The idea of staging a nation dates from the Enlightenment, but the full force of the idea emerges only with the rise of mass politics. Comparing English, French, and American attempts to establish nat
The Drama of South Africa comprehensively chronicles the development of dramatic writing and performance from 1910, when the country came into official existence, to the advent of post-apartheid. Emin
"All roads lead to Johannesburg," declares the narrator of Alan Paton's epochal novel, Cry, the Beloved Country. Following roads that lead to performance, novels, film, architecture, and other cultur
Post-Imperial Brecht challenges prevailing views of Brecht's theatre and politics. Most political theatre critics place Brecht between West and East in the Cold War, and a few have recently explored Brecht's impact as a Northern writer on the global South. Loren Kruger is the first to argue that Brecht's impact as a political dramatist, director and theoretical writer makes full sense only when seen in a post-imperial framework that links the East/West axis between US capitalism and Soviet communism with the North/South axis of postcolonial resistance to imperialism. This framework highlights Brecht's arguments with theorists like Benjamin, Bloch, and Lukacs. It also shows surprising connections between socialist East Germany, where Brecht's 1950s projects impressed the emerging Heiner Müller, and apartheid-era South Africa, where his work appeared on the apartheid as well as anti-apartheid stage.
Post-Imperial Brecht challenges prevailing views of Brecht's theatre and politics. Most political theatre critics place Brecht between West and East in the Cold War, and a few have recently explored Brecht's impact as a Northern writer on the global South. Loren Kruger is the first to argue that Brecht's impact as a political dramatist, director and theoretical writer makes full sense only when seen in a post-imperial framework that links the East/West axis between US capitalism and Soviet communism with the North/South axis of postcolonial resistance to imperialism. This framework highlights Brecht's arguments with theorists like Benjamin, Bloch, and Lukacs. It also shows surprising connections between socialist East Germany, where Brecht's 1950s projects impressed the emerging Heiner Müller, and apartheid-era South Africa, where his work appeared on the apartheid as well as anti-apartheid stage.
Western culture has a long and fraught history of cultural appropriation, a history that has particular resonance within performance practice. Patrice Pavis asks what is at stake politically and aesth
