Enter the Undead Author

Intellectual Property, the Ideology of Authorship, and Performance Practices since the 1960s

Nonfiction, Reference & Language, Law, Patent, Trademark, & Copyright, Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism, Drama History & Criticism, Entertainment, Theatre, Playwriting
Cover of the book Enter the Undead Author by George Pate, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: George Pate ISBN: 9781683931591
Publisher: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press Publication: March 13, 2019
Imprint: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press Language: English
Author: George Pate
ISBN: 9781683931591
Publisher: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press
Publication: March 13, 2019
Imprint: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press
Language: English

Many narratives of theater history suggest that the 1960s marked the start of a turning away from traditional, script-based, playwright-centric production practices. Literary studies in this period began exploring the concept of the “death of the author” along similar lines. But the author refused to die quietly, and authorship reasserts itself in even revolutionary and avant-garde theaters throughout the latter half of the twentieth century. The model of authorship—valorizing individuality, ownership, and originality—serves to maintain traditional modes of production that reproduce and uphold dominant ideologies even when the products created by those modes of production claim to buck tradition or run counter to cultural currents. This ideology of authorship plays a part in playwrights shutting down productions of their own plays, in the privileging of individual authorship over joint authorship even in collaborative genres, and in the insistence on originality even in performance traditions rooted in a shared repertoire. This tension between the theoretical death of the author and the growth of actual authors’ abilities to control access to and even in some cases interpretations of their work exposes the deftness with which dominant ideologies and their attendant modes of production can repurpose the aesthetics of even countercultural or revolutionary movements in theater.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Many narratives of theater history suggest that the 1960s marked the start of a turning away from traditional, script-based, playwright-centric production practices. Literary studies in this period began exploring the concept of the “death of the author” along similar lines. But the author refused to die quietly, and authorship reasserts itself in even revolutionary and avant-garde theaters throughout the latter half of the twentieth century. The model of authorship—valorizing individuality, ownership, and originality—serves to maintain traditional modes of production that reproduce and uphold dominant ideologies even when the products created by those modes of production claim to buck tradition or run counter to cultural currents. This ideology of authorship plays a part in playwrights shutting down productions of their own plays, in the privileging of individual authorship over joint authorship even in collaborative genres, and in the insistence on originality even in performance traditions rooted in a shared repertoire. This tension between the theoretical death of the author and the growth of actual authors’ abilities to control access to and even in some cases interpretations of their work exposes the deftness with which dominant ideologies and their attendant modes of production can repurpose the aesthetics of even countercultural or revolutionary movements in theater.

More books from Fairleigh Dickinson University Press

Cover of the book Avenging Lincoln’s Death by George Pate
Cover of the book Roger Waters and Pink Floyd by George Pate
Cover of the book Evelyn Waugh’s Satire by George Pate
Cover of the book Re-reading Italian Americana by George Pate
Cover of the book The Riggs War, 1913 to 1916 by George Pate
Cover of the book Law and Sexuality in Tennessee Williams’s America by George Pate
Cover of the book Exile in the Maghreb by George Pate
Cover of the book The Reflective, Facilitative, and Interpretive Practice of the Coordinated Management of Meaning by George Pate
Cover of the book Ideas Under Fire by George Pate
Cover of the book Love in the Afterlife by George Pate
Cover of the book The Contemporary African American Novel by George Pate
Cover of the book Just Remembering by George Pate
Cover of the book At Work in the Early Modern English Theater by George Pate
Cover of the book Women and Tudor Tragedy by George Pate
Cover of the book John McDonald and the Whiskey Ring by George Pate
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy