This collection of critical essays on plays by African American female playwrights from the post-reconstruction period to the present provides thematic analyses of plays by major and less widely known African American women playwrights The contributors examine the plays as vehicles of public discourse, and as explorations of issues of African American identity. Essays explore the themes of sexuality, agency, anger, and self-concept in the plays of African American Women.
This book features African American women playwrights from 1875 to 2000, with an emphasis on the late nineteenth century, a period rarely treated in regard to women's drama. Highlighting the lesser-known Pauline Hopkins, Angelina Weld Grimké, Georgia Douglas Johnson, Eulalie Spence, and May Miller, and the well-known Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Childress, Adrienne Kennedy, and Ntozake Shange, Peculiar Passages argues that these playwrights' efforts define a tradition characterized by quick-change mobility, sensitivity to vernacular forms, and dedication to intertextual dialogue. Situating the plays within a broader context, the book also connects them to minstrelsy, the Passion Play, and the Black Arts Movement.
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