The Dramatic Arts and Cultural Studies: Educating against the Grain

With the current, fast-paced, major philosophical challenges to modern life and its institutional constructs, artists and teachers involved in the multiple aspects of the dramatic arts are faced with demands to create a lucid postmodern play of ideas and forms. This book presents a wide range of contemporary theories borrowed from Cultural Studies augmented with practical implications that support dramatic artists in their struggle to create possible multiple realities for a postmodern future. Teachers, directors, writers, students, and many others involved in the dramatic arts will benefit from the discussions of Cultural Studies and the connections to the Dramatic Arts. An introductory chapter by Shirley Steinberg, a leading educator and drama teacher, provides a context for the basic premises of Cultural Studies and the Dramatic Arts. The next five chapters mix theory and practice while chapter seven provides questioning strategies and conventions that can be used in actual sessions to deconstructscripted or improvised dramatic texts. This is a useful introductory text for artists, directors, teachers, students, and others involved in the Dramatic Arts who would like to energize their work through contemporary theories and practices of Cultural Studies.

Kathleen S. Berry is a Professor of Education in Cultural Studies, Drama, and Literacy at the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, Canada.