August Wilson: Completing the Twentieth-Century Cycle
edited by Alan Nadel
University of Iowa Press, 2010 Paper: 978-1-58729-875-2 | eISBN: 978-1-58729-935-3 Library of Congress Classification PS3573.I45677Z565 2010 Dewey Decimal Classification 812.54
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Just prior to his death in 2005, August Wilson, arguably the most important American playwright of the last quarter-century, completed an ambitious cycle of ten plays, each set in a different decade of the twentieth century. Known as the Twentieth-Century Cycle or the Pittsburgh Cycle, the plays, which portrayed the struggles of African-Americans, won two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama, a Tony Award for Best Play, and seven New York Drama Critics Circle Awards. August Wilson: Completing the Twentieth-Century Cycle is the first volume devoted to the last five plays of the cycle individually—Jitney,Seven Guitars, King Hedley II, Gem of the Ocean, and Radio Golf—and in the context of Wilson's entire body of work.
Editor Alan Nadel's May All Your Fences Have Gates: Essays on the Drama of August Wilson, a work Henry Louis Gates called definitive, focused on the first five plays of Wilson's cycle. This new collection examines from myriad perspectives the way Wilson's final works give shape and focus to his complete dramatic opus. It contains an outstanding and diverse array of discussions from leading Wilson scholars and literary critics. Together, the essays in Nadel's two volumes give Wilson's work the breadth of analysis and understanding that this major figure of American drama merits.
Contributors
Herman Beavers
Yvonne Chambers
Soyica Diggs Colbert
Harry J. Elam, Jr.
Nathan Grant
David LaCroix
Barbara Lewis
Alan Nadel
Donald E. Pease
Sandra Shannon
Vivian Gist Spencer
Anthony Stewart
Steven C. Tracy
Dana Williams
Kimmika L. H. Williams-Witherspoon
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Alan Nadel is the Bryan Chair of American Literature and Culture at the University of Kentucky, where he teaches literature and film. He is the editor of May All Your Fences Have Gates (Iowa, 1993) and the author of Invisible Criticism: Ralph Ellison and the American Canon (Iowa, 1991), Containment Culture: American Narratives, Postmodernism, and the Atomic Age, Flatlining on the Field of Dreams: Cultural Narratives in the Films of President Reagan's America, and Television in Black and White America: Race and National Identity.
REVIEWS
Normal.dotm 0 0 1 179 1024 The University of Iowa 8 2 1257 12.0 0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} “In this companion to May All Your Fences Have Gates, we have a timely addition to the growing scholarship on August Wilson’s works. The focus on the second half of the cycle presents certain problems, not least of which stem from the fact that Wilson’s plays were written ‘out of order,’ simultaneously pointing forward and looking back. In less capable hands, this aspect might be ignored and the plays studied decade by decade, in a linear fashion. This volume does not fall into that trap. Instead, Nadel and his colleagues address the location of each play within the larger context of the cycle, for the second half of the cycle and the entire collection alike. As a result, we see that almost any theme or motif within a single text finds echoes and reverberations in other plays, thus affording us a view of Wilson’s overall scheme and challenging future scholarship of any single play to embrace this holistic view of the cycle. No longer is it enough to say that Wilson wrote a play or plays: whenever we consider any of his plays we have to acknowledge the cycle. This book ensures that perspective, one that is unique in the history of dramatic literature.”—Kim Pereira, author, August Wilson and the African-American Odyssey
Normal.dotm 0 0 1 98 559 The University of Iowa 4 1 686 12.0 0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} "In this carefully crafted volume, Alan Nadel pairs a variety of essays on the plays of August Wilson's century cycle. Among the many strengths of this collection is that the selections are well connected thematically without being repetitive and that the diverse interpretations are presented in a language and style that are easily accessible, even for general readers. At the same time, the multiplicity of meanings that can be derived from careful readings of the social, cultural, and historical contexts of the cycle will satisfy the most critical scholars."—Sandra Adell, author, Double-Consciousness/Double Bind: Theoretical Issues in Twentieth-Century Black Literature
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Introduction
Beginning Again, Again :Business in the Street in Jitney and Gem of the Ocean
Contesting Black Male Responsibilities in August Wilson’s Jitney
Challenging the Stereotypes of Black Manhood: The Hidden Transcript in Jitney
The Holyistic Blues of Seven Guitars
August Wilson’s Lazarus Complex
If We Must Die: Violence as History Lesson in Seven Guitars and King Hedley II
You Can’t Make Life Happen without a Woman: Paternity and the Pitfalls of Structural Designin King Hedley II and Seven Guitars
Turn Your Lamp Down Low! Aunt Ester Dies in King Hedley II. Now What?
Ritual Death and Wilson’s Female Christ
Miss Tyler’s Two Bodies: Aunt Ester and the Legacy of Time
August Wilson and the Demands of Capital
Finite and Final Interruptions: Using Time in Radio Golf
An Exercise in Peripheral Vision: Loyalties, Ironies, and Sports in Radio Golf
Radio Golf in the Age of Obama
Appendix: Discography for Seven Guitars
Works Cited
Notes on Contributors
Index
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
August Wilson: Completing the Twentieth-Century Cycle
edited by Alan Nadel
University of Iowa Press, 2010 Paper: 978-1-58729-875-2 eISBN: 978-1-58729-935-3
Just prior to his death in 2005, August Wilson, arguably the most important American playwright of the last quarter-century, completed an ambitious cycle of ten plays, each set in a different decade of the twentieth century. Known as the Twentieth-Century Cycle or the Pittsburgh Cycle, the plays, which portrayed the struggles of African-Americans, won two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama, a Tony Award for Best Play, and seven New York Drama Critics Circle Awards. August Wilson: Completing the Twentieth-Century Cycle is the first volume devoted to the last five plays of the cycle individually—Jitney,Seven Guitars, King Hedley II, Gem of the Ocean, and Radio Golf—and in the context of Wilson's entire body of work.
Editor Alan Nadel's May All Your Fences Have Gates: Essays on the Drama of August Wilson, a work Henry Louis Gates called definitive, focused on the first five plays of Wilson's cycle. This new collection examines from myriad perspectives the way Wilson's final works give shape and focus to his complete dramatic opus. It contains an outstanding and diverse array of discussions from leading Wilson scholars and literary critics. Together, the essays in Nadel's two volumes give Wilson's work the breadth of analysis and understanding that this major figure of American drama merits.
Contributors
Herman Beavers
Yvonne Chambers
Soyica Diggs Colbert
Harry J. Elam, Jr.
Nathan Grant
David LaCroix
Barbara Lewis
Alan Nadel
Donald E. Pease
Sandra Shannon
Vivian Gist Spencer
Anthony Stewart
Steven C. Tracy
Dana Williams
Kimmika L. H. Williams-Witherspoon
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Alan Nadel is the Bryan Chair of American Literature and Culture at the University of Kentucky, where he teaches literature and film. He is the editor of May All Your Fences Have Gates (Iowa, 1993) and the author of Invisible Criticism: Ralph Ellison and the American Canon (Iowa, 1991), Containment Culture: American Narratives, Postmodernism, and the Atomic Age, Flatlining on the Field of Dreams: Cultural Narratives in the Films of President Reagan's America, and Television in Black and White America: Race and National Identity.
REVIEWS
Normal.dotm 0 0 1 179 1024 The University of Iowa 8 2 1257 12.0 0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} “In this companion to May All Your Fences Have Gates, we have a timely addition to the growing scholarship on August Wilson’s works. The focus on the second half of the cycle presents certain problems, not least of which stem from the fact that Wilson’s plays were written ‘out of order,’ simultaneously pointing forward and looking back. In less capable hands, this aspect might be ignored and the plays studied decade by decade, in a linear fashion. This volume does not fall into that trap. Instead, Nadel and his colleagues address the location of each play within the larger context of the cycle, for the second half of the cycle and the entire collection alike. As a result, we see that almost any theme or motif within a single text finds echoes and reverberations in other plays, thus affording us a view of Wilson’s overall scheme and challenging future scholarship of any single play to embrace this holistic view of the cycle. No longer is it enough to say that Wilson wrote a play or plays: whenever we consider any of his plays we have to acknowledge the cycle. This book ensures that perspective, one that is unique in the history of dramatic literature.”—Kim Pereira, author, August Wilson and the African-American Odyssey
Normal.dotm 0 0 1 98 559 The University of Iowa 4 1 686 12.0 0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} "In this carefully crafted volume, Alan Nadel pairs a variety of essays on the plays of August Wilson's century cycle. Among the many strengths of this collection is that the selections are well connected thematically without being repetitive and that the diverse interpretations are presented in a language and style that are easily accessible, even for general readers. At the same time, the multiplicity of meanings that can be derived from careful readings of the social, cultural, and historical contexts of the cycle will satisfy the most critical scholars."—Sandra Adell, author, Double-Consciousness/Double Bind: Theoretical Issues in Twentieth-Century Black Literature
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Introduction
Beginning Again, Again :Business in the Street in Jitney and Gem of the Ocean
Contesting Black Male Responsibilities in August Wilson’s Jitney
Challenging the Stereotypes of Black Manhood: The Hidden Transcript in Jitney
The Holyistic Blues of Seven Guitars
August Wilson’s Lazarus Complex
If We Must Die: Violence as History Lesson in Seven Guitars and King Hedley II
You Can’t Make Life Happen without a Woman: Paternity and the Pitfalls of Structural Designin King Hedley II and Seven Guitars
Turn Your Lamp Down Low! Aunt Ester Dies in King Hedley II. Now What?
Ritual Death and Wilson’s Female Christ
Miss Tyler’s Two Bodies: Aunt Ester and the Legacy of Time
August Wilson and the Demands of Capital
Finite and Final Interruptions: Using Time in Radio Golf
An Exercise in Peripheral Vision: Loyalties, Ironies, and Sports in Radio Golf
Radio Golf in the Age of Obama
Appendix: Discography for Seven Guitars
Works Cited
Notes on Contributors
Index
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE