American ‘Unculture’ in French Drama [electronic resource] : Homo Americanus and the Post-1960 French Resistance /
Essif, Les.author.
A book about the role America plays in the French imagination, as it translates to the French stage. Informed by a rich variety of Western cultural scholarship, Essif examines two dozen post-1960 works representing some of the most innovative dramaturgy of the last half century, including works by Gatti, Obaldia, Cixous, Koltes, and Vinaver.
Description based upon print version of record.
Cover; Contents; List of Illustrations; Foreword; Acknowledgments; Introduction: Part 1; Homo americanus as global and cultural other; The Franco-European view of American anti-intellectualism; Dialectical 'culture as critique' versus American 'unculture'; The undialectical American doctrine of self-interest; Name That Culture! (or: What country am I in?); Introduction: Part 2; The hyper(un)reality of the American society of spectacle; You're either with the ideological, dialectical, and the metaphysical or you're with the enemy; The hyperreality of ultra-capitalism
The meaningful meaninglessness of mass uncultureHypertheatrical presentations of homo americanus unculture; Introduction to the plays; 1 The Hyperreality of the Western Frontier; Obaldia's 1965 Wind in the Branches of Sassafras (Du vent dans les branches de sassafras): the godliness of violence and capitalist consumption; Jean-Noël Fenwick's 1992 Calamity Jane ('Calamity Joan'?): the melodrama of unculture light; Catherine Anne's 2003 Joy of the Wind (Bonheur du vent): the stymied poetics of the uncultured western character and space
André Benedetto's 1975 Geronimo (Géronimo): the effects of unculture on everymanFernando Arrabal's 1974 On the Tightrope or Ballad of the Phantom Train (Sur le fil ou La Ballade du train fantôme): unculture as 'fascism light'; The Grand Magic Circus's 1974 From Moses to Mao: 5000 Years of Adventures and Love (De Moïse à Mao: 5.000 ans d'aventures et d'amour): the 'soft subversion' version of American unculture; Claude Duparfait's 1998 Oklahoma Romance: A Job Offer (Idylle à Oklahoma: Une offre d'emploi): America as Kafkaesque utopian-dystopian theatrical space
2 Homo Americanus War and ViolenceArmand Gatti's 1967 V for Vietnam (V comme Vietnam) and Michel Vinaver's 11 September 2001 (11 Septembre 2001): a voyage into the hyperreal epicenter of Americano-global war and conflict; Lost in space: American characters as creatures of a culture/dramaturgy of abstraction in Bernard-Marie Koltès's 1977 Sallinger; André Bénédetto's 1968 Napalm: the hypertheatrical reality of imperial war; Benedetto's 1972 Funeral Song for an American Soldier (Chant funèbre pour un soldat américain): the homo americanus unculture of fear
Hélène Cixous's 1985 The Terrible but Unfinished Story of Norodom Sihanouk, King of Cambodia (L'Histoire terrible mais inachevée de Norodom Sihanouk roi du Cambodge): American unculture in the light of Cambodian cosmopolitan humanismArmand Gatti's 1966 Public Song Before Two Electric Chairs (Chant public devant deux chaises électriques): the totalitarian performance of US unculture on a global stage; Pierre Halet's 1968 Little Boy: the cataclysmic psychological and uncultural fallout of the bomb; Gérard Gelas's 2002 Guantanamour: a GI's human 'race' against uncultural fear
Jean Audureau's 1977 In Memphis There's a Prodigiously Powerful Man (A Memphis il y a un homme d'une force prodigieuse): the unculture of benevolently demonic American gangsters
Includes bibliographical references and index.
A book about the role America plays in the French imagination, as it translates to the French stage. Informed by a rich variety of Western cultural scholarship, Essif examines two dozen post-1960 works representing some of the most innovative dramaturgy of the last half century, including works by Gatti, Obaldia, Cixous, Koltes, and Vinaver.
Literature, Modern—20th century.
Performing arts.
Theater—History.
European literature.
Twentieth-Century Literature.
Performing Arts.
Theatre History.
European Literature.