Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Postcolonial theater'

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict dates back to 1917, when British Prime Minister Balfour declared Britain’s support for the establishment of a homeland for Jews in the land of Palestine. The conflict has had many political, social, and artistic implications. On the political level, a struggle that has not been solved until this day has evolved. On a social level, many lives have been crushed: thousands of native citizens of the land became refugees, mainly in Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, but also worldwide. Others, like the Arabs who stayed in what was in 1948 declared to be the state of Israel, have been suffering from an identity crisis; many of these Arabs face unlawful detention, demolition of houses, killing and racism. The Gaza strip has almost always been under siege by the Israeli military machine lately. Meanwhile, the Jewish society has never had a day of peace since the establishment of their state. On the artistic level, the conflict has always had implications for Arab/ Palestinian and Israeli writings., I seek to read the depiction of the conflict with its different violent confrontations from both Israeli and Palestinian perspectives starting with the Palestinian Nakba to the violent Israeli oppression of any Palestinian resistance in the Intifada. I also read literary texts about Palestinian resistance, actual material resistance of the first Palestinian Intifada as represented by both sides in postcolonial terms. In fact, I believe that both Palestinian and Israeli literature could be read in the context of postcolonial discourse. On the one hand, for Palestinian and Arab writers, Palestinian writing is and should be read as resistance literature, or ‘Adab al-muqawamah’, a term coined by Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani. Anna Ball’s study Palestinian Literature and Film in Postcolonial Feminist Perspective examines Palestinian literature and film in the light of postcolonial feminism. Ball places the conflict in the context of colonial/ postcolonial discourse and breaks the taboo against using the word colonialism when speaking about Zionism. In fact, the research problem is based on the idea of the inadequacy of ignoring Palestinian and Israeli literature as part of postcolonial studies simply for fear of revealing the colonial status quo of the land. According to Anna Bernard, who seeks to draw attention to what she calls ‘blind spots in postcolonial studies’, mainly Israel/ Palestine: ‘by dismissing a ‘postcolonial’ approach to Israel-Palestine studies outright, [critics like] Massad and Shohat overlook the value of a literary study that seeks to demonstrate the collective and cross-cultural impact of the various modern forms of colonialism and imperialism on artistic production across the globe’. Massad’s argument that there is difficulty in describing space, time and body in Israel/ Palestine as postcolonial is based on his interrogations: ‘Can one determine the coloniality of Palestine/ Israel without noting its ‘‘post-coloniality’’ for Ashkenazi Jews? Can one determine the post-coloniality of Palestine/Israel without noting its coloniality for Palestinians? Can one determine both or either without noting the simultaneous colonizer/colonized status of Mizrahi Jews? (Although one could debate the colonized status of Mizrahi Jews) How can all these people inhabit a colonial/postcolonial space in a world that declares itself living in a post-colonial time?’ Ella Shohat, likewise, is against what she calls the ‘ahistorical and universalizing deployments, and potentially [the] depoliticizing implications’ of the term ‘post-colonial,’ especially that, according to her, it is used instead of important terms like imperialism and neo-colonialism. In spite of the importance of paying attention to the correct description of states of imperialism and neo-colonialism, I still find it possible to read both Palestinian and Israeli texts in postcolonial perspective, agreeing with Bernard ‘that the tools that have been developed for reading these texts comparatively – including colonial discourse analysis, national allegory, minority discourse, and so on – can be usefully applied, tested, and revised in the analysis of Palestinian and Israeli literary and cultural production’. This view resonates with Ashcroft, Tiffin and Griffiths’s in their study The Postcolonial Studies Reader (1995), when they comment on this wide range of relevant fields that the term postcolonial suggests: ‘Postcolonial theory involves discussion about experience of various kinds: migration, slavery, suppression, resistance, representation, difference, race, gender, [and] place’ . In fact, the term ‘postcolonial’ is not necessarily restricted to a real colonial period; it could be used, according to Ashcroft, Tiffin and Griffiths in The Empire Writes Back: ‘to cover all the culture affected by the imperial process from the moment of colonization to the present day. This is because there is continuity of preoccupations throughout the historical process initiated by European imperial aggression’. Between the view of the land of Palestine as a lawful possession of the Jews and that which sees Jewish presence as a settler or colonial one, a debate about reading the conflict and literary production tackling the conflict within theories of colonial and postcolonial studies arises. What makes reading the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and its literature and literary production within the paradigm of postcolonialism problematic is worth some further investigation. First, the preference and focus on the discursive practices of colonialism over the material practices has resulted in excluding the Israeli/ Palestinian conflict from the field of postcolonial studies by a number of critics like Ella Shohat and Joseph Massad, which is more elaborated on later. Second, the debate about the Zionist project as a settler colonial one could also problematize analysing the conflict within postcolonial theories. The first chapter explores the Israeli/ Palestinian and Arab writing of the conflict from a colonizer/colonized perspective. I mainly focus on the representation of violence as an essential element in a colonized society and the decolonization process, drawing on Frantz Fanon’s theory that violence is inevitable in any colonized community as the backbone of the analysis. For this purpose, I have chosen Syrian playwright Saad-Allah Wanous’s play Rape (1990), to compare with Israeli playwright Hanoch Levin’s play Murder (1997), since both plays represent violence as a vicious circle that does not lead anywhere in the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, even though it is an everyday act that has become a way of life for both sides. Crucial terms in the field of postcolonial studies such as resistance/terrorism are examined. Some similarities between the ways the two playwrights write the conflict are also highlighted, which supports the idea that literature can always find shared ground between any two conflicting parties. In Chapters Two and Three I write about the history of the conflict as a chain of endless violent confrontations; violence in this case is on the national level when the two nations fight each other. Chapter Two addresses some of the landmark events in the history of the Jewish and Palestinian peoples, mainly the Israeli War of Independence/Nakba as the same historical event seen from the two extremely different colonizer/colonized perspectives. The chapter also addresses what the Holocaust has to do with the two events and how the Holocaust was exploited by the Israeli state to silence any condemnation of the Israeli/Zionist settler colonial project in Palestine and later on to silence any international condemnation of the Israeli 1967 occupation of more Palestinian and Arab lands.

