatre, New. Orpheum Theatre, New
York. Times Literary Supplement 6 Nov. 1992: 16-17.
Splawn, Jane P. “”Change the Joke[r] and slip the Yoke”: Boal’s `Joker’ system in
Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls … and spell #7. Modern Drama 41.3 (1998)
386-98.
Varró, Gabriella. Signifying in Blackface: The Pursuit of Minstrel Signs in American
Literature. Debrecen: Kossuth Egyetemi K., 2008.
Virágos, Zsolt and Varró Gabriella. Jim Crow örökösei: mítosz és sztereotípia az
amerikai társadalmi tudatban és kultúrában. Budapest: Eötvös József K., 2002.
Vorlicky, Robert. Act Like a Man: Challenging Masculinities in American Drama. Ann
Arbor: The U of Michigan P, 1995.*
Wade, Leslie A. Sam Shepard and the American Theatre. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood
P, 1997.
Watt, Stephen. Postmodern/Drama. Ann Arbor: The U of Michigan P, 1998.*
Wattenberg, Richard. “From `Horse Opera’ History to Hall of Mirrors: Luis Valdez’s
Bandido! Modern Drama 41.3 (1998) 411-423.
Wisenthal, Jonathan, Sherril Grace, Melinda Boyd, Brian McILroy, and Vera Micznik,
eds. A Vision of the Orient: Texts, Intertexts, and Contexts of Madame Butterfly.
Toronto: U of Toronto, 2006.
Worthen, W. B. Modern Drama: Plays/Criticism/Theory. Forth Worth: Harcourt Brace,
1995.*
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Worthen, W. B. "Staging America: The Subject of History in Chicano/a Theatre."
Theatre Journal 49.2 (May 1997): 101-20.
Yarbro-Bejarano, Yvonne. The Wounded Heart: Writing on Cherri Moraga. Austin: U of
Texas P, 2001. *
Texts Recommended for Presentations
Postmodernism and the Theater
Geis, Deborah. “Moving in the Present Tense: Monologue and the Discourses of
Postmodernism in the American Experimental Theater.” 29-44.
Fuchs, Elinor. “Postmodernism and the Scene of Theater.” 144-57.
Schmidt, Kerstin. “The Postmodern Sense of Self.” 44-52.
---. “Theorizing Dramatic Form: Aspects of Transformation in Postmodern Drama.” (3343)
Pavis, Patrice. “The Classical Heritage of Modern Drama: The Case of Postmodern
Theater.” 48-71.
Worthen, W.B. “The Postmodern Era.”
Hwang
Remen, Kathryn. “The Theater of Punishment: David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly and
Michael Foucalt’s Discipline and Punish.” Modern Drama 37. 3 (1994): 391-400.
Shin, Andrew. “Projected Bodies in David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly and Golden
Gate.” Melus (The Journal of the Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic
Literature of the United States) 27.1 (2002 Spring):177-99. JSTOR
Deeney, John J. “Of Monkeys and Butterflies: Transformation in M.H. Kingston’s
Tripmaster Monkey and D. H. Hwang’s M. Butterfly.” Melus 18.4 (1993): 21-41.
JSTOR
Irmscher, Christoph. “’The Absolute Power of a Man’? Staging Masculinity in Giacomo
Puccini and David Henry Hwang.” American Studies Quarterly 42. 4 (1998): 61929.
Saal, Ilka. “Performance and Perception: Gender, Sexuality, and Culture in David Henry
Hwang’s M. Butterfly.” American Studies 42.4 (1998): 629- 45.
McInturff, Kate. “That Old Familiar Song: The Theatre of Culture in David Henry
Hwang’s M. Butterfly.” Wisenthal et. All 72-91.
Lauretis, de Teresa, “Popular Culture, Public and Private Fantasies: Femininity and
Fetishism in
David Croneneberg’s ‘M. Butterfly.’” Signs 24.2 (1999): 303-334.
Testa, Bart. “Late Mutations of Cinema’s Butterfly.” Wisenthal et all. 91-123.
Kennedy
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Betsko, Kathleen and Rachel Koenig, “Interview with Adrienne Kennedy.” W. B..
Worthen 568-574.
Brown, E. Barnsley. The Clash of Verbal and Visual (Con)Texts: Adrienne Kennedy’s
(Re)Construction of Racial Polarities in An Evening with Dead Essex and A Movie
Star Has to Star in Black and White. Kimball King, ed. Hollywood on Stage:
Playwrights Evaluate the Culture Industry. New York: Garland, 1997.
Case, Sue-Ellen. “From Split Subject to Split Britches.” Worthen 1106-1117.
Meigs, E. Susan. “No Place But the Funnyhouse: The Struggle for Identity in Three
Adrienne Kennedy Plays.” Schlueter 172-84.
Sollors, Werner. “People Who Led to My Plays: Adrienne Kennedy’s Autobiography.”
Bryant – Overbeck 13-21.
Curb, Rosemary. “(Hetero)Sexual Terrors in Adrienne Kennedy’s Early Plays.” Bryant –
Overbeck 142-57.
Mamet
McDonough. “Every Fear Hides a Wish: Unstable Masculinity in Mamet’s Drama.”
Theatre Journal 44.2 (1992): 195-205.
Oleanna
Goggans, Thomas H. “Laying Blame: Gender and Subtext in David Mamet’s Oleanna.”
Modern Drama 40.4 (1997): 433-41.
Murphy, Brenda. “Oleanna: Language and Power.” Bigsby, Companion, 124-38.
Porter, Thomas E. “Postmodernism and Violence in Mamet’s Oleanna.” Modern Drama
43:1 (2000) 13-31.
Ryan, Steven. “Oleanna: David Mamet’s Power Play.” Modern Drama 39.3 (1996):
392-403.
Sauer, David Kennedy. “Oleanna and The Children’s Hour: Misreading Sexuality on the
Post/Modern Realistic Stage.” Modern Drama 43.3. (2000) 421-441.
Showalter, Elaine. “Acts of Violence. David Mamet and the Language of Men.” Rev. of
Glengarrry Glen Ross, by David Mamet. Odeon Haymarket, London. Rev. of
Oleanna, by David Mamet. Orpheum Theatre, New. Orpheum Theatre, New
York. Times Literary Supplement 6 Nov. 1992: 16-17.
Moraga
Huerta, “Cherri Moraga’s Transgressive Queers.” 151-166.
Yarbro-Bejarano, Yvonne. “Giving up the Ghost: Feminist ÍTheopry and the Staging of
Mestiza Desire.” 31-48.
Parks
Abramson, Myka-Tucker. “The Money SHt: Economies of Sex, Guns, and Language in
Topdog/Underdog.” Modern Drama 50.1 (2007): 78-97.
Schmidt, “Suzan-Lori Parks: ‘Rep & Rev’ Postmodernism.” 173-181.
Shepard 31-48.
Coco, Bill. “The Dramaturgy of the Dream Play: Monologues by Breuer, Chaikin,
Shepard.” Brater 159-70.
McDonough, Carla. “Dueling Identities. Tooth of Crime and True West.” 42-50.
Luedtke, Luther S. “From Fission to Fusion: Sam Shepard’s Nuclear Families.” New
Essays on American Drama. Ed. Henry I. Schvey et al. Amsterdam: Rodopi,
1989.
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Morse, Donald E. “Not the Nelsons: The Family Plays of Sam Shepard.” Kamm 733-51.
Valdez
Huerta, “Reclaiming Aztec and Maya Mythology.” 26-40
Savran, David. “Interview with Luiz Valdez.” Worthen 606-613.
Miscellaneous Remarks
[1] Deadlines
Apr 17: submission of the chosen title/theme of the take-home essay with a list of
sources (books and journal articles) you are going to use;
May 19: submission of the essay, no later than 1. 00 p.m.
[2] Plagiarism
Plagiarism of any kind will result in a failing grade for the seminar.
[3] Absences
It is essential to attend ALL the classes. If you must miss a class because of illness or
emergency, please let me know, and arrange to complete any work missed.
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