American Drama: Colonial to Contemporary is intended for students of American Drama in English, Theatre, and American Studies courses. Its primary aim is to provide students with a broad historical sense of the transofrmations of American drama from its beginnings to the presnt, making certain that this historical sense is as diverse as possible. As the most comprehensive anthology of American drama available for classroom use, it is a hope that this anthology will foster in the reader an appreciation of the diversity and vitality of the American experience as expressed through drama.

American Drama: Colonial to Contemporary

Watt, Stephen

Richardson, Gary A.

Reference

Heinle & Heinle Pub

Elaborate analogies between Irish and Jewish history, between Irish and Jewish subjectivities, occur with surprising frequency throughout American literature. They recall James Joyce's Leopold Bloom and episodes of Ulysses, Douglas Hyde's analogies during the Celtic Revival between learning Hebrew and learning Irish, and a myriad of claims of an unusual relationship between these peoples that goes beyond comparisons of their respective diasporic histories. But how does one describe this uncanny relationship, one often marked by hostility, affinity, and ambivalence, without essentializing people whose origins, class affiliation, educations, life experiences, and so on are enormously different? "Something Dreadful and Grand": American Literature and the Irish-Jewish Unconscious describes a complex allosemitism and allohibernianism through a variety of cultural texts with which immigrant Irish and Jewish Americans were most engaged: popular music of the Tin Pan Alley era, tenement literature from Anzia Yezierska and James T. Farrell through the posthumous publication of Henry Roth's An American Type, and proletarian and socialist-inflected drama by Elmer Rice, Clifford Odets, Eugene O'Neill, and Arthur Miller as they engaged the Irish drama of such writers as Bernard Shaw and Sean O'Casey. In an effort to trace both the genealogy and more recent trajectory of immigrant drama and fiction, chapters explore both the post-Famine melodramatic stage of the nineteenth century and a host of more contemporary texts from newer generations of immigrants. Throughout, the book argues for a "circum-North Atlantic" culture in which texts from Ireland, Britain, Irish America, and Jewish America contribute substantially to both a modern American literature and to understandings of the terms "Irish" and "Jewish." How can we really know what these terms mean as they delimit or erase totally the differences inherent to them? Borrowing a term from psychoanalytic and political theory, "Something Dreadful and Grand" explores the larger dimensions of this Irish-Jewish unconscious underlying cultural production in America, arguing for the centrality of these two diasporic groups to the development of American popular music, fiction, and especially drama.

"Something Dreadful and Grand": American Literature and The Irish-Jewish Unconscious

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

Oxford University Press

Know what academic freedom is? Or what it's come to mean? What's affirmative about affirmative action these days? Think you're up on the problem of sexual harassment on campus? Or know how much the university depends on part-time faculty? Academic Keywords is a witty, informed, and sometimes merciless assessment of today's campus, an increasingly corporatized institution that may have bitten off more than its administration is ready to chew. Cary Nelson and Steve Watt use the format of a dictionary to present stories and reflections on some of the most pressing issues affecting higher education in America. From the haphazard treatment of graduate students to the use and abuse of faculty (as well as abuses commited by faculty), Nelson and Watt present a compelling and, at times, enraging report on the state of the campus.

Academic Keywords: A Devil's Dictionary for Higher Education

Nelson, Cary

Arts & Photography

Routledge

Academic Keywords

Office Hours: Activism and Change in the Academy

In a series of stinging analyses, this book examines the current sorry state of higher education. The second half of the volume offers "alternative futures" for the academy, visions that involve academic organizations, public outreach through the internet, faculty unionization, and campus organizing. Office Hours is a roll-up-your-sleeves look at the avoidable disaster facing the modern university.

History

Americas

In a series of stinging analyses, this book examines the current sorry state of higher education. The second half of the volume offers "alternative futures" for the academy, visions that involve academic organizations, public outreach through the internet, faculty unionization, and campus organizing. Office Hours is a roll-up-your-sleeves look at the avoidable disaster facing the modern university.

Business & Money

Economics

Samuel Beckett is one of the most important figures in the history of Irish literature, and he continues to influence successive generations of writers. In Beckett and Contemporary Irish Writing, Stephen Watt searches for the 'Beckettian' impulse in Irish literature by tracing the Nobel Prize winner's legacy through a rich selection of contemporary novelists, poets and dramatists. Watt examines leading figures such as Paul Muldoon, Brian Friel, Marina Carr and Bernard MacLaverty, and shows how Beckett's presence, whether openly acknowledged or unstated, is always thoroughly pervasive. Moving on to an exploration of Beckett's role in the twenty-first century, the study discusses ways in which this legacy can be reshaped to deal with current concerns that extend beyond literature.

Beckett and Contemporary Irish Writing

British & Irish

Cambridge University Press

Understanding Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing, MLA Update

Kalaidjian, Walter

Roof, Judith

Wadsworth Publishing

Understanding Literature is an innovative anthology and technology package representing the next generation of literary pedagogy for introduction to literature and literature for composition courses. Built on a balanced foundation of canonical and nontraditional reading selections, this text includes discussions of the formal literary elements—and then goes a step further to integrate relevant and accessible coverage of contemporary criticism within each genre. This unique, integrated coverage of contemporary critical approaches (such as feminist theory, psychoanalytic theory, and postcolonial theory) offers students a richer, more engaging introduction to reading critically and writing about literature. Other anthologies offer minimal theoretical coverage in a separate chapter or appendix, typically sidestepping the larger issues the theories raise.
The integrated technology package, complete with CD-ROM and accompanying web site, takes advantage of multimedia resources to enhance the study of literature with visual aids, audio and video files, additional primary and secondary texts, and other materials that help place literature within the broader contexts of history and culture. <ul>
<li>Engaging, creative table of contents balances familiar authors and literary works with more adventurous and diverse selections, exposing students to a broad range of literature and providing instructors with great flexibility in designing their courses.</li>
<li>
Critical Perspectives offer concise, insightful discussions of how literary and cultural theories are used to explore meaning in literature. Throughout the anthology, casebooks, excerpts from classic and contemporary critical essays, and in-text discussions offer students accessible yet critical perspectives into how literary theory can facilitate a deeper understanding of literary texts. The fiction and drama sections feature brief in-text discussions and excerpts from literary critics. Critical Perspectives can also be used as a springboard for class discussion and writing.</li>
<li>In-depth treatment of Featured Writers in each section allows more focused study of a single writer. This feature includes multiple reading selections showing the range of the writer's work, more extensive biographical information, and additional materials on the CD-ROM and web site. Writers highlighted include James Baldwin, Virginia Woolf, Salman Rushdie, John Keats, Gwendolyn Brooks, Anne Sexton, and William Shakespeare.</li>
<li>Two unique interdisciplinary, multi-genre chapters ("The Beat Movement" and "Performative Poetics") focus on the spoken and performed aspects of literature. Coverage includes several works from key writers in both movements as well as discussions of how these movements use a mixture of media—language, film, jazz, photography, and art—to showcase their work and provide social and political commentary.</li>
<li>Unique poetry casebooks allow students to explore certain themes or topics in depth, such as "Poetry and Social Activism Between the Wars," "Poetry, Trauma, and Testimony: Holocaust Verses," "Postmodern Poetics," "Chicano/a Poetry," and "Native American Poetry."</li>
<li>Emphasis on cultural perspectives reflects the increased desire to view the study of literature through the lens of culture. Reading selections, section introductions, questions for discussion, writing assignments, and other apparatus encourage students to view literature from different cultural perspectives.</li>
<li>Thorough coverage of reading and writing about literature shows students how to read each genre and craft effective essays. Annotated student papers serve as models of good student writing, and a separate section teaches students how to conduct research and incorporate other sources into their writing.</li>
<li>An abundance of visual art and illustrations help students place literary works in broader contexts.</li>
</ul>

Understanding Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing

Literary

a companion to Understanding Literature

Understanding and Writing about Literature

Cengage Learning'

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Watt, Stephen. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Watt, Stephen