A Home You Can’t Live in: Performances of the Black Body and Domestic Space in Contemporary Drama

Simple item page
dc.contributor.advisorMay, Theresa
dc.contributor.authorGray, Leslie
dc.date.accessioned2015-08-18T23:10:40Z
dc.date.available2015-08-18T23:10:40Z
dc.date.issued2015-08-18
dc.description.abstractTheatre is often an invitation to enter the black home subject to its violations and crisis; this thesis repositions the black home and body in contemporary American and British theatre as constructed by the narratives and transgressions of the moment they are in. I examine Suzan-Lori Parks’ In the Blood, Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop and Sabrina Mahfouz’s Chef as sites of memory, nostalgia, and trauma where what is considered “home” resists the safety of concrete walls and a white picket fence. Instead, I argue the playwrights suggest, with their black female protagonists, that home transcends the material. Parks, Hall, and Mahfouz each meditate on what it means for black women to dwell in unsafe places, the home you don’t want to return to. This is significant in that it encourages a respect for the lived experiences and cultural knowledge acquired in autonomous homes and bodies of black women whose narratives have often been made invisible.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1794/19318
dc.language.isoen_US
dc.publisherUniversity of Oregon
dc.rightsAll Rights Reserved.
dc.subjectBlacken_US
dc.subjectBodyen_US
dc.subjectFemaleen_US
dc.subjectHomeen_US
dc.subjectTheateren_US
dc.titleA Home You Can’t Live in: Performances of the Black Body and Domestic Space in Contemporary Drama
dc.typeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
thesis.degree.disciplineDepartment of Theater Arts
thesis.degree.grantorUniversity of Oregon
thesis.degree.levelmasters
thesis.degree.nameM.A.

Files

Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Gray_oregon_0171N_11342.pdf
Size:
319.47 KB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Download

Collections

Theses and Dissertations
Theatre Arts Theses and Dissertations