Desde la fundación de los primeros institutos de ciencias teatrales en Alemania en el primer tercio del siglo XX y de la introducción de esta disciplina como carrera universitaria en Colonia en 1938 y en Berlín en 1943, así como desde la creación de un número considerable de institutos y cátedras de ciencias del teatro en los años 70 y la inauguración de un amplio y profundo debate teórico en este campo, no se logró establecer un lazo y un contexto de trabajo mutuo entre las ciencias teatrales y las literarias. Mientras la ciencia teatral – luego de una primera época empírica e historicista – fundamentó su análisis principalmente en el hecho escénico y, con el tiempo, fue incluyendo en forma más intensa diversos aspectos culturales, antropológicos, históricos y sociales1; la ciencia literaria y las diversas filologías, por el contrario, se concentraron especialmente en el análisis del texto dramático, analizando el teatro como un objeto literario. Así, ambas disciplinas permanecen hasta la fecha divididas y sin conexión mayor a pesar de tener un objeto en común y de basarse, desde los años 70, en teorías similares como el estructuralismo y la semiótica.

Desde la fundación de los primeros institutos de ciencias teatrales en Alemania en el primer tercio del siglo XX y de la introducción de esta disciplina como carrera universitaria en Colonia en 1938 y en Berlín en 1943, así como desde la creación de un número considerable de institutos y cátedras de ciencias del teatro en los años 70 y la inauguración de un amplio y profundo debate teórico en este campo, no se logró establecer un lazo y un contexto de trabajo mutuo entre las ciencias teatrales y las literarias. Mientras la ciencia teatral – luego de una primera época empírica e historicista – fundamentó su análisis principalmente en el hecho escénico y, con el tiempo, fue incluyendo en forma más intensa diversos aspectos culturales, antropológicos, históricos y sociales1; la ciencia literaria y las diversas filologías, por el contrario, se concentraron especialmente en el análisis del texto dramático, analizando el teatro como un objeto literario. Así, ambas disciplinas permanecen hasta la fecha divididas y sin conexión mayor a pesar de tener un objeto en común y de basarse, desde los años 70, en teorías similares como el estructuralismo y la semiótica.:Reflexiones preliminares. - Algunos conceptos fundamentales. - "Hibridización" y "medialidad". - "Teatro"/"Teatralidad"/"Texto teatral". - "Cuerpo" - "Deseo" - "Sexualidad" - "Poder"

Choisir le genre dramatique de la tragédie, emblématique de la culture occidentale, pour représenter et accompagner les luttes de décolonisations de l’empire français peut sembler paradoxal. Bien au contraire, nous montrons que cette association d’un genre canonique et d’un sujet politique contestataire est féconde. À partir d’un corpus varié d’une trentaine de pièces écrites en français par des auteurs d’Afrique, de la Caraïbe et de Madagascar dans la deuxième moitié du xxe siècle (1942-1992), notre thèse identifie un phénomène théâtral que nous nommons tragédies de la décolonisation. Le genre de la tragédie permet d’une part de créer des mythes, de célébrer la grandeur des sociétés précoloniales et de mettre en avant les luttes anticoloniales. D’autre part, en tant que genre qui montre des défaites, la tragédie permet de dénoncer l’hypocrisie de la prétendue mission civilisatrice de l’Europe et de révéler les violences et les oppressions du système colonial et esclavagiste, à travers le point de vue de celles et ceux qui les subissent. La spécificité du genre dramatique invite également à interroger ses effets sur le genre social. Enfin, discutant certains biais dans la réception des pièces, nous montrons que le genre dramatique lui-même est renouvelé, notamment dans l’affirmation d’une fatalité qui n’est plus transcendante mais historique, et de laquelle il est possible de s’émanciper
It may seem paradoxical to choose the dramatic genre of tragedy to represent and support the struggles around the decolonization process of the French empire, as it is a symbol of western culture. However, we demonstrate in this thesis the relevance of this combination of a canonical genre with a protest topic. From the study of a diverse corpus of about thirty plays written in French by African, Caribbean, and Malagasy authors in the second half of the 20th century (1942-1992), we identify a theatrical phenomenon that we call "decolonization tragedies". On the one hand, the genre of tragedy allows to create myths, to celebrate precolonial societies and to highlight anti-colonial struggles. On the other hand, this genre allows to display defeats, which enables the indictment of Europe's self-proclaimed civilizing mission, and reveals the violence of the colonial and slavery system from the standpoint of those who suffer it. Moreover, the specific nature of tragedy encourages to examine its impact on gender. Finally, discussing some distortions in the reception of the plays allows us to show that the dramatic genre is being renewed through the affirmation of a destiny that is no longer transcendental, but historical, and from which one can emancipate oneself

Throughout history theatrical performance has been used both as a disseminator of dominant ideology and as a place for revolt. This study will investigate how theatre in Aotearoa New Zealand may play a role in the decolonization of postcolonial peoples. At the core of the dissertation is an engagement with theories of postcolonial and intercultural performance which are tested in a theatre laboratory experiment to see how these theories translate in practical terms to the stage. The work will investigate, through a semiotic analysis, what occurs in the process of rehearsal and direction in transforming the meanings of a text to the stage. The text used for the theatre laboratory experiment is Mervyn Thompson's Songs to the Judges. One aim of the production will be to juxtapose Māori and Pākehā performance forms in a syncretic theatre performance. During the process I will focus on questions such as, "on what terms can a Pākehā woman direct a play with a bicultural cast?" and "what are the (im)possibilities of an equal exchange of knowledge/experience between the Maori and Pākehā participants?" Whilst the performance highlights polarities of them and us, black and white, the aim of the rehearsal process and group dynamic is to move beyond this polarity operating under the philosophy of Barba's concept of 'Third Theatre’, For members of the third theatre, content and form are often less important than a group's socio-cultural philosophy and how that philosophy is realized in its daily work and reflected in its productions (Watson 1993: 21).

