Course details

Name: ENGL - 234

Title: AMERICAN DRAMA

Section: 01

Semester: Fall - 2018

Credits: 3

Description:
In this class, we will read well-known, influential plays written by Americans in the 20th century (and one or two from the 21st). We do so to understand not only how contemporary theater has developed—how certain themes and styles come in and out of fashion, how a period reacts to the one before—but also to see how successful plays work. This means attention to technique, word choice, pacing, stage directions, characterization, references and allusions, symbolism, the treatment of time: all the tools that theater offers to a writer.
We will pay attention to how these works of art reflect the place and the culture that they emerge from. The plays that a culture celebrates and remembers (or buries and recovers later) can tell us a great deal about what that culture wants to be or feels it should not be anymore. As we cover plays from across the century, we should remember the milieu that surrounded the playwright and how he/she talks back to their society.
Other sections of this class have focused on a broader timeline (drama after the War of Independence) and smaller (on more works from a handful of writers). We’re taking the approach we are because we can trace the treatment of social problems—a particular concern of the dramas we’re reading—through roughly World War II to the present. They also feature a modern understanding of human psychology and behavior, which certainly emerges in how they depict characters.

Authors studied will include Eugene O'Neill, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Lorraine Hansberry, August Wilson, Ntozake Shange, Tony Kushner, Paula Vogel, Nilo Cruz, and others.

Last updated on 2018-03-27 By Gonzalez Jeffrey (gonzalezje)

Schedule: Monday,Wednesday From 11:30 am To 12:45 pm

Graduation requirements:

  • Any Literature (1e)
  • Genre Study (Drama)
  • Other American (TE 1d)
  • Post-1900 (1d)
  • Ethnic Studies (3b)
  • Women and Gender Studies (3c)

Teaching Faculty: Gonzalez Jeffrey (gonzalezje)

Is course canceled: No