Theatre as Alter/"Native" in Derek Walcott

Nirjhar Sarkar, Raiganj University, India

'Theatre as Alter/“Native” in Derek Walcott' attempts a close and detailed politico-aesthetic analysis of his major plays. At the core of this book lies the attempt to answer the question of how postcolonial artists and intellectuals have dared to imagine radically different ways of living in the face of oppositional, binary choices. And as the title suggests, Walcott’s plays carve out critical spaces for new narratives of “becoming” and alternative priorities, entangled in contesting identities inscribed by race, language and ethnicity. Theatre, as Walcott knew, would be instrumental in demystifying Caribbean “Absence” and “Void” and generating an alternative version of dominant reality. By a deliberate unseating of the Western texts, filled with banal stereotypes and their representational biases, and by triggering “re-action” to the scripts of the colonizers in profoundly paradoxical ways, Walcott’s plays affirm the Caribbean identity. This study seeks to demonstrate how his plays open an alter/“native” universe in terms of aesthetics, dramaturgy and the performative, and reclaims ‘New World’ identity in terms of negotiation rather than negation—undermining the claim of “solid”, “authentic” culture. Placing the arts at the forefront of nation-building, Walcott situated his plays at a crucial juncture between the passing of the Empire and the newly-born Federation in his archipelago.

The Complex City: Social and Built Approaches and Methods

Edited by Caroline Donnellan, Boston University; Global Programs, London, UK

'The Complex City: Social and Built Approaches and Methods' explores different ways of understanding the city. The social city approach proceeds from the ground-up, it focuses on human interactions shaped by economic and environmental processes. The built city method looks through a top-down lens, examining policy and planning for buildings and infrastructure, including utilities and energy networks. This volume is different from other city anthologies in that it explores them through their differences, by presenting each chapter in one of the two categories. While there is invariably an overlap between the two areas, they are distinct positions. In doing so the book identifies how, despite their often adversarial approaches, they both belong to the same city. As essential components of the city they should not necessarily be resolved, as it is in this friction where creativity and innovation happens. 'The Complex City: Social and Built Approaches and Methods' is concerned about the ideas and solutions that they both offer. The book’s originality stems from this duality, and from its recognition that cities are living, organic, protean places of opportunity, crisis, conflict and challenge. The chapters demonstrate the complexity of cities as a set of ideas concerning what they engender, how they function and why they continue to act as a catalyst for different kinds of human activity. They explore issues of socio-political import and questions of the city as a physically constructed space. The themes are diverse and include the inception of the city as a place of competition to centres of regeneration and urban withdrawal. They cover a range of city and urban regions from Athens to Wellington from site specific singular perspectives to comparative assessments. The questions they raise include how do we inhabit urban areas, how do we make plans for them, and how do we, at times, ignore them entirely.

Dynamics of Interregional Exchange in East Asian Buddhist Art, 5th–13th Century

Edited by Dorothy C. Wong, University of Virginia, USA

This volume examines the various patterns of trans-regional exchanges in Buddhist art within East Asia (China, Korea, and Japan) in the medieval period, from the fifth to the thirteenth centuries. A traditional approach to the study of East Asian Buddhist art revolves around the notion of an artistic relay: India was regarded as the source of inspiration for China, and China in turn influenced artistic production in the Korean peninsula and Japan. While this narrative holds some truth, it has the implicit baggage of assuming that art in the host country is only derivative and obscures a deep understanding of the complexity of transnational exchanges. The essays in this volume aim to go beyond the conventional query of tracing origins and mapping exchanges in order to investigate the agency of the “receivers” with contextual case studies that can expand our understanding of artistic dialogues across cultures. The volume is divided into three sections. In Section I, “Transmission and Local Interpretations,” the three chapters by Jinchao Zhao, Li-kuei Chien, and Hong Wu all address topics of transnational transmission of Buddhist imagery, their figural styles, and subsequent alterations or adaptations based on local preferences and interpretations. Buddhism had important impacts on East Asian countries in the political dimension, especially when the religion and certain Buddhist sutras and deities were believed to have state-protecting properties. The chapters by Dorothy C. Wong, Imann Lai, and Clara Ma in Section II, “Buddhism and the State,” attend to the political aspect of Buddhism in visual representation. Section III, “Iconography and Traditions,” includes chapters by Sakiko Takahashi, Suijun Ra, and Tamami Hamada that closely study the cross-border transmission of and subtle variations in iconography and style of specific Buddhist deities, notably deities of esoteric strands that include the Thousand-Armed Avalokiteśvara (Bodhisattva of Compassion).