Cette thèse de doctorat, s’inscrivant dans le champ des études postcoloniales, s’intéresse à l’émergence du théâtre de l’immigration durant la décennie 1970 dans la continuité de luttes qui marquent l’apparition d’un discours critique sur la colonisation et ses effets. Le théâtre est y utilisé comme une arme de combat, une poursuite de l’activité politique et militante, permettant de démanteler les mécanismes d’aliénation et d’exploitation auxquels sont soumis les immigrés en contexte contemporain. Il est en effet désormais impossible de penser l’immigration sans penser les résultats d’une histoire qui a débuté avec la colonisation. Les indépendances, loin de consacrer une rupture dans les modes de domination établis pendant la colonisation, semblent au contraire en perpétuer certaines pensées et pratiques dans une expression renouvelée : c’est notamment à travers la figure de l’immigré algérien, excroissance à rebours de la colonie française qu’était l’Algérie, que des modes de traitement, d’encadrement et de surveillance de l’immigration, hérités en partie de la période coloniale, perdurent dans la période postcoloniale. Ces mécanismes de domination et d’exploitation des travailleurs immigrés seront violemment dénoncés durant la décennie, qui voit l’apparition à la fois d’une nouvelle subjectivité politique et l’émergence d’un théâtre immigré dont la pratique illustre les théories anglo-saxonnes sur la colonisation et ses conséquences dans le jaillissement de nouvelles formes discursives et esthétiques. Le poids de l’héritage colonial, en particulier celui lié à l’Algérie, permet ainsi de mobiliser les travailleurs autour d’une identité contextuelle et de développer un théâtre qui repose idéologiquement et esthétiquement sur l’examen panoramique d’une réalité qui s’inscrit dans une temporalité et une territorialité complexes, liées au mouvement
This doctoral dissertation, falling in the field of postcolonial studies, investigates the emergence of an immigration theatre during the decade 1970 in the continuation of fights that characterise the development of a critical discourse regarding colonisation and its effects. In this context, theatre is used as a weapon, a prolongation of the political and militant activism, permitting to dismantle the mechanisms of alienation and exploitation to which immigrants are subject in contemporary environment. Indeed, it is now impossible to consider immigration without considering outcomes of a history initiated with colonisation. Independences, far from consecrating a rupture in the modes of domination established during colonisation, instead seem to perpetuate some beliefs and practises in a renewed expression: it is in particular through the Algerian immigrant figure, backward excrescence of the French colony Algeria was, that methods for processing, supervising and monitoring immigration, in part inherited from the colonial era, persist during postcolonial times. These domination and exploitation mechanisms directed toward immigrant workers will be fiercely denounced during the decade, which sees apparition at the same time of a new political subjectivity and the emergence of an immigrant theatre, whose practise illustrates Anglo-Saxon theories on colonisation and its consequences in the burst of new discursive and aesthetical forms. The weight of colonial legacy, particularly the one related to Algeria, therefore allows to mobilise workers around a contextual identity and to develop a theatre ideologically and aesthetically based on the panoramic examination of a reality inscribed in complex temporality and territoriality linked to motion

This thesis analyses the themes of history, memory, and authorship in the works of four women playwrights from the French Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe. In doing so, it aims to reveal the three levels of marginalization to which Caribbean women theatre practitioners are subjected: being a woman, being a French Caribbean woman, and being a French Caribbean woman who writes theatre. The thesis seeks to contribute to the expansion of the field of French Caribbean literary and drama studies, endeavours to redress the gender balance in studies on French Caribbean literature, and aspires to add to the existing body of work on French Caribbean women's writing. Therefore, the thesis aims to reveal and to analyse the world of French Caribbean women's theatre and to study how the playwrights address socio-political issues that affect their communities and influence their own writings and careers. The corpus consists of plays by Gerty Dambury, Ina Césaire, Maryse Condé, and Suzanne Dracius from the 1980s to the early 2000s. While focussing on a different theme, each chapter rests its analysis on theatrical works of a similar genre. The analysis of the plays deploys theories of the theatre pertaining to postcolonial drama and gender. The first chapter serves as an introduction to a group of female French Caribbean writers and their predecessors. The second chapter is a study of two historical plays, focussing on the collective experience of historical events and the role played by women in those events. The third chapter analyses plays that problematize the relationship between the collective and the individual. The fourth chapter looks at the image of the French Caribbean female artist and the multiple barriers she encounters in achieving creative independence.

This thesis examines the representation of the lives and performances of tawa'if and rudali in South Asian cinema to understand their marginalization as performers, and their significance in the collective consciousness of the producers and consumers of Indian cultural artifacts. The critical textual analysis of six South Asian films reveals these women as caste-amorphous within the system of social stratification in India, and therefore captivating in the potential they present to achieve a complex and multi-faceted definition of culture. Qualitative interviews with 4 Indian classical dance instructors in Portland, Oregon and performative observations of dance events indicate the importance of these performers in perpetuating and developing Indian cultural artifacts, and illustrate the value of a multi-layered, performative methodological approach. These findings suggest that marginality in performance is a useful and dynamic site from which to investigate the processes of cultural communication, producing findings that augment sole textual analysis.

Thesis (M.A.)--Miami University, Dept. of Theatre, 2005.
Title from first page of PDF document. Document formatted into pages; contains [1], iv, 57 p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 56-57).

Cette recherche porte sur l’analyse des problématiques des langues et des identités dans le roman composé en hébreu par des membres de la minorité palestinienne d’Israël – (Texte hybride selon Yassir Suleiman, 2013). Elle combine deux volets, l’un diachronique et l’autre analytique. D’une part, elle examine l’histoire du roman palestinien en hébreu, et les différents lieux dans lesquels l’hébreu et l’arabe, le Palestinien et le Juif israélien, minorité et majorité se rencontrent. D’autre part, l’approche comparative des œuvres d’Atallah Mansour (1935), d’Anton Shammas (1950) et de Sayed Kashua (1975) est proposée à partir de leur double appartenance, hébraïque et palestinienne. Elle envisage ces œuvres dans le cadre de la littérature mineure, de l’identité hybride postcoloniale et de l’espace tiers formulé par Mahmoud Darwich. L’enjeu est d’étudier les contours d’une narration palestinienne minoritaire engagée par des écrivains dans un processus de déconstruction, de reconfiguration et de correction de la représentation du personnage Palestinien dans la littérature hébraïque
This research focuses on the analysis of the issues of language and identity in novels written in Hebrew by members of the Palestinian minority in Israel ("hybrid texts" according to Yassir Suleiman). It combines two components, one diachronic and one analytical. First, it examines the history of the Palestinian novel in Hebrew and the different fields where Hebrew and Arabic, Palestinian and Israeli Jew as well as minority and majority meet. Second, the analytical, comparative approach of the works of Atallah Mansour (1935), Anton Shammas (1950) and Sayed Kashua (1975) is examined from their dual, Israeli and Palestinian, affiliation. It sets these works in the context of Minor Literature, post-colonial hybrid identity and Mahmoud Darwich’s third space. The aim is to outline the Palestinian narrative initiated by minority writers as a process of deconstruction, reconfiguration and correction of the representation of the Palestinian character in Hebrew literature

