A Queer Sort of Materialism: Recontextualizing American Theater

David Savran

ISBN 10: 0472068369 / ISBN 13: 9780472068364

Published by The University of Michigan Press, 2003

About this Item

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: A Queer Sort of Materialism: Recontextualizing American Theater
• Publisher: The University of Michigan Press
• Publication Date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0472068369
• ISBN 13: 9780472068364
• Binding: Paperback / softback
• Condition: New
• Weight: 381 grams

About this title

Synopsis

In engaging, accessible prose, leading theater critic and cultural commentator David Savran explores the intersections between art and culture, offering smart, compelling interpretations of the economic and social contexts of theatrical texts and practices. Acknowledging theater's marginal status in U.S. culture, A Queer Sort of Materialism takes on "the trouble-makers--the ghost, closeted homosexual, masochist, drag king, Third World laborer, even the white male as victim"--who figure more prominently in theater than in other cultural forms. In impeccably researched and argued essays that range in subject matter from Rodgers and Hammerstein to Paula Vogel, from Suddenly Last Summer to Iron John, Savran uncovers the ways that such troublemakers both challenge and reinforce orthodox social practices.
The selections presented here are by turns entertaining, informative, sophisticated, and polemical, reflecting the author's dual citizenship as rigorous scholar and engaging theater critic. This book also provides a model for a kind of queer historical materialism that will prove useful to a wide range of disciplines, including theater and performance, gender and sexuality, queer/gay/lesbian/transgender studies, American studies, and popular culture.
David Savran is Professor of Theater, the Graduate Center, the City University of New York, and author of Cowboys, Communists, and Queers and Taking It Like a Man.

About the Author

David Savran is Professor of Theater, the Graduate Center, the City University of New York. His other books include Cowboys, Communists, and Queers: The Politics of Masculinity in the Work of Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams; Taking It Like a Man: White Masculinity, Masochism, and Contemporary American Culture; and The Masculinity Studies Reader (with Rachel Adams).