Buch, Englisch, 160 Seiten, Hardback, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 408 g
Buch, Englisch, 160 Seiten, Hardback, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 408 g
Reihe: Understanding Contemporary American Literature
ISBN: 978-1-61117-287-4
Verlag: University of South Carolina Press
Understanding David Henry Hwang is a critical study of Hwang's playwriting process as well as the role of identity in each one of Hwang's major theatrical works. A first-generation Asian American, Hwang intrinsically understands the complications surrounding the competing attractiveness of an American identity with its freedoms in contrast to the importance of a cultural and ethnic identity connected to another society.
William C. Boles examines Hwang's plays by exploring the perplexing struggles surrounding Asian and Asian American stereotypes, values, and identity. Boles argues that Hwang deliberately uses stereotypes in order to subvert them, while at other times he embraces the dual complexity of ethnicity when it is tied to national identity and ethnic history. In addition to the individual questions of identity as they pertain to ethnicity, Boles discusses how Hwang's plays explore identity issues of gender, religion, profession, and sexuality. The volume concludes with a treatment of Chinglish, both in the context of rising Chinese economic prominence and Hwang's previous work.
Hwang has written ten short plays including The Dance and the Railroad, five screenplays, and many librettos for musical theatre. The recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim and Rockefeller foundations, Hwang was appointed by Bill Clinton to the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities.