33 research outputs found
Interrogating Torture and Finding Race
Antonin Artaudâs second manifesto for the Theatre of Cruelty cries out for a theatre that will depict âgreat social upheavalsâ and âconflicts between peoples and races.â Opposed to âdisinterestedâ theatre, Artaud designed the Theatre of Cruelty to depict and affect not only the âtortured victims,â but also the âexecutioner-tormentor himself.â Artaud viewed both as trapped by âa kind of higher determinismâ which he sought to alter through the Theatre of Cruelty (102). To usher in this new theatrical tradition, Artaud declared that the âfirst spectacle of the Theatre of Cruelty will be entitled: The Conquest of Mexicoâ (126). Explaining his choice for the inaugural event, Artaud wrote, âFrom the historical point of view, The Conquest of Mexico poses the question of colonization. It revives in a brutal and implacable way the ever active fatuousness of Europe. It permits her idea of her own superiority to be deflatedâ (126).
In his discussion of the Theatre of Cruelty, Artaud explicitly linked depictions of cruelty/torture with depictions of racialized subjects. The intersection of these events and depictions was chosen, Artaud explained, âbecause of its immediacy ... for Europe and the worldâ (126). Writing in the 1930s and 1940s, Artaud experienced a Europe that was united by its colonial endeavors throughout much of the southern hemisphere. Consequently, Artaud was explicitly challenging the racist justifications for these colonial projects. âBy broaching the alarmingly immediate question of colonization and the right one continent thinks it has to enslave another,â Artaud intoned, âthis subject [of The Conquest of Mexico] questions the real superiority of certain races over others and shows the inmost filiation that bindsâ them (126-127)
The Harlem Renaissance and the Power of Art in Society
The Harlem Renaissance and the Power of Art in Societ
Virginia Mason Vaughan. Performing Blackness on English Stages, 1500â1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. xvi + 190 pp. illus. index. bibl. $75. ISBN: 0-521-84584-X.
Interrogating Torture and Finding Race
Antonin Artaudâs second manifesto for the Theatre of Cruelty cries out for a theatre that will depict âgreat social upheavalsâ and âconflicts between peoples and races.â Opposed to âdisinterestedâ theatre, Artaud designed the Theatre of Cruelty to depict and affect not only the âtortured victims,â but also the âexecutioner-tormentor himself.â Artaud viewed both as trapped by âa kind of higher determinismâ which he sought to alter through the Theatre of Cruelty (102). To usher in this new theatrical tradition, Artaud declared that the âfirst spectacle of the Theatre of Cruelty will be entitled: The Conquest of Mexicoâ (126). Explaining his choice for the inaugural event, Artaud wrote, âFrom the historical point of view, The Conquest of Mexico poses the question of colonization. It revives in a brutal and implacable way the ever active fatuousness of Europe. It permits her idea of her own superiority to be deflatedâ (126).
In his discussion of the Theatre of Cruelty, Artaud explicitly linked depictions of cruelty/torture with depictions of racialized subjects. The intersection of these events and depictions was chosen, Artaud explained, âbecause of its immediacy ... for Europe and the worldâ (126). Writing in the 1930s and 1940s, Artaud experienced a Europe that was united by its colonial endeavors throughout much of the southern hemisphere. Consequently, Artaud was explicitly challenging the racist justifications for these colonial projects. âBy broaching the alarmingly immediate question of colonization and the right one continent thinks it has to enslave another,â Artaud intoned, âthis subject [of The Conquest of Mexico] questions the real superiority of certain races over others and shows the inmost filiation that bindsâ them (126-127)
Shakespeare and Un-Freedom
Ayanna Thompson is Director of the Arizona Center for Medieval & Renaissance Studies (ACMRS) at Arizona State University. She is the author of Shakespeare in the Theatre: Peter Sellars (Arden Bloomsbury, 2018), Teaching Shakespeare with Purpose: A Student-Centered Approach (Arden Bloomsbury, 2016), Passing Strange: Shakespeare, Race, and Contemporary America (Oxford University Press, 2011), and Performing Race and Torture on the Early Modern Stage (Routledge, 2008). She wrote the new introduction for the revised Arden3 Othello (Arden, 2016), and is the editor of Weyward Macbeth: Intersections of Race and Performance (Palgrave, 2010) and Colorblind Shakespeare: New Perspectives on Race and Performance (Routledge, 2006). She is currently working on a collection of essays for Cambridge University Press on Shakespeare and race, and is collaborating with Curtis Perry on the Arden4 edition of Titus Andronicus. Professor Thompson is the 2018-19 President of the Shakespeare Association of America, and has served as a member of the Board of Directors for the Association of Marshall Scholars. She was one of Phi Beta Kappaâs Visiting Scholars for 2017-2018. The Forty-Seventh James Edwin Savage Lecture in the Renaissance will take place on April 4 at 6:30 p.m. in the Bondurant Auditorium.https://egrove.olemiss.edu/eng_lec/1004/thumbnail.jp