Teacher
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RAPETTI Valentina
(syllabus)
SCENE DA UNA NAZIONE: TEATRO E DRAMMATURGIA STATUNITENSI DALLA GUERRA CIVILE ALL’EPOCA POST-RAZZIALE.
This course aims to provide students with a thorough knowledge of nineteenth- and twentieth-century American theatre, some of its most influential playwrights, its distinctive aesthetic and stylistic eclecticism, and the main themes, metaphors, and motifs that recur in its different dramatic forms. Students will read eight pivotal plays written by American and African American playwrights between 1861 and 2015, and they will explore the ways in which theatre, drama, and performance have contributed to the construction and deconstruction of an American identity. Although close reading and analysis of dramatic texts will be the main focus of the course, due attention will be paid to the theatrical, cultural, and historical contexts in which each play was conceived and produced, so that students will be able to understand American theatre history as a significant part of modern American cultural history. Besides encountering and learning to recognize a range of different dramatic styles, students will also examine the conflicting representations of American identity within each play, and will investigate the ways in which the eight plays may connect with each other and with the broader American culture and experience.
(reference books)
TESTI PRIMARI:
- Dion Boucicault, The Octoroon; or Life in Louisiana, 1861 (provided by the lecturer in PDF format) - Susan Glaspell, Trifles, 1916 (provided by the lecturer in PDF format) - Eugene O’Neill, Long Day’s Journey into Night, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2014. ISBN: 978-0300186413. - Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman (Viking Critical Library), edited by Gerald Weales, Penguin Books, New York, 1996. ISBN-13: 978-0140247732. - Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie, introduction by Robert Bray, New Directions, 2000. ISBN-10: 9780811214049. ISBN-13: 978-0811214049. - Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun, Vintage Books, New York, 1994. ISBN: 978-1408140901. - Anna Deavere Smith, Fires in the Mirror, Anchor Books, New York, 1993. ISBN-10: 9780385470148. ISBN-13: 978-0385470148. (Excerpts provided by the lecturer in PDF format). - Suzan-Lori Parks, Father Comes Home from the Wars (Parts 1, 2 & 3), Theatre Communications Group, New York, 2015. (Provided by the lecturer in PDF format)
LETTERATURA CRITICA (ATTENTION! The following reading list will be constantly updated until the end of the course. I will be uploading more reading material on MOODLE as the weeks go by):
- Cristina Iuli e Paola Loreto, La letteratura degli Stati Uniti. Dal Rinascimento americano ai nostri giorni, Roma, Carocci, 2017. [Capitolo 1: Leonardo Buonomo, ‘Dichiarazioni di indipendenza: I grandi classici dell’Ottocento’, pp. 13-48. Capitolo 3: Sonia Di Loreto, ‘La slave narrative e l’abolizionismo atlantico’, pp. 69-90. Capitolo 16: Alessandro Clericuzio, ‘Il teatro: una storia sociale’, pp. 375-394]. (PDF files provided by the lecturer). - Declaration of Independence (1776) https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=2&page=transcript - Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (1787) (PDF copy provided by the instructor). - The Constitution of the United States of America (1787) https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=9&page=transcript - President George Washington’s First Inaugural Speech (1789) https://www.ourdocuments.gov/content.php?flash=false&page=milestone - Abraham Lincoln, ‘The Emancipation Proclamation’ (1863) https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=34 - Abraham Lincoln, ‘The Gettysburg Address’ (1863) https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=36 - Abraham Lincoln, ‘Second Inaugural Address’ (1865) https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=38 - W.E.B. Du Bois, ‘A Little Negro Theatre’, «The Crisis» XXII (1926). (PDF copy provided by the lecturer). - Arthur Miller, “Tragedy and the Common Man”, The New York Times, February 27, 1949. (PDF copy provided by the lecturer).
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