Performing Nostalgia

In this trenchant work, Susan Bennett examines the authority of the past in modern cultural experience and the parameters for the reproduction of the plays. She addresses these issues from both the viewpoints of literary theory and theatre studies, shifting Shakespeare out of straightforward performance studies in order to address questions about his plays and to consider them in the context of current theoretical debates on historiography, post-colonialism and canonicity.

Migration studies is an area of increasing significance in musicology as in other disciplines. How do migrants express and imagine themselves through musical practice? How does music help them to construct social imaginaries and to cope with longings and belongings? In this study of migration music in postsocialist Albania, Eckehard Pistrick identifies links between sound, space, emotionality and mobility in performance, provides new insights into the controversial relationship between sound and migration, and sheds light on the cultural effects of migration processes. Central to Pistrick‘s approach is the essential role of emotionality for musical creativity which is highlighted throughout the volume: pain and longing are discussed not as a traumatising end point, but as a driving force for human action and as a source for cultural creativity. In addition, the study provides a fascinating overview about the current state of a rarely documented vocal tradition in Europe that is a part of the mosaic of Mediterranean singing traditions. It refers to the challenges imposed onto this practice by heritage politics, the dynamics of retraditionalisation and musical globalisation. In this sense the book constitutes an important study to the dynamics of postsocialism as seen from a musicological perspective.

Nostalgia, a bittersweet yearning for the past, is an important element in Jewish-American performances of the late twentieth century. Numerous plays and films of this time use nostalgia to engage Jewish, including Yiddish, cultural themes and images. Nostalgia offers audiences a window through which to examine past and current social changes. These include American Jews' departure from Europe to America, the city for the suburbs, Yiddish for English, as well as the civil rights, women's, peace, and gay and lesbian movements, and other transformations. These performances illustrate how theatre and film transmit culture from generation to generation and between one ethnic community and the wider American scene.

The plays of Shakespeare's contemporaries are increasingly popular thanks to a spate of recent stage and screen productions and to courses that set Shakespeare's plays in context. This Reader's Guide introduces students to the criticism and debates that are specific to the drama of playwrights such as Jonson, Middleton, Dekker and Webster. Pascale Aebischer explores recent critical developments in key areas including: - How the plays were staged and printed - Innovative editions of plays - How the plays represent and contest the dominant ideologies of the Jacobean period - Dramatic genres - The representation of the human body and of social, gender and race relations - Modern productions on stage and screen Featuring suggestions for further research and reading, and a filmography of commercially available film versions of non-Shakespearean drama, this is an invaluable resource for anyone with an interest in the diverse plays of the Jacobean age.

The Routledge Reader in Gender and Performance presents the most influential and widely-known, critical work on gender and performing arts, together with exciting and provocative new writings. It provides systematically arranged articles to guide the reader from topic to topic, and specially linked articles by scholars and teachers to explain key issues and put the extracts in context. This comprehensive volume: * reviews women's contributions to theatre history * includes contributions from many of the top academics in this discipline * examines how theatre has represented women over the centuries * introduces readers to major theoretical approaches and more complex questions about gender, the body and cross-dressing * offers an international perspective, including material from post-apartheid South Africa and post-communist Russia.

Examines both theatrical and staged art photographs, demonstrating their role in fixing and unfixing Shakespearean authority.

This collection addresses key questions in women's theatre history and retrieves a number of previously "hidden" histories of women performers. The essays range across the past 300 years--topics covered include Susanna Centlivre and the notion of intertheatricality; gender and theatrical space; the repositioning of women performers such as Wagner's Muse, Willhelmina Schröder-Devrient, the Comédie Français' "Mademoiselle Mars," Mme. Arnould-Plessey, and the actresses of the Russian serf theatre.

This volume investigates the relationship between nostalgia and contemporary social issues. From history and political theory to marketing and media, each chapter discusses the way nostalgia has been presented within a specific disciplinary context and shows how nostalgia as a topic of research has evolved over time.