Contemporary Drama Research Articles

Unravelling the Intricacies of Love and Hatred: A Comparative Analysis of the Classic 'Romeo and Juliet' and Hashim Nadeem's Contemporary Drama 'Khuda Aur Muhabbat Season 3'

This paper aims to probe into the tragedy of two young lovers viewing the concept of exploration of love and hatred elements in Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet and Hashim Nadeem’ s drama Khuda Aur Muhabbat (season 3). The study seeks to delve into the intricate tapestry of intricacies of love and hatred in both plays by unravelling its layers to reveal subtle patterns and underlying motifs. A strong theoretical foundation is established in the present study by incorporating feminist perspectives into the expedition of identity construction. Through a precise exploration of characters, settings, and narrative elements, the researcher carries out a thematic analysis, offering readers a comprehensive perspective that unveils the profound significance of hurdles in love. For the very purpose, this study utilizes purposive sampling technique to select a qualitative sample of five dialogues from two seminal works, investigating distinct cultural and temporal contexts. Finally the findings illuminate the persistent universality of pure love, sacrifice, and tragic consequences, resonating across Shakespeare's timeless classics and Hashim Nadeem's contemporary narratives.

The war on the Dniester in 1992 in the contemporary drama of Moldova

Bessarabian playwrights, at the turn of the centuries, addressed several taboo subjects, such as it was and still is the Dniester War of 1992. However, the evocation of this event that has already become history served as the pre/subtext of the following dramatic texts: Saxofonul cu frunze roşii/Saxophone with red leaves by Val Butnaru, staged at ”Luceafărul” Theater (1998); the plays by C. Cheianu Noi/We, staged at ”Luceafărul” Theater (1994), and Ţara asta a uitat de Noi…/This country has forgotten us…, at the National Theater ”Satiricus I. L. Caragiale” (2011); Fata cea mută a început să vorbească/The dumb girl started talking by D. Crudu, Teatrul Radiofonic România (2013); Tără(z)boi by Mariana Starciuc staged in Satu Mare, Iasi, Piatra Neamţ (2018); Valsul Tancurilor/Tanks’ Waltz by Irina Nechit staged at the National Theater ”Satiricus I.L. Caragiale” (2020). The scenes of the texts, written in different registers, alternate from deep drama to overwhelming tragedy, the amalgam of realism and fiction being, however, nuanced. Of an overwhelming topicality, these dramatic works are not only chronicles, but also open files in which the characters play the role of participants, witnesses, prosecutors, lawyers, executors. Thus, these plays are a true history lesson provoking the touching of sensitive chords and reviving the memory of present and future generations.

Ukrainian Theater After the Full-Scale Russian Invasion: A New Reading of Canonical Plays

The article analyzes the new senses that appeared in the 2021–2022 Ukrainian theater performances of canonical works. Two of the productions in question are based on Ukrainian classical texts, namely Taras Shevchenko’s “mystery poem” “Velykyi Lyokh” (The Great Dungeon) and Lesya Ukrainka’s dramatic poem Cassandra. The other two productions, based on Sophocles’ tragedy Oedipus Rex and Albert Camus’ play Caligula, consciously seek answers to the challenges of the new Ukrainian reality in the canon of world drama. The full-scale Russian invasion has made the well-known meanings in these works more clearly visible and added new ones. Against the backdrop of media discussions about the mental health of the Russian president, Caligula by the Ivan Franko Theater (Kyiv) reflects on the psychology of an authoritarian ruler. Oedipus Rex by the Theater on Podil (Kyiv) shows why the demand for justice is growing in wartime society and the moral side of actions is becoming increasingly important. The Great Dungeon by the Poltava Puppet Theater tells the dramatic story of the Russo-Ukrainian War through the prism of Shevchenko’s historical analogies. Cassandra by the Ivan Franko Theater creates the atmosphere of an vulnerable, open-air space where every inhabitant, except for the protagonist, prefers to protect themselves with fanciful constructions of ephemeral illusions. While the tragic reality of the Russо-Ukrainian War has led to the emergence of a large body of contemporary drama that interprets the new experience of Ukrainian society, the war reality has become a prerequisite for a significant rethinking of theatrical texts from the Ukrainian and Western European canon. Thus, Ukrainian theater is actively engaging with the new reality, intervening in various ways in current public discussions that aim to comprehend the drama of the war, and creating a safe space for a common emotional response to the latest tragic experience.

Contemporary Black Theater as a Possibility of Intersectional Critical Praxis

Since the Brazilian black theater groups are growing up in cities such as São Paulo and other capitals from Brazil, it becomes necessary to investigate the impact of their productions and organizations in aesthetic, political, and cultural perspectives. In the work of Abdias do Nascimento, black theater used to be proposed as a way to reflect on its identity. This characteristic remains until the present with different demands and prisms. The aim of this paper is to analyze the contemporary play IDA, a work that has the identity as theme for the Brazilian black women, considering identity in its fragmentations and intersections. As a result, it is expected to offer a better understanding of both the political and aesthetic possibilities of contemporary black performing arts, especially in the face of identity disputes as intersectional critical praxis.

Study of Samuel Beckett with a New Perspective

The term ’absurdity’ is very much attached with the playwright, Samuel Beckett of the 1950s. It is a state of mind where nothing is concrete; everything is hazy and fluid. That type of mental make-up is made mainly due to a vacuum created in the socio-political and cultural arena after the World War II and culminated into a concrete shape in the fifties. In the field of theatre Samuel Beckett for the first time exposed the absurd situation of human beings on the stage. Though apparently he is tagged as an absurd dramatist, a question always peeps in the mind of the readers. Should he rightly be called an absurdist? Does he really believe in the concept of absurdity? This article tries to find out a rational answer to these queries analysing his two plays and attaching him with other dramatists of the time. It appears the dramas –‘Waiting for Godot’ and ‘Endgame’ speak of the meaningless journey of human life and it is the destiny. But, perhaps, there is a scope to analyse his dramas from a new perspective which is related to his new dramatic technique and the ending of his plays. Perhaps it can be boldly said that Beckett has not finished the dramas in an absurd manner; a kind of positive outlook towards life is coming out at the end of the plays. Waiting for a meaningful life is very much explicit in ‘Waiting for Godot’ and in ‘Endgame’. His other contemporary dramatists have dealt with the absurd situation of human life of the time in their own ways. Hence, Beckett has not only presented the absurd human condition in vivid manners, but has also tried to hint a way out to overcome the issues.

“Do not destroy me before my time”: Iphigenia’s Versions and Appropriations in Contemporary Irish Theatre

Iphigenia in Aulis has been adapted by Irish contemporary playwrights such as Marina Carr, Edna O’Brien or Andy Hinds. This article offers an introductory analysis of the reasons behind the Irish interest towards the Greek tragedy, followed by a comparative study of the three versions mentioned. The identification of the overarching themes will unveil the spaces for transformation: while Carr focuses on the depiction of a modern and corrupt Agamemnon and the rewriting of strong women, O’Brien adds extra plots and characters to highlight feminist voices, and Hinds eliminates, adds and relocates lines from the original play, to write a more performable version. Conclusions reveal the rewriting of the concept of sacrificial women, and present the three plays as relevant contributions to the reception of Euripides in Ireland.

Contemporary Drama and the Question of the Neo-avant-garde Legacy of the 1960s and 1970s

To some extent, contemporary drama is the heir of the neo-avant-garde of the late 1960s and1970s. This time was that of the so-called performative turn, which pulled theatre away fromrepresentation and towards presentation. The subsequent development can be designatedby various labels, such as postdramatic theatre, the aesthetics of the performative and, in thecase of dramatic texts, the no longer dramatic theatre text, “In-Yer-Face” theatre, etc.
 In Slovenia, a decisive turn from text to event took place towards the end of the 1960s.During this time, the first happenings and performance art pieces were taking place. Inreviewing the performance Pupilija, papa Pupilo pa Pupilčki (Pupillja, Papa Pupilo and thePupilceks), Veno Taufer went as far as to declare the death of literary theatre. At firstglance, it would thus appear that contemporary playwriting is merely repeating earlierpatterns. While contemporary playwriting may more radically formulate linguistic andaesthetic games, it deconstructs the dramatic form and thus radicalises the premises ofthe neo-avant-gardes; in the last two decades, we have been talking about a return todramatic, post-postdramatic and dramatic drama, etc.
 Through a comparative analysis of two of the more radical texts from Blaž Lukan’s anthologyGenerator:: za proizvodnjo poljubnega števila dramskih kompleksov (The Generator:: forManufacturing Any Number of Drama Complexes), namely Dušan Jovanović’s Sinopsisza happening Hlapci (Synopsis for The Happening of Lackeys) and Rastko Močnik’sGenerator, ki iz določenih enot in po preprostih pravilih proizvaja poljubno število dramskihkompleksov (A Generator that Produces Any Number of Drama Complexes from GivenUnits and According to Simple Rules) as well as Simona Semenič’s mi, evropski mrliči(we, the european corpses) and Varja Hrvatin’s Vse se je začelo z golažem iz zajčkov (ItAll Started with the Bunny Rabbit Goulash), the paper shows that the neo-avant-gardeis more about the question of theatrical performances and the form of the dramatic text,while contemporary drama is more about the search for authenticity and dramatic effects.

Contemporary Drama and the Question of the Neo-avant-garde Legacy of the 1960s and 1970s

To some extent, contemporary drama is the heir of the neo-avant-garde of the late 1960s and 1970s. This time was that of the so-called performative turn, which pulled theatre away from representation and towards presentation. The subsequent development can be designated by various labels, such as postdramatic theatre, the aesthetics of the performative and, in the case of dramatic texts, the no longer dramatic theatre text, “In-Yer-Face” theatre, etc. In Slovenia, a decisive turn from text to event took place towards the end of the 1960s. During this time, the first happenings and performance art pieces were taking place. In reviewing the performance Pupilija, papa Pupilo pa Pupilčki (Pupillja, Papa Pupilo and the Pupilceks), Veno Taufer went as far as to declare the death of literary theatre. At first glance, it would thus appear that contemporary playwriting is merely repeating earlier patterns. While contemporary playwriting may more radically formulate linguistic and aesthetic games, it deconstructs the dramatic form and thus radicalises the premises of the neo-avant-gardes; in the last two decades, we have been talking about a return to dramatic, post-postdramatic and dramatic drama, etc. Through a comparative analysis of two of the more radical texts from Blaž Lukan’s anthology Generator:: za proizvodnjo poljubnega števila dramskih kompleksov (The Generator:: for Manufacturing Any Number of Drama Complexes), namely Dušan Jovanović’s Sinopsis za happening Hlapci (Synopsis for The Happening of Lackeys) and Rastko Močnik’s Generator, ki iz določenih enot in po preprostih pravilih proizvaja poljubno število dramskih kompleksov (A Generator that Produces Any Number of Drama Complexes from Given Units and According to Simple Rules) as well as Simona Semenič’s mi, evropski mrliči (we, the european corpses) and Varja Hrvatin’s Vse se je začelo z golažem iz zajčkov (It All Started with the Bunny Rabbit Goulash), the paper shows that the neo-avant-garde is more about the question of theatrical performances and the form of the dramatic text, while contemporary drama is more about the search for authenticity and dramatic effects.

Contemporary Drama and the Question of the Neo-avant-garde Legacy of the 1960s and 1970s

To some extent, contemporary drama is the heir of the neo-avant-garde of the late 1960s and 1970s. This time was that of the so-called performative turn, which pulled theatre away from representation and towards presentation. The subsequent development can be designated by various labels, such as postdramatic theatre, the aesthetics of the performative and, in the case of dramatic texts, the no longer dramatic theatre text, “In-Yer-Face” theatre, etc. In Slovenia, a decisive turn from text to event took place towards the end of the 1960s. During this time, the first happenings and performance art pieces were taking place. In reviewing the performance Pupilija, papa Pupilo pa Pupilčki (Pupillja, Papa Pupilo and the Pupilceks), Veno Taufer went as far as to declare the death of literary theatre. At first glance, it would thus appear that contemporary playwriting is merely repeating earlier patterns. While contemporary playwriting may more radically formulate linguistic and aesthetic games, it deconstructs the dramatic form and thus radicalises the premises of the neo-avant-gardes; in the last two decades, we have been talking about a return to dramatic, post-postdramatic and dramatic drama, etc. Through a comparative analysis of two of the more radical texts from Blaž Lukan’s anthology Generator:: za proizvodnjo poljubnega števila dramskih kompleksov (The Generator:: for Manufacturing Any Number of Drama Complexes), namely Dušan Jovanović’s Sinopsis za happening Hlapci (Synopsis for The Happening of Lackeys) and Rastko Močnik’s Generator, ki iz določenih enot in po preprostih pravilih proizvaja poljubno število dramskih kompleksov (A Generator that Produces Any Number of Drama Complexes from Given Units and According to Simple Rules) as well as Simona Semenič’s mi, evropski mrliči (we, the european corpses) and Varja Hrvatin’s Vse se je začelo z golažem iz zajčkov (It All Started with the Bunny Rabbit Goulash), the paper shows that the neo-avant-garde is more about the question of theatrical performances and the form of the dramatic text, while contemporary drama is more about the search for authenticity and dramatic effects.

Contemporary Drama and the Question of the Neo-avant-garde Legacy of the 1960s and 1970s

To some extent, contemporary drama is the heir of the neo-avant-garde of the late 1960s and 1970s. This time was that of the so-called performative turn, which pulled theatre away from representation and towards presentation. The subsequent development can be designated by various labels, such as postdramatic theatre, the aesthetics of the performative and, in the case of dramatic texts, the no longer dramatic theatre text, “In-Yer-Face” theatre, etc. In Slovenia, a decisive turn from text to event took place towards the end of the 1960s. During this time, the first happenings and performance art pieces were taking place. In reviewing the performance Pupilija, papa Pupilo pa Pupilčki (Pupillja, Papa Pupilo and the Pupilceks), Veno Taufer went as far as to declare the death of literary theatre. At first glance, it would thus appear that contemporary playwriting is merely repeating earlier patterns. While contemporary playwriting may more radically formulate linguistic and aesthetic games, it deconstructs the dramatic form and thus radicalises the premises of the neo-avant-gardes; in the last two decades, we have been talking about a return to dramatic, post-postdramatic and dramatic drama, etc. Through a comparative analysis of two of the more radical texts from Blaž Lukan’s anthology Generator:: za proizvodnjo poljubnega števila dramskih kompleksov (The Generator:: for Manufacturing Any Number of Drama Complexes), namely Dušan Jovanović’s Sinopsis za happening Hlapci (Synopsis for The Happening of Lackeys) and Rastko Močnik’s Generator, ki iz določenih enot in po preprostih pravilih proizvaja poljubno število dramskih kompleksov (A Generator that Produces Any Number of Drama Complexes from Given Units and According to Simple Rules) as well as Simona Semenič’s mi, evropski mrliči (we, the european corpses) and Varja Hrvatin’s Vse se je začelo z golažem iz zajčkov (It All Started with the Bunny Rabbit Goulash), the paper shows that the neo-avant-garde is more about the question of theatrical performances and the form of the dramatic text, while contemporary drama is more about the search for authenticity and dramatic effects.

Contemporary Drama and the Question of the Neo-avant-garde Legacy of the 1960s and 1970s

To some extent, contemporary drama is the heir of the neo-avant-garde of the late 1960s and 1970s. This time was that of the so-called performative turn, which pulled theatre away from representation and towards presentation. The subsequent development can be designated by various labels, such as postdramatic theatre, the aesthetics of the performative and, in the case of dramatic texts, the no longer dramatic theatre text, “In-Yer-Face” theatre, etc. In Slovenia, a decisive turn from text to event took place towards the end of the 1960s. During this time, the first happenings and performance art pieces were taking place. In reviewing the performance Pupilija, papa Pupilo pa Pupilčki (Pupillja, Papa Pupilo and the Pupilceks), Veno Taufer went as far as to declare the death of literary theatre. At first glance, it would thus appear that contemporary playwriting is merely repeating earlier patterns. While contemporary playwriting may more radically formulate linguistic and aesthetic games, it deconstructs the dramatic form and thus radicalises the premises of the neo-avant-gardes; in the last two decades, we have been talking about a return to dramatic, post-postdramatic and dramatic drama, etc. Through a comparative analysis of two of the more radical texts from Blaž Lukan’s anthology Generator:: za proizvodnjo poljubnega števila dramskih kompleksov (The Generator:: for Manufacturing Any Number of Drama Complexes), namely Dušan Jovanović’s Sinopsis za happening Hlapci (Synopsis for The Happening of Lackeys) and Rastko Močnik’s Generator, ki iz določenih enot in po preprostih pravilih proizvaja poljubno število dramskih kompleksov (A Generator that Produces Any Number of Drama Complexes from Given Units and According to Simple Rules) as well as Simona Semenič’s mi, evropski mrliči (we, the european corpses) and Varja Hrvatin’s Vse se je začelo z golažem iz zajčkov (It All Started with the Bunny Rabbit Goulash), the paper shows that the neo-avant-garde is more about the question of theatrical performances and the form of the dramatic text, while contemporary drama is more about the search for authenticity and dramatic effects.

In Memoriam: Dr. Steven H. Gale

I first became acquainted with Steve and his scholarship on Harold Pinter in the late 1970s, when he published his first critical monograph, Butter’s Going Up: A Critical Analysis of Harold Pinter’s Work, in 1977, followed by the volume Harold Pinter: An Annotated Bibliography, in 1978. We began corresponding, leading to my meeting and interviewing him a few years later, in 1982, when I began part of my research for my book Pinter in Play: Critical Strategies and the Plays of Harold Pinter (1990, 1995), which involved traveling to interview Pinter scholars in person, in the United States and abroad. With warm hospitality, Steve invited and welcomed me into his and Kathy’s home in Joplin, Missouri, while I conducted and taped our interview in depth, with Kathy providing sustenance for our coffee break and lunch. A main takeaway from our personal interview was how important family was to Steve—how devoted he was as a husband and a father (which is also borne out by the wonderful photos posted online in his memorial “Life Tributes” album, hosted by Harrod Brothers.com). Understanding Steve’s personal values pertaining to family also provided me with insights about thematic emphases in his critical analyses of Pinter’s work.In 1986, during the annual convention of the Modern Language Association (MLA), Steve brought together a small group of us to discuss forming what would become the Harold Pinter Society, extending my own suggestion of basing it on the example of the Samuel Beckett Society (and the Journal of Beckett Studies [JOBS]), which had been launched in the previous decade. Steve became the Pinter Society’s founding president, marshaling its successful application as an Allied Organization of the MLA (following the Beckett Society), and establishing The Pinter Review, which he co-edited with Dr. Francis X. Gillen, of the University of Tampa, published from 1987 through 2011 (after Steve retired from co-editorship, Dr. Gillen edited its final volume before retiring in turn). The Pinter Review has been succeeded by The Harold Pinter Review: Essays on Contemporary Drama (2017–), reformulated and edited by Dr. Ann C. Hall (University of Louisville), who has also been presiding most recently over the Pinter Society (now known as the International Harold Pinter Society). During the 1986 MLA Convention foundational get-together, knowing that I was working on what became my book Pinter in Play, Steve and Frank invited me to develop what became my “Harold Pinter Bibliography” in The Pinter Review. Steve’s initiatives have led to highly productive and long-lasting professional and personal relationships among colleagues all over the world, connected through our mutual interests in the life and work of Harold Pinter and teaching about the media for which Pinter created work.Over four decades, Steve joined with us in academic conferences and related cultural events throughout the United States and abroad to present papers, share insights and anecdotes over drinks and meals, and get to know one another, leading to still-developing collaborations and intersecting communities, and much-treasured institutional and personal memories. Through his own work on Pinter’s oeuvre, Steve was a prime mover: he led to much of our own scholarship, performances, and productions, across media and cultures, and we will all miss him. My condolences to Kathy and to all of Steve’s lovely family.

Children’s Digital and Non-Digital Play Practices with Cozmo, the Toy Robot

Children’s Digital and Non-Digital Play Practices with Cozmo, the Toy Robot

‘Native woodnotes wild’: Shakespeare, his contemporaries, and the syntax of negation

This paper builds on findings on variation in Elizabethan grammar, analysing the syntax of negation in a large number of Shakespearean stage dramas and those of his contemporaries. It shows that Shakespeare differed substantially from them grammatically and stylistically. His contemporaries most often adhered to the emerging standard pattern of avoiding Subject-Verb syntax and multiple negation, whereas Shakespeare made much greater use of it, especially in coordinate contexts. In other contexts, use of multiple negation by other authors was usually for characterological purposes, whereas in Shakespeare it is employed as a stylistic resource regardless of the character’s social standing. These findings are interpreted against the background of sociolinguistic research on diachronic English syntax, showing that higher-status individuals led the change away from multiple negation. The differing outcomes are related to Shakespeare’s provincial background and non-participation in a university milieu, distinguishing him from the ‘golden triangle’ background of his contemporary dramatists.

Shifting sands of the past and the present in drama of the New South Africa: Neil Coppen’s Tin Bucket Drum and Nadia Davids’ What Remains

The experimental pedigree of South African drama of the anti-apartheid period requires no introduction. This pedigree was established during the years of anti-apartheid playwriting of the 1970s and 80s when South Africa’s iniquitous politics of race relations was put under the spotlight on local and world stages. This was achieved through the work of playwrights such as Mbongeni Ngema, Percy Mtwa, Athol Fugard and Matsemela Manaka, among others. This paper focuses on the drama of the post-apartheid era to argue that three decades after the formal end of apartheid, some of the most recent plays from South Africa have adopted themes and styles that draw from an atavistic recourse to the stylistics and experimental drama of apartheid era protest plays to address new challenges which are steeped in continuing social injustice. The paper adopts the climatic metaphor of shifting sands to analyse how post-apartheid drama simultaneously crosses and integrates aesthetic borders to create innovative and complex narratives which bring together the craft of African storytelling theatre, dance and choreography that are in turn infused with multi-media as social commentary. The paper focuses on Neil Coppen’s Tin Bucket Drum and Nadia Davids’ What Remains as examples of the continuing provenance of experimental aesthetic border crossing in the drama of South Africa today. This aesthetic border crossing deploys new forms of multimedia as decentring social critique in post-apartheid South Africa. The paper showcases how Nadia Davids and Neil Coppen use the past and the present both literally and metaphorically to craft intriguing contemporary dramas in which incident and character come together as profound metaphors of the country’s on-going struggle to reconcile a troubled past with an imagined future.

O'Neill's Theatre: Arab Reviewers' Critics on Its Presentation and Appeal

One of the most contentious personalities in contemporary play is Eugene O'Neill. His life experiences and inner problems, which influenced his creativity and contributed to his renown as a dramatist, have drawn criticism from Arab and European scholars and critics. His theater stands out for its variety and is present everywhere. The page concentrates on four Arab reviewers: Brahim Alariss, Sameer Mohammed Ismaiel, Riyadh Assmat, and Dr. Yessin Attiya. They offer their perspectives on O'Neill and his work. The critic of Brahim Alariss is featured in the first section of this study and talks about O'Neill's accomplishments, his realistic approach, his styles and techniques from symbolic to naturalistic to expressionism to theater of masks as well as some personal matters. His theater stands out for its variety and is present everywhere. The article focuses on some of the reviews by Arab authors. In the second half, Sameer Mohammed Ismaiel discusses Hisham Kaferneh's efforts to revive "Desire Beneath the Elms" for a new performance by the Damascus National Theater Group. In the Syrian version, the program is categorized as "House of Desire." In the third section, Dr. Yessin Attiya writes on the usage of masks and the relationships between the characters in addition to explaining the role of the characters, monologues, and stage directions.The fourth section examines how the article "O'Neill Noble Prize in the Theater Excursion and the Search for Gold" “جائز أوجين أونيل في رحلة المسرح و البحث عن الذهب” in Meo Midst Online demonstrates O'Neill's talent, brilliance, and life experience. The piece by Riyadh Assmat, who discusses American theater celebrating the resurrection of Eugene O'Neill's work, is found in the last section (1888-1953). Keywords: Arab reviewers, form, experience, style, theatre, techniques DOI: 10.7176/JEP/14-13-05 Publication date: May 31 st 2023

A Fervent Crusade for the National Soul: Cultural Politics in Colombia, 1930–1946

This timely, well-organized, and highly relevant book might best be read by starting with the epilogue and working backward. Catalina Muñoz-Rojas focuses on the cultural politics of the Colombian Liberal Republic from 1930 to 1946 and the political culture of Liberal elites and bureaucrats who sought to include the popular sectors in the national citizenry. Those policies and practices also included traditional elitist, exclusionary polices to legitimize Liberal rule. The author places her home nation into a much broader and inclusive world, revealing how this paradoxical tension between inclusion and exclusion in governance and politics shapes the formation and contestation of citizenship in Colombia and in much of the Americas.The author argues and proves that Liberal reformers invented a notion of el pueblo as legitimate but static, romanticized, and essentialized campesinos, indígenas, women, and workers all in need of paternalistic direction and moral uplift by Liberal elites for Colombia to progress. Their constructions of “popular culture” revealed an elite-imagined purity lacking in reality, the gap between classes glaringly obvious when working-class families were tutored on how to achieve middle-class dreams while stuck living lives of poverty. Overall, the author finds that the Liberal reformers opened national identity for greater inclusion—especially for mestizos and indígenas—while rewarding themselves a place of privilege that legitimized their rule. Tellingly, and a lesson of universal import, inclusion and domination became two outcomes of the same process.This work started life as a University of Pennsylvania dissertation and morphed through time and experience into a polished monograph. The introduction situates the work and orients the reader in the dynamics of state formation and cultural politics during the Liberal Republic, the author citing relevant historiography from both English- and Spanish-language sources. Four chapters cover, respectively, the cultural politics of music; the forging of citizenship on stage and screen; hygiene campaigns and the healing of a population seen by elites as sick, weak, and in need of instruction on correct habits; and a reimagined past and a more inclusive notion of citizenship beyond the traditional Hispanist, Catholic, and white paradigm inherited from the colonial past. The tensions and contradictions inherent in democratic governance, and the definitions of citizenship manipulated and limited by elite authoritarians to justify their rule, could find easy comparison in contemporary Brazil and the United States.The stunning epilogue situates the book in the contemporary dramas of Colombia from 2019 to 2021, ranging from antigovernment protests, increasing poverty and immiseration, COVID-19, and a cynical tax reform met by intensifying protests and repression rather than dialogue from a government that still saw the public as unworthy of citizenship. The author makes clear that the cultural politics of the 1930s and the 1940s are part of long historical continuities that must be understood in order to build a more just, inclusive, and democratic order.Most of the book's primary sources come from archives and libraries in Bogotá, which prevents a larger national scope while illustrating the highly centralized and pocketed nature of the Colombian state. The author is a careful historian and is open to interdisciplinary insights from anthropology as well as cultural and literary studies. Professor Muñoz-Rojas moves with ease between languages, disciplines, and nations, connecting her work across a broad swath of the Americas. One hopes that a publisher will issue a Spanish translation soon, given the importance of the author's work in Colombia and across Latin America.Minor gripes include the lack of a glossary listing government acronyms for easy review and the lack of illustrations. More coverage of the state's emphasis on physical education for both males and females would have added to the author's focus on hygiene and the shaping of a healthier, more modern population. More coverage of Afro-Colombians and their views of and responses to the Liberal reformers' reimagined past and model of citizenry, which either ignored or disparaged Blackness, would also have been welcome. Finally, more discussion of Peruvian indigenista critiques—like those of José Carlos Mariátegui—of the abuses of the Indigenous population by the Catholic Church and large landowners would have provided context for the critiques of said abuses by the Colombian Left and by José Martí in Cuba and José Vasconcelos in Mexico.The writing is clear, jargon-free, and engaging. Graduate students in history and Latin American studies, specialists, and dedicated general readers will find much in this book about Colombian history as well as informed and sophisticated debates about democratic governance. Students of sociology and political science will also find useful comparative data for their work on state formation and democratic governance and on state and society dynamics in Latin America.

Internet space in the contemporary drama about teenagers

The article considers modern plays that show the peculiarities of the teenagers communication in the Internet. The aim of the study is to determine the impact that, according to playwrights, in the Internet communication has on the fate of adolescents. The empirical material for the study was the plays of 2013-2020, noted at the competitions of the contemporary dramaturgy and included in the collections of teenage plays: "Photo topless" by N. Blok, "That's all she" by A. Ivanov, "Mart and Sliva" by E. Bizyaeva, "Gandhi was silent on Saturdays" by A. Bukreeva. The theoretical and methodological basis of the study is based on a combination of an interdisciplinary approach with an analysis of works on literary criticism, theater studies and psychology. As a result of the investigation, it was found that playwrights reconstruct the situation of characters' being in the Internet and reflect the communication of teenagers with their peers, adults and anonymous users, whose age or gender cannot be determined. The emerging conflict situations are associated with the violation of personal boundaries (bringing the conflict into the public space of the Internet), the substitution of live communication with virtual one, the manipulation by adults of the fragile consciousness of children. In some cases, the Internet space is portrayed as a digital copy of the real life of adolescents, while the Internet becomes a platform to which traditional adolescent conflicts are transferred. In other cases, the Internet becomes a place where a teenager goes to, being in conflict with the present.

Aleksandr Tikhonovich Parfyonov. An eminent Russian scholar of Shakespeare

The essay introduces a block of materials in remembrance of the literary scholar Aleksandr Tikhonovich Parfyonov. His field of interest was Shakespeare, his time and contemporary playwrights. The object of Parfyonov’s first thesis was Christopher Marlowe and the legend of Tamburlaine; for his doctoral degree he chose another genre: Ben Jonson’s comedy Volpone. This shift was partly inspired by the publication of M. Bakhtin’s book on Rabelais and folk culture of universal laughter. The essay presents the scholar and provides some personal recollections of a joyful, witty man with an enthusiastic involvement in all arts while music stood out first. When in 1988 an organiser of the Russian Shakespeare studies, Anikst, died, Parfyonov felt the responsibility to go on with his unifying efforts, though the time of social stress was not fit for a serious academic work. For the current publication, one of the chapters written by him for an unpublished school book on literature was dug up from the scholar’s archive. A close reading of Hemingway’s short story represents Parfyonov’s deep penetration and his literary taste.

FROM SUITCASE CHILDREN TO EURO-ORPHANS: CINEMATIC PORTRAYALS

This study analyses three European films about children left behind by their parents in their home countries due to labour migration. Developed in the German language in the second half of the twentieth century as Kofferkinder (suitcase children), this concept has been called Euro-orphans since the twenty-first century. Although neological concepts and time-space differ, the experiences and traumas of the children and parents concerned are similar. From the 1950s onwards, such family disintegrations affected a noteworthy part of the population immigrating to Germany and other European countries from Greece and Italy and the 1960s onwards, from Turkey. Later, migrant parents from Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova, and Poland left their children with relatives, neighbours or in childcare facilities, which has become an essential sociological fact regarding the migration phenomenon that prevents family reunification and causes lifelong trauma, especially for children. With changing social, political and economic conditions, migration causes children left behind not to receive parental care in the long term. This study reveals the glocality of the issue through a sociological analysis of three films about migration from Turkey, Romania and Poland, selected according to judgemental sampling. According to the findings, Sandstern (2018) depicts the reunification of a Turkish suitcase boy with his parents in Germany and the challenges of his otherness and alienation from a distant history of the 1980s. Calea Dunării (2013) and I am Kuba (2015) tell more contemporary dramas of Euro-Orphans. In conclusion, while the selected films depict children left behind, migration here has an involuntary character as a way of escaping poverty in different times and geographies.