Theatres in the Round

This collection of essays explores some of the avenues along which the field of comparative drama studies could be reconfigured at the dawn of the twenty-first century. It offers a comparative analysis of theatre across national and linguistic boundaries while simultaneously acknowledging newer trends in ethnic studies. Indeed, the contributors to this critical anthology productively combine traditional comparative literature methodologies with performance approaches and postcolonial perspectives. In this way, they shed new light on the intertextual, multi-ethnic, and cross-cultural dialogues linking theatrical traditions from Europe, North America, Asia, Africa, and the Pacific region. This book's broad scope bears testimony to the fact that transnational studies can fruitfully illuminate the multiple dramatic voices of our increasingly globalized age.

Dorothy Figueira is Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Georgia (USA). Her most recent book is Otherwise Occupied: Pedagogies of Alterity and the Brahminization of Theory. She has published extensively on East-West literary relations, literary theory, travel narratives, and exoticism. She has served as President of the International Comparative Literature Association (ICLA). Marc Maufort is Professor of English, American and postcolonial literatures at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium. He is the current European Secretary of the International Comparative Literature Association (ICLA). His most recent book is Labyrinth of Hybridities: Avatars of O'Neillian Realism in Multi-ethnic American Drama (1972-2003). Sylvie Vranckx is a Research Fellow with the National Fund for Scientific Research-Belgium. A PhD candidate at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, she is writing a doctoral dissertation on the representation of trauma in the works of Aboriginal Canadian writers.