A la croisée d’enjeux aussi bien philosophiques, politiques, qu’anthropologiques, cette thèse en études théâtrales vise à théoriser la notion de « drame figuratif » en analysant l’esthétique singulière que développe Kossi Efoui dans son œuvre dramatique. Dramaturge, philosophe et romancier, né en 1962 au Togo, Kossi Efoui annonce par ses positions politiques et ses partis pris poétiques, dès la pièce Le Carrefour, le tournant esthétique majeur que prendront les dramaturgies d’Afrique noire francophones et des diasporas au début des années 1990. Traversé par l’histoire coloniale et l’histoire des migrations, son théâtre interroge le corps diasporique et remet en question les déterminismes identitaires construits par le discours historique et l’essor du capitalisme depuis les traites négrières. Cette esthétique procède d’un geste théâtral qui relève d’une écriture de la figuration, et dont nous interrogeons le paradoxe afin d’en définir les modalités dramaturgiques. Car dans ce théâtre, le contenu discursif est marqué par une omniprésence du corps, alors que sa représentation fait l’objet d’une quête pour les personnages qui en sont le plus souvent dépourvus. Travaillée par divers modes de production du texte (intertextualité, transtextualité, fragmentation, décomposition, assemblage, geste du plateau) l’écriture dramaturgique opère toutes sortes de détours qui relèvent des univers du masque et des arts de la marionnette et explorent le corps scénique et les dispositifs théâtraux en vue d’un processus de résilience. En analysant cette dramaturgie du détour marionnettique nous questionnons la présence des corps et des voix dans le matériau textuel lui-même, leurs liens avec le plateau, et l’existence possible d’un geste plastique produisant une figure qui émanerait de l’écriture, pour prendre place sur « les lieux de la scène », selon la formule fétiche de Kossi Efoui. Le corps convoque ici des territoires d’ordre politique et se fait l’écho des traumas qui nous hantent et nous mettent collectivement à l’épreuve. En faisant de l’espace théâtral une interface mnémonique, l’écriture emprunte des voies de création transdisciplinaires qui renouvellent notre conception de la dramaturgie et déploient ce que nous identifions comme « une esthétique du drame figuratif »
At the crossroads of philosophical, political and anthropological issues, this dissertation in theatre studies aims to theorize the notion of "figurative drama" through analyzing Kossi Efoui's aesthetics in his dramatic work. A playwright, philosopher and novelist, born in 1962 in Togo, Kossi Efoui’s political and poetical choices foreshadowed, from his first play Le Carrefour, the major aesthetical turn taken by the dramaturgies of French-speaking sub-Saharan Africa and diasporas at the beginning of 1990s. Shaped by colonial history and the history of migrations, Kossi Efoui’s theater put the diasporic body in question, as well as the identities that were assigned by historical discourses and by the rise of capitalism since the time of the slave trade. This aesthetics is the result of a theatrical attitude based on a figurative writing. By questioning this paradoxical attitude, this dissertation shows how it is translated into dramaturgical choices. Indeed, in Kossi Efoui’s theater, on one side the body is everywhere in discourses, while on the other side it’s missing on stage: the characters are most often deprived of a body and looking for one. Shaped by various ways of producing text (intertextuality, transtextuality, fragmentation, decomposition, assembly, gesture of the stage) the dramaturgical writing makes a detour via the universe of the mask and the puppetry arts, thereby exploring the actor’s body and the theatrical devices in order to create a process of resilience. By analyzing this dramaturgical detour via puppetry, this dissertation questions the presence of bodies and voices in the textual material itself and their relationships to the stage. It formulates the hypothesis of an attitude, producing a figure that comes from the writing and takes its place on stage (on les lieux de la scène, as Kossi Efoui calls it). The body becomes a political territory and summons up haunting traumas that put the collectivity to the test. By using the theatrical space as a mnemonic interface, the writing takes trans-disciplinary creative paths, renews our conception of dramaturgy and produces what we identify as "an aesthetics of figurative drama"

This study interrogates the ways in which biopolitics, as represented in Anglophone theatre from the 1970s to the present day, coerces and regulates postcolonial subalterns within the contemporary socio-political milieu. Using seven plays from three postcolonial regions – South Africa, India and Sri Lanka – the thesis comparatively investigates how internal and global biopolitical operations culminate in overt violence. Research questions explore the nuances of biopolitical trajectories, their tragic resonances and the way these biopolitical stratagems are theatrically articulated and challenged. This study is also concerned with the extent to which biopolitical praxis and consequent violence in these postcolonial territories is shaped by Western colonialism and its legacies. The corpus of plays encompasses: Athol Fugard’s Sizwe Bansi is Dead (1972) and The Island (1973); Mbongeni Ngema’s Asinamali! (1985); Mahasweta Devi’s Mother of 1084 (1973); Manjula Padmanabhan’s Harvest (1999); Ernest Macintyre’s Rasanayagam’s Last Riot: A Political Fiction for the Theatre (1990) and Irangani: A Tragedy of Our Times (2009). The research frames its argument through current scholarship on postcolonial criticism, and draws on the works of Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben. Foucault’s work on the regulation of human beings through the production of power/knowledge serves as an initial medium of investigation into the praxis of biopolitics. Agamben probes the covert and overt presence of biopolitical violence in contemporary society, particularly through his concept of state of exception. By exploring convergences and divergences of biopolitical subterfuges, and through the juxtaposition of the subalterns’ subjection to violence, the study reflects critically on contemporary biopolitics through Foucauldian and Agambenian lenses. The thesis suggests that postcolonial Anglophone theatre foregrounds a potential to understand the biopolitical logic more meaningfully, and to be resistant to its strategies of coercion: Anglophone plays may contribute to the decolonisation processes, to react against internal and global forces of suppression.

