August Wilson's Pittsburgh Cycle: Critical Perspectives on the Plays

by Sandra G. Shannon (Editor)

Overview

Providing a detailed study of American playwright August Wilson (1945-2005), this collection of new essays explores the development of the author's ethos across his twenty-five-year creative career--a process that transformed his life as he retraced the lives of his fellow "Africans in America." While Wilson's narratives of Pittsburgh and Chicago are microcosms of black life in America, they also reflect the psychological trauma of his disconnection with his biological father, his impassioned efforts to discover and reconnect with the blues, with Africa and with poet/activist Amiri Baraka, and his love for the vernacular of Pittsburgh.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781476622996
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Publication date:	02/09/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	220
File size:	3 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Sandra G. Shannon is a professor of African American Literature in the English department at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Two seminal books along with numerous chapters, and articles on Wilson have established her as a leading scholar in Wilson Studies. She was a key consultant for and contributor to the highly acclaimed PBS American Masters documentary, August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand (February 2015). She lives in Bowie, Maryland.
Sandra G. Shannon is a professor of African American Literature in the English department at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Two seminal books along with numerous chapters, and articles on Wilson have established her as a leading scholar in Wilson Studies. She was a key consultant for and contributor to the highly acclaimed PBS American Masters documentary, August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand (February 2015). She lives in Bowie, Maryland.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
“The emancipated century”: Remapping History, Reclaiming Memory in August Wilson’s Dramatic Landscapes of the 20th Century—Joyce Hope Scott
“A big bend there, a tree by the shore”: Situated Identity in The Janitor—Jacqueline Zeff
Two Trains Running: Bridging Diana Taylor’s “rift” and Narrating Manning Marable’s “living history”—Sarah Saddler and Paul ­Bryant-Jackson
World War II History/history: Essential Contexts in Seven Guitars—Ellen Bonds
The Use of Stereotype and Archetype in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom—Michael Downing
Gem of the Ocean’s Fugitive Movements—Isaiah Matthew Wooden
Reclaiming the Mother: Women, Documents and the Condition of the Mother in Gem of the Ocean and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom—Jesslyn ­Collins-Frohlich
A Century Lacking Progress: The Fractured Community in Gem of the Ocean and King Hedley II—Christopher B. Bell
“He gonna give me my ham”: The Use of Food as a Symbol for Social Justice—Psyche ­Williams-Forson
Resurrecting “phantom limb[s] of the dismembered slave and god”: Unveiling the Africanisms in Gem of the Ocean—Artisia Green
Epiphany and the “drama of souls”—Owen Seda
Conjuring Africa in August Wilson’s Plays—Connie Rapoo
Re-Evaluating the Legacy of the ­Ten-Play Cycle—Susan C.W. Abbotson
About the Contributors
Index

Editorial Reviews

a clearly written, thoroughly researched, and engaging volume that will resonate with teachers, students, and artists...ideal for a classroom setting...powerfully captures Wilson’s agency as a black male writer, his brilliance as an orator, and his deeply rooted concern for the collective well-being of African Americans”—Theatre Topics.

From the Publisher