Unrivalled in its coverage of recent work and writers, The Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary American Playwrights surveys and analyses the breadth, vitality and development of theatrical work to emerge from America over the last fifty years. This authoritative guide leads you through the work of 25 major contemporary American playwrights, discussing more than 140 plays in detail. Written by a team of 25 eminent international scholars, each chapter provides: * a biographical introduction to the playwright's work; * a survey and concise analysis of the writer's most important plays; * a discussion of their style, dramaturgical concerns and critical reception; * a bibliography of published plays and a select list of critical works. Among the many Tony, Obie and Pulitzer prize-winning playwrights included are Sam Shepard, Tony Kushner, Suzan-Lori Parks, August Wilson, Paula Vogel and Neil LaBute. The abundance of work analysed enables fresh, illuminating conclusions to be drawn about the development of contemporary American playwriting.

This book gathers together an array of international scholars, critics, and artists concerned with the issue of walking as a theme in modern literature, philosophy, and the arts. Covering a wide array of authors and media from eighteenth-century fiction writers and travelers to contemporary film, digital art, and artists' books, the essays collected here take a broad literary and cultural approach to the art of walking, which has received considerable interest due to the burgeoning field of mobility studies. Contributors demonstrate how walking, far from constituting a simplistic, naive, or transparent cultural script, allows for complex visions and reinterpretations of a human's relation to modernity, introducing us to a world of many different and changing realities.

This book gathers together an array of international scholars, critics, and artists concerned with the issue of walking as a theme in modern literature, philosophy, and the arts. Covering a wide array of authors and media from eighteenth-century fiction writers and travelers to contemporary film, digital art, and artists' books, the essays collected here take a broad literary and cultural approach to the art of walking, which has received considerable interest due to the burgeoning field of mobility studies. Contributors demonstrate how walking, far from constituting a simplistic, naive, or transparent cultural script, allows for complex visions and reinterpretations of a human's relation to modernity, introducing us to a world of many different and changing realities.

Whether struggling in the wake of postindustrial decay or reinventing themselves with new technologies and populations, cities have once again moved to the center of intellectual and political concern. Rethinking the American City brings together leading scholars from a range of disciplines to examine an array of topics that illuminate the past, present, and future of cities. Rethinking the American City offers a lively and fascinating survey of contemporary thinking about cities in a transnational context. Utilizing an innovative format, each chapter opens with an iconic image and includes a brief and provocative essay on a single topic followed by an extended dialogue among all the essayists. Topics range from energy use, design, and digital media to transportation systems and housing to public art, urban ruins, and futurist visions. By engaging with key contemporary concerns-public and private space, sustainability, ethnic and racial divisions, and technology-this volume illuminates how global society has imagined American urban life. Contributors: Klaus Benesch, Dolores Hayden, David M. Lubin, Malcolm McCullough, Jeffrey L. Meikle, David E. Nye, Miles Orvell, Andrew Ross, Mabel O. Wilson, Albena Yaneva.

In the humanities, the term 'diaspora' recently emerged as a promising and powerful heuristic concept. It challenged traditional ways of thinking and invited reconsiderations of theoretical assumptions about the unfolding of cross-cultural and multi-ethnic societies, about power relations, frontiers and boundaries, about cultural transmission, communication and translation. The present collection of essays by renowned writers and scholars addresses these issues and helps to ground the ongoing debate about the African diaspora in a more solid theoretical framework. Part I is dedicated to a general discussion of the concept of African diaspora, its origins and historical development. Part II examines the complex cultural dimensions of African diasporas in relation to significant sites and figures, including the modes and modalities of creative expression from the perspective of both artists/writers and their audiences; finally, Part III focusses on the resources (collections and archives) and iconographies that are available today. As most authors argue, the African diaspora should not be seen merely as a historical phenomenon, but also as an idea or ideology and an object of representation. By exploring this new ground, the essays assembled here provide important new insights for scholars in American and African-American Studies, Cultural Studies, Ethnic Studies, and African Studies. The collection is rounded off by an annotated listing of black autobiographies.