All’incrocio tra questioni culturali, politiche e antropologiche, questa tesi analizza la trasposizione di un mito greco nell’universo africano. Si concentra, in particolare, sulla figura di Antigone e sulla sua rappresentazione, interrogando la produzione teatrale francofona contemporanea attraverso lo studio di dieci «Antigoni d’Africa», in un arco cronologico che va dalla fine degli anni Ottanta a oggi. Questo lavoro si basa su un corpus composto da riletture testuali, ma anche e soprattutto sulla ricerca di materiali peri-testuali (spettacoli, adattamenti, fotografie di spettacoli, progetti drammaturgici, interviste, ecc.), in gran parte inediti. Considerando gli spettacoli teatrali come oggetti artistici in cui si manifestano le relazioni tra culture e potere, questa tesi si interroga sul modo in cui la colonialità e il mondo contemporaneo influenzano la ripresa di un «classico» nel riverbero delle relazioni franco-africane. Rivolgendosi al teatro per ripensare l'insieme dei prodotti culturali in termini di performance e forme di dominazione, l’analisi del corpus mostra le relazioni tra creazione teatrale, istituzioni culturali e logiche economiche e politiche. L’analisi mostra, da un lato, i modi in cui le produzioni artistiche veicolano rappresentazioni che possono favorire l’elaborazione di un’estetizzazione della differenza, in particolare nelle forme dell’esotismo del corpo e dell’immaginario; dall'altro, mette in luce le strategie che consentono di contrastare le attribuzioni identitarie e di decostruire gli stereotipi relativi a questi quadri precostituiti e dominanti, sia per sovvertirli sia per reimpiegarli a fini «contro-esotici».
At the crossroads of cultural, political and anthropological issues, this thesis analyses the transposition of a Greek myth into the African universe. It focuses on the figure of Antigone and her representation, questioning contemporary Francophone theatrical production through the study of ten «Antigones of Africa», on a chronological arc going from the end of the 1980s to the present. This work is based on a corpus composed of textual re-readings, but also and above all on research into peri-textual materials (performances, adaptations, photographs, dramaturgical projects, interviews, etc.), most of which have never been published. Considering theatrical productions as artistic objects where the relations between cultures and power are manifested, this thesis questions the way in which coloniality and the contemporary world affect the revival of a «classic» in the reverberation of Franco-African relations. By turning to the theatre to rethink the whole of cultural products in terms of performance and forms of domination, the analysis of the corpus shows the relationships between theatrical creation, cultural institutions, and economic and political logics. The analysis shows, on the one hand, the ways in which artistic productions convey representations that can favour the fabrication of an aestheticization of difference, notably in the form of the exoticism of the body and the imaginary; on the other hand, it highlights the strategies that make it possible to thwart identity assignments and deconstruct stereotypes relating to these pre-established and dominant frameworks, either to subvert them or to redeploy them for «counter-exotic» purposes.
Située à la croisée d’enjeux aussi bien culturels, politiques, qu’anthropologiques, cette thèse analyse la transposition d’un mythe grec dans l’univers africain. Elle se concentre, en particulier, sur la figure d’Antigone et sa représentation, interrogeant la production théâtrale francophone contemporaine à travers l’étude de dix « Antigones d’Afrique », sur un arc chronologique allant de la fin des années 1980 à aujourd’hui. Ce travail porte sur un corpus composé de relectures textuelles, mais aussi et surtout de recherche de matériaux péri-textuels (performances, adaptations, photographies des spectacles, projets dramaturgiques, entretiens, etc.), pour la plupart inédits. Considérant les productions théâtrales en tant qu’objets artistiques où les relations entre cultures et pouvoir se manifestent, cette thèse interroge la manière dont la colonialité et le monde contemporain affectent la reprise d’un « classique » dans la réverbération des relations franco-africaines. En se tournant vers le théâtre pour repenser l’ensemble des produits culturels sous l’angle de la performance et des formes de domination, l’analyse du corpus montre les rapports entre la création théâtrale, les institutions culturelles et les logiques économiques et politiques. L’analyse montre, d’une part, les façons dont les productions artistiques véhiculent des représentations pouvant favoriser la fabrication d’une esthétisation de la différence, notamment sous les formes de l’exotisme des corps et de l’imaginaire ; elle souligne, d’autre part, les stratégies permettant de déjouer les assignations identitaires et de déconstruire les stéréotypes relatifs à ces cadres préétablis et dominants, soit pour les subvertir, soit pour les redéployer à des fins « contre-exotiques ».

Quelques critiques universitaires ont été écrites sur des spectacles récents prenant pour thématique le conflit israélo-palestinien, mais il n’existe pas d’étude d’ensemble à ce sujet. Par ailleurs, depuis le début des années 2000, plusieurs recherches se sont attachées à préciser les relations qu’entretiennent le théâtre et la politique. Cette thèse vise à approfondir cette réflexion à partir des transferts culturels d’œuvres israéliennes et palestiniennes vers la France, des années 1970 à nos jours.Pour ce faire la méthodologie mise en œuvre articule historiographie du théâtre, histoire des représentations théâtrales et étude du champ de production culturelle en diachronie. Elle a permis de mettre en évidence la persistance de l’Orientalisme renforcé par le déphasage historique entre la France et Israël et l’inégal développement entre la France et la Palestine. La représentation théâtrale peut offrir un espace de résistance aux assignations identitaires subies par les artistes d’Israël et de Palestine, ou bien reproduire les rapports de domination lisibles à travers le degré de légitimité des dramaturg(i)es. La thèse rappelle la complexité des rapports de domination qui ne sont pas réductibles au racisme ou à un « choc de civilisations » mais relèvent d’une hégémonie culturelle entretenue par les institutions théâtrales et universitaires, et critiques dramatiques. Ces instances de légitimation sont analysées ici en tant que productrices d’un discours idéologique dont l’étude remet en question la posture de neutralité qui accompagne l’autonomie de l’art
In a limited scope, academic critiques have been written on recent productions on the theme of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, still there exists no comprehensive study on the subject. Additionally, several studies have focused on clarifying the relationship between theatre and politics since the early 2000s. The thesis aims to expand on this line of thought, deriving from cultural transfers of Israeli and Palestinian works to France, from the 1970s to the present day.The methodology implemented articulates theatre historiography, history of theatrical performances and the study of the cultural production field in diachrony. The methodology allowed for the highlighting of the persistence of Orientalism, reinforced by the historic phase-shift between France and Israel and the unequal development between France and Palestine. The theatrical performance can either offer a space of resistance to the identity assignements suffered by artists from Israel and Palestine, or can reproduce domination relations that are legible through the degree of legitimacy of the theatre performances and performers. The thesis evokes the complexity of relations of dominance that are not reducible to racism or a "clash of civilizations" but are a cultural hegemony maintained by theatrical and academic institutions, and drama reviewer. These instances of legitimation are analyzed here as producers of an ideological discourse, the study of which challenges the posture of neutrality that accompanies the autonomy of art

L’apparition à partir des années 1950 de pièces afro-caribéennes qui mettent en scène la Révolution de Saint-Domingue se révèle pour le moins symbolique. Annoncées par la création de La Tragédie du roi Christophe d’Aimé Césaire par Jean-Marie Serreau et la troupe du Toucan, ces expressions théâtrales contribueront à définir un genre théâtral à part entière - celui du théâtre révolutionnaire afro-caribéen d’expression française - possédant ses propres traits définitoires et catégoriels, ses codes d’écriture, son rapport à l’histoire ou aux personnages historiques, et surtout sa finalité, sa fonction politique et populaire. L’articulation entre le choix du théâtre, le thème politique de la Révolution de Saint-Domingue et les enjeux de la deuxième moitié du XXe siècle constituera l’emblème du théâtre historique révolutionnaire tout à la fois politique et populaire
The appearance in the 50’ of afro-Caribbean’s pieces setting up the Dominican Revolution proves to be symbolic. Announced by the creation of La Tragedie du Roi Christophe from Aimé Césaire by Jean-Marie Serreau and the Toucan Troupe, these theatricals expressions will go towards defining a proper theatrical type- possessing his own characteristics, his writing codes, his connection with history and historical characters, and above all, his purpose, his finality : his political and popular function. The articulation between the choice of theater, the political theme of the Dominican Revolution and the stakes of the second half of the 20th Century will constitute the insignia of the historical revolutionary theater, both political and popular

Cette thèse de doctorat, intitulée « Les frontières de l’exil : figures et territoires de l’étranger», vient questionner les notions de frontière et d’exil dans les périodes postcoloniale et post-Shoah. Ces notions sont ici caractérisées comme des territoires à la fois spirituels, politiques, symboliques, et économiques, dans lesquels une expérience de la domination est vécue, souvent subie, par des individus ou des groupes stigmatisés par leur origine ethnique, leur sexe, leur culture, ou leur condition socio-économique notamment. En me rattachant à superstructuration politique, culturelle, et historique de cette expérience de la domination, Selim Rauer tente de montrer comment, dans les ères postcoloniale et post-Holocauste, une économie mondialisée recrée ou intensifie en fait le concept de « zone (s) » - telle qu’il a été défini par Frantz Fanon dans Les damnés de la terre, 1961 – générant ainsi des centres et des marges permettant d’établir des espaces culturels et géographiques procédant d’une généalogie raciale, sexuelle venant soutenir des dynamiques économiques qui dérivent de la théologie politique, comme c’est le cas du néolibéralisme et de l’ultralibéralisme aujourd’hui. La figure de l'ennemi (ou celle de l'adversaire) est au cœur de ce système de pensée. L’ennemi est une représentation biopolitique et théologique essentielle dans une réflexion productive liée à l’altérité, à la figure multiforme de l'étranger, à travers laquelle une conception spécifique de la frontière peut être établie comme limite ou division, plutôt que comme trait d'union. Cette réflexion procède de la lecture et de l’analyse d’un corpus littéraire français et francophone alliant à la fois le roman, le drame, le récit et l’essai de 1945 à aujourd’hui. Les œuvres de ce corpus littéraire sont issues d’écrivains tels que Jean Genet (1910-1986), Patrick Modiano (1945), Bernard-Marie Koltès (1948-1989), Koffi Kwahulé (1956), Marie NDiaye (1967), Wajdi Mouawad (1968), et Léonora Miano (1973). Chacune de leurs œuvres regroupées ici donne à voir une certaine expérience du pouvoir, de l’aliénation, de la souveraineté et de la biopolitique dans un cadre éthique et morale qui inévitablement met en lumière et sonde le « mal ». Un mal qui, comme l'a exprimé Rüdiger Safranski, dérive d’une certaine pratique de la liberté (Le Mal, ou le théâtre de la liberté, 1997/1999)
This doctoral dissertation, entitled The Borders of Exile: Figures and Territories of Foreignness, reinterprets the notion of the border as an expanding territory of estrangement and seclusion in the aftermath of colonialism and the Shoah, in an era characterized by global market economies. While allegedly situated beyond racial and sexual hegemonic claims, Selim Rauer shows how this globalized economy, in fact, recreates or intensifies a concept of “zone(s)” --as defined by Frantz Fanon in Les damnés de la terre, 1961--that draws centers and margins, and establishes sites of domination structured by a historical and political unconscious. At the core of this unconscious lies the figure of the enemy or the adversary. The latter is an essential biopolitical and theological representation of otherness and foreignness through which a specific border definition can be established as limit rather than hyphen. Thus, in this project, Rauer scrutinizes a multidimensional literary corpus comprised of works by figures such as Jean Genet (1910-1986), Patrick Modiano (1945), Bernard-Marie Koltès (1948-1989), Koffi Kwahulé (1956), Marie NDiaye (1967), Wajdi Mouawad (1968), and Léonora Miano (1973), each of whose works investigate a certain definition and practice of power and sovereignty as part of an ethical and moral reflection on “evil,” or as Rüdiger Safranski defined it, as the moral and ethical burden that accompanies the practice of freedom (Evil, or the Drama of Freedom, 1997)

A travers une étude interculturelle détaillée et comparée de la production théâtrale minoritaire canadienne et américaine, ma thèse cherche à mettre en lumière les les apports thématiques et esthétiques du théâtre multi-ethnicque nord-américain contemporain à la tradition anglo-américaine du 20ème siècle. Les communautés asiatiques, africaines et aborigènes sont retenues comme poste d'observation privilégié de l'expression esthétique de la condition multiculturelle postcoloniale dans le théâtre nord-américain de la période allant de 1972 à nos jours. Sur base d'un corpus de pièces de théâtre, ma recherche m'a permis de redéfinir les grandes articulations des notions d'hybridité, d'identité et de communauté/nation postcoloniale.

Through a detailed cross-cultural approach of the English Canadian and American minority theatrical production, my thesis aims to identify the thematic and aesthetic contributions of multi-ethnic North American drama to the Anglo-American tradition of the 20th century. My study examines North American drama from the vantage points of African, Asian, and Native communities from 1972 until today. Relying on a number of case studies, my research opened up new avenues for rethinking the notions of hybridity and identity in relation to the postcolonial community/nation.

Doctorat en Langues et lettres
info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Shakespeare's dramatic work occupies a strange and double-edged position in the Indian literary consciousness. On the one hand, it is a colonial text that the British imported to India as a tool to illustrate proper 'moral' behavior to their Indian subjects. On the other hand, it has taken on a decidedly Indian identity, an identity marked by the post-colonial conditions of hybridity, subversion, and negotiation. As a result, the Shakespeare industry as it exists in contemporary India is a multifaceted and even contradictory institution. In this dissertation, I study how Indian directors and scholars have appropriated and adapted the Shakespeare canon to suit their individual needs. In the latter part of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth, the continued teaching of English literature resulted in a growing class of hybrid Indians who, by their successful absorption of English education and culture, persisted in fracturing colonial authority. In "Signs Taken for Wonders: Questions of Ambivalence and Authority Under a Tree Outside Delhi, May 1817," Homi Bhabha argues that these subjects articulate a discourse that subverts and alters the colonial status quo through intervention. Subversion and intervention articulated through forms of mimicry offer limited alternatives to colonial subjugation. I have found that Indian productions and interpretation of Shakespeare engage in such mimicry, simultaneously asserting and disrupting colonial authority. Infusing the English texts with Indian concerns both challenges colonial authority and articulates post-colonial realities. Indian appropriations of Shakespeare's drama are not new, post-colonial phenomena. During the colonial period, the plays were often used to explore cultural and political tensions. Today, Shakespeare's plays serve as vehicles to investigate the realities of post-colonial existence. Shakespeare productions, particularly those staged in English, best represent the multiple, ambiguous, hybrid, and hyphenated realities and identities of post-1947 India. The cross-culturation that marks this growing genre situates Western, canonical texts within the dual institutions of Indian theater and literary criticism. Shakespeare has, in effect, become an Indian commodity.

Storywall follows the journey of Shagun Mathur from his dysfunctional family to his life as an itinerant actor in a street theater troupe. Abused sexually in high school and playing the roles of both men and women, Shagun is ill-at-odds with his own body, a discomfort that comes strongly to the fore when he meets, and falls in love with Marc Wyndham, an Anglo-Indian musician.

In Peau noire, masques blancs (1952) zeigt Frantz Fanon, dass eine weiße europäische Gesellschaft das Bild von einem schwarzen Menschen konstruiert, das von seinem eigenen Bild entschieden abweicht. Wie sich dieses Bild im spanischen Theater und im Kino konstruiert, wird meine Ausgangsfrage sein. Das Dissertationsprojekt widmet sich Othering-Diskursen in Spanien im Zeitraum vom 16. bis zum 21. Jahrhundert. Gegenstand der Betrachtung ist hierbei eine zunächst nur aus dem Theater des Siglo de Oro bekannte Figur, die des ›negro‹. Diese Figur vereint die Darstellung aller Menschen afrikanischer Herkunft, seien es Guineer, Äthiopier oder Spanier. Analysiert werden in erster Linie jene Theaterstücke und Filme, die den ›negro‹ in den Vordergrund der Darstellung rücken. Es wird angenommen, dass das ›Sehen‹ der schwarzen Figur durch ein weißes Publikum ein zentrales koloniales Wahrnehmungsmuster konstituiert. Im Hinblick auf die Konstruktion des ›weißen Blicks‹ eines weißen Publikums wird weiterhin untersucht, wie sich dieser zunächst im dramatischen Text und anschließend in der Kameraperspektive gestaltet.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 2005.
Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 71-74)

This research started as a quest to understand better the ethics of doing Theatre for Development/Applied Theatre with under-served, marginalized and vulnerable populations especially in post-conflict zones in the Global South. As a theatre practitioner-researcher from Africa who has lived and worked in post-conflict zones, I was interested in fostering appropriate ethical protocols for arts-based practices for social engagement, advocacy and social justice. Thus, in this dissertation, I focus on two concepts in applied theatre practice: participation and ethics. I examine how participation can be re-conceptualized in applied theatre practice and focus on the ethics around conducting research among vulnerable populations especially on refugees and internally displaced persons. On participation, I use existing case studies from various fields to argue that participation in community engagement and socially-engaged art practices can become a tool to reposition voices on the margin to the centre in order to unsettle centres of power. However, for this to happen, participation needs to engage a communicative action that is both epistemic and ontic in its approach. An epistemic discourse provides a way of seeing the world while an ontic discourse provides people with a way of being in the world. The former is a ‘theoretical’ discursive practice that is fundamentally epistemological, and the latter is an ‘embodied’ praxis that is fundamentally ontological. I examine the famous Ngugi wa Thiongo’s Kamiriithu Community Theatre project in Kenya and Michael Balfour et al’s refugee project in Australia to foreground this new thinking on verb-oriented and noun-oriented notions of participation. On ethics, I raise a series of critical questions around interventionist or humanitarian performances. It is hoped that these questions will deepen discourses in applied theatre practice and further challenge practitioners to rethink why we do what we do. Using narrative inquiry, I glean lessons from my field research facilitating drama workshop among secondary school students who have been internally displaced due to an ongoing socio-political crisis in Nigeria. I also reflect on my other applied theatre experiences in Canada and Sudan. I propose an ethical practice that is built on relational interaction. In the context of working in post-conflict zones or in places of war, I argue that precarity becomes a determining factor in framing the ethics of practice. The questions around ethics are raised to also draw attention to decolonizing ethical practices. Finally, I articulate the connection between participation and ethics in that participation becomes a tactic to ensure that applied theatre researchers/practitioners conduct their work in ethical ways. This is because through participation, concerned communities can challenge unethical practices and transform the research to create outcomes that are beneficial. Thus, as an example of reflective practitioner research, the projects in this dissertation offer opportunities to examine critically how participation has been conceptualized and the need for a decolonizing understanding towards ethics in applied theatre practice especially in post-conflict zones.
Graduate

This dissertation examines current academic approaches to reading South Asian-Canadian literature as a multicultural “other” to Canadian national literature and proposes an alternative reading strategy that allows for these texts to be read within a framework of South Asian diasporic subjectivities situated specifically at the Canadian location. Shifting from the idea that “Canada” names a particular national identity and national literary culture to the idea that “Canada” names a particular geographic terrain at which different cultural, social, and historical vectors intersect and are creolized allows for a more nuanced reading of South Asian-Canadian literature, both in terms of its relationship to the complex history of the South Asian diaspora and in terms of the complex history of South Asian encounters with the Canadian space. Reading prose, poetry, drama, and theatrical institutions as locations where a specifically South Asian-Canadian diasporic subjectivity is reflected, I am able to map a range of individual negotiations among the cultural vector of the “ancestral” past, the cultural vector of the influence of European colonialism, and the cultural vector of this place that demonstrate that the negotiation of South Asian-Canadian diasporic subjectivity and its reflection in literature cannot be understood as producing a homogenous or “authentic” cultural identity. Instead, the literary expression of South Asian-Canadian diasporic subjectivity argues that the outcome of negotiations between cultural vectors that take place in this location are as unique as the individuals who undertake those negotiations. These individual negotiations, I argue, need to be read collectively to trace out a continuum of possible expressions of South Asian-Canadian diasporic subjectivity, a continuum that emphasizes that the processes of negotiation are on-going and flexible. This dissertation challenges the assumption that Canadian literature can be contained within the limits of a Canadian nationalist mythology or ethnography. Instead of the literature of the Canadian “nation” or the Canadian “people,” Canadian literature is best understood as the literature produced in this location by all the “minority” populations, including the dominant “minority.” Reading Canadian literature, then, is reading the differential relationships to history and community that occur in this place and which are inscribed in these collectively Canadian texts.

碩士
國立臺北藝術大學
戲劇學系碩(博)士班
106
This study treats the phase of theatre semiotics and practice of postcolonial writing-back in the contemporary Taiwanese indigenous theatre. Two performances which are 《Pu’ing: Searching for the Atayal Route》 and 《Maataw: the Floating Island》 produced by Formosa Indigenous Dance Troupe in 2013 and 2016 are respectively taken for discussion. I want to illustrate three issues in this study: 1. How have the creators utilized indigenous body traits and their ethnic contexts, and weaved cultural semiotics in contemporary theatre? Furthermore, have the postcolonial consciousness represented in these two performances? 2. In these two performances, creators’ focus changes from indigenous ethnic self-identity to resist social violence. Do the creators utilize different practices of writing-back in these different performances? 3. Contemporary Taiwanese indigenous theatres have diversified. They thus change creators self-questioning and further affect their creative fields and creatives style. What kind of new concept and energy will this change, from inside to outside, bright to us? So far, most of the Taiwan indigenous theatre researches have focused on the progress from traditional rituals to theatrical performances, as well as modern dances which combine and transform from indigenous dances and the body traits. Different from these, this study considering theatre semiotics and practice of postcolonial writing-back tries to find out a perspective for future observation.

Die verhandeling ondersoek die wyse waarop Deon Opperman die versetmotief in sy Afrikanerdramas uitbeeld en vernuwe om die veranderende sosiale omgewing te weerspieël. Hoofstuk 1 verskaf ‘n oorsig oor verset as leefwyse en motief in die Afrikaanse drama. Hoofstuk 2 bied ‘n teoretiese ondersoek van The theatre of revolt (Brustein 1991), ’n bespreking van begrippe soos herskrywing, multikulturalisme, moderne diaspora en globalisasie sowel as ‘n kontekstuele studie van Deon Opperman se Afrikaanse oeuvre. Hoofstuk 3 (Donkerland) fokus op verset binne ‘n postkoloniale herskrywing van die Afrikanergeskiedenis. Hoofstuk 4 (Kruispad en Ons vir jou) sentreer rondom sosiale verset binne ‘n multikulturele omgewing, terwyl hoofstuk 5 Kaburu as weerkaatsende teks en die aktuele kwessie van die moderne diaspora as versetreaksie aanspreek. Die verhandeling kom tot die slotsom dat Opperman versetteater gebruik om kommentaar op aktuele probleme te lewer en om terselfdertyd‘n boodskap van transformasie oor te dra.
The dissertation examines how Deon Opperman portrays and regenerates the revolt motif in his Afrikaner dramas, in order to reflect the changing social environment. Chapter 1 provides an overview of revolt as lifestyle and as motif in Afrikaans drama. Chapter 2 offers a theoretical examination of The theatre of revolt (Brustein 1991), a discussion of concepts such as rewriting, multiculturalism, modern diaspora and globalization, as well as a contextual study of Deon Opperman’s Afrikaans oeuvre. Chapter 3 (Donkerland) focuses on revolt within the postcolonial rewriting of Afrikaner history. Chapter 4 (Kruispad and Ons vir jou) deals with social revolt within a multicultural milieu, whereas chapter 5 discusses Kaburu as a reflecting text and addresses the issue of the modern diaspora as a reaction to political transition. The dissertation reaches the conclusion that Opperman is using South African theatre as a platform for revolt as well as for transformation.
Afrikaans & theory of Literature
MA (Afrikaans en Algemene Literatuurwetenskap)