(Re)constructing maternal performance in twentieth-century American drama /
McDaniel, L. Bailey,1968-
Looking at a century of American theatre, McDaniel investigates how racially-informed notions of motherhood become sites of resistance to social and political hierarchies. (Re)Constructing Maternal Performance in Twentieth-Century Drama locates a broad tradition of 'counter maternities', politically resistant performances that engage essentialist identities. While resituating motherhood as a role not always tied to biological gender, McDaniel employs a methodology informed by cultural, gender, and theatre studies and considers how the construction of mothering as universally women's work obscures additional, marginalizing identities based in race and class. -- Publisher website.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Introduction: If it's not one thing, it's your mother: race, sex, class and "essential" maternity -- New woman (re)production: progressive era eugenics in Rachel Crothers' "feminist" mother -- Ethnic anxieties, post-modern angst, and maternal bodies in Philip Kan Gotanda's The wash and fish head soup -- Race and the "domestic" threat: sexing the Mammy in Tony Kushner, Alfred Uhry, and Cheryl West -- Queering the domestic diaspora, "enduring" borderlands: Cherríe Moraga's Familia de la frontera -- Conclusion: Nurturing performance, raising questions.
Looking at a century of American theatre, McDaniel investigates how racially-informed notions of motherhood become sites of resistance to social and political hierarchies. (Re)Constructing Maternal Performance in Twentieth-Century Drama locates a broad tradition of 'counter maternities', politically resistant performances that engage essentialist identities. While resituating motherhood as a role not always tied to biological gender, McDaniel employs a methodology informed by cultural, gender, and theatre studies and considers how the construction of mothering as universally women's work obscures additional, marginalizing identities based in race and class. -- Publisher website.
American drama
Motherhood in literature.
Sex role in literature.