The Enlightened Mind: Education in the Long Eighteenth Century

Edited by Amanda Strasik, Eastern Kentucky University

The rise of Enlightenment philosophical and scientific thought during the long eighteenth century in Europe and North America (c. 1688-1815) sparked artistic and political revolutions, reframed social, gender, and race relations, reshaped attitudes toward children and animals, and reconceptualized womanhood, marriage, and family life. The meaning of “education” at this time was wide-ranging and access to it was divided along lines of gender, class, and race. Learning happened in diverse environments under the tutelage of various teachers, ranging from bourgeois mothers at home, to Spanish clergy, to nature itself. The contributors to this cross-disciplinary volume weave together methods in art history, gender studies, and literary analysis to reexamine “education” in different contexts during the Enlightenment era. They explore the implications of redesigned curricula, educational categorizations and spaces, pedagogical aids and games, the role of religion, and new prospects for visual artists, parents, children, and society at large. Collectively, the authors demonstrate how new learning opportunities transformed familial structures and the socio-political conditions of urban centers in France, Britain, the United States, and Spain. Expanded approaches to education also established new artistic practices and redefined women’s roles in the arts. This volume offers groundbreaking perspectives on education that will appeal to beginning and seasoned humanities scholars alike.

The Theatre of Twenty-First Century Spain / El teatro de España del siglo XXI

Identities, Anxieties, and Social Immediacies / Identidades, ansiedades e urgencias sociales

Edited by Helen Freear-Papio, College of the Holy Cross and Candyce Crew Leonard, Wake Forest University

Identifying, naming, and belonging lend a sense of rational order, a feeling of rootedness within specific societies and eras, yet that order may collapse and threaten to undermine the predictability that ensures stability. As Spain enters only its fifth decade as a fully democratic nation, the country’s identity is unfocused and disorganized as it continues to reckon with its traumatic past. The nine research essays presented in this volume, all on plays authored in the twenty-first century, aim to address the myriad of complex social immediacies that impact Spain in the twenty-first century. Such topics include: non-heteronormative gender identity; “fake news” and how facts are interpreted, withheld, or distorted; female self-agency and authorship; violence against women; and the ongoing need for justice for family histories that have been erased and repressed by Spain’s inability to resolve its recent past. Identificar, nombrar y pertenecer brinda un sentido de orden racional, un sentimiento de arraigo dentro de sociedades y épocas específicas, pero ese orden puede colapsar y amenazar con socavar la previsibilidad que asegura la estabilidad. A medida que España entra en su quinta década como una nación totalmente democrática, la identidad del país está desenfocada y desorganizada mientras continúa teniendo en cuenta su pasado traumático. Los nueve ensayos de investigación presentados en este volumen, todos sobre obras de teatro de autor del siglo XXI, pretenden abordar la miríada de complejas inmediateces sociales que impactan en la España del siglo XXI. Dichos temas incluyen: identidad de género no heteronormativa; “noticias falsas” y cómo se interpretan, ocultan o distorsionan los hechos; auto-agencia y autoría femenina; la violencia contra las mujeres; y la continua necesidad de justicia por las historias familiares que han sido borradas y reprimidas por la incapacidad de España para resolver su pasado reciente.