This book investigates how the British theatrical community offered an alternative and opposition... more This book investigates how the British theatrical community offered an alternative and oppositional historical narrative to the heritage culture promulgated by the Thatcher and Major Governments in the 1980s and early 1990s. It details the challenges the theatre faced, especially reductions in government funding, and examines seminal playwrights of the period – including but not limited to Caryl Churchill, Howard Brenton, Sarah Daniels, David Edgar, and Brian Friel – who dramatized a more inclusive vision of history that gave voice to traditionally marginalized communities. It employs James Baldwin’s concept of witnessing as the means by which history could be deployed to articulate an alternative and emergent political narrative: “the history we haven’t had”. This book will appeal to students and scholars of theatre and cultural studies as well as theatre practitioners and enthusiasts.
This chapter investigates the oppositional history plays of the First Thatcher Ministry. It begin... more This chapter investigates the oppositional history plays of the First Thatcher Ministry. It begins with a detailed examination of Caryl Churchill’s Cloud Nine and contends that the playwright established many of the parameters for the oppositional history play in a work that was performