Bertolt Brecht's Me-ti, which remained unpublished in his own lifetime, now appears for the first time in English. Me-ti counselled against 'constructing too complete images of the world'. For this work of fragments and episodes, Brecht accumulated anecdotes, poems, personal stories and assessments of contemporary politics. Given its controversial nature, he sought a disguise, using the name of a Chinese contemporary of Socrates, known today as Mozi. Stimulated by his humorous aphoristic style and social focus, as well as an engrained Chinese awareness of the flow of things, Brecht developed a practical, philosophical, anti-systematic ethics, discussing Marxist dialectics, Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, the Moscow trials, and the theories behind current events, while warning how ideology makes people the 'servants of priests'. Me-ti is central to an understanding of Brecht's critical reflections on Marxist dialectics and his commitment to change and the non-eternal, the philosophy which informs much of his writing and his most famous plays, such as The Good Person of Szechwan. Readers will find themselves both fascinated and beguiled by the reflections and wisdom it offers. First published in German in 1965 and now translated and edited by Antony Tatlow, Brecht's Me-ti: Book of Interventions in the Flow of Things provides readers with a much-anticipated accessible edition of this important work. It features a substantial introduction to the concerns of the work, its genesis and context - both within Brecht's own writing and within the wider social and political history, and provides an original selection and organisation of texts. Extensive notes illuminate the work and provide commentary on related works from Brecht's oeuvre.

In "Shakespeare, Brecht, and the Intercultural Sign "renowned Brecht scholar Antony Tatlow uses drama to investigate cultural crossings and to show how intercultural readings or performances question the settled assumptions we bring to interpretations of familiar texts. Through a "textual anthropology" Tatlow examines the interplay between interpretations of Shakespeare and readings of Brecht, whose work he rereads in the light of theories of the social subject from Nietzsche to Derrida and in relation to East Asian culture, as well as practices within Chinese and Japanese theater that shape their versions of Shakespearean drama.
Reflecting on how, why, and to what effect knowledges and styles of performance pollinate across cultures, Tatlow demonstrates that the employment of one culture's material in the context of another defamiliarizes the conventions of representation in an act that facilitates access to what previously had been culturally repressed. By reading the intercultural, Tatlow shows, we are able not only to historicize the effects of those repressions that create a social unconscious but also gain access to what might otherwise have remained invisible.
This remarkable study will interest students of cultural interaction and aesthetics, as well as readers interested in theater, Shakespeare, Brecht, China, and Japan.

Bertolt Brecht's Me-ti, which remained unpublished in his own lifetime, now appears for the first time in English. Me-ti counselled against 'constructing too complete images of the world'. For this work of fragments and episodes, Brecht accumulated anecdotes, poems, personal stories and assessments of contemporary politics. Given its controversial nature, he sought a disguise, using the name of a Chinese contemporary of Socrates, known today as Mozi. Stimulated by his humorous aphoristic style and social focus, as well as an engrained Chinese awareness of the flow of things, Brecht developed a practical, philosophical, anti-systematic ethics, discussing Marxist dialectics, Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, the Moscow trials, and the theories behind current events, while warning how ideology makes people the 'servants of priests'. Me-ti is central to an understanding of Brecht's critical reflections on Marxist dialectics and his commitment to change and the non-eternal, the philosophy which informs much of his writing and his most famous plays, such as The Good Person of Szechwan. Readers will find themselves both fascinated and beguiled by the reflections and wisdom it offers. First published in German in 1965 and now translated and edited by Antony Tatlow, Brecht's Me-ti: Book of Interventions in the Flow of Things provides readers with a much-anticipated accessible edition of this important work. It features a substantial introduction to the concerns of the work, its genesis and context - both within Brecht's own writing and within the wider social and political history, and provides an original selection and organisation of texts. Extensive notes illuminate the work and provide commentary on related works from Brecht's oeuvre.

The essays in this collection were originally delivered as part of the esteemed lecture series at Trinity College Dublin, Samuel Beckett's alma mater. The eminent contributors shed new light on Beckett's enigmatic theater, taking up an engaging array of topics. Included are new perspectives on Beckett's use of language and silence, on his attitudes toward the body, on those who influenced him and on those he has influenced (including Suzan-Lori Parks and Femi Osofisan), and on Beckett and the art of self-collaboration. Each contributor places the playwright into a network of genealogies and legacies and his work into important historical, cultural, and aesthetic contexts. Together, the essays demonstrate Beckett's impact on theater, performance, and visual arts during the latter half of the twentieth century and serve to open up new directions for Beckett studies well into the twenty-first. This is an indispensable volume for anyone interested in Beckett, whether scholar, student, or enthusiast.

Anna McMullan is Chair of Drama Studies at Queens University Belfast and author of "Theatre on Trial: Samuel Beckett's Later Drama."

S. E. Wilmer is Associate Professor of Drama Studies at Trinity College Dublin and author of "Theatre, Society and the Nation: Staging American Identities."

Illustration: Samuel Beckett at the rehearsal of "Waiting for Godot." (c) Bruce Davidson/Magnum Photos.

A volume in the series Theater: Theory/Text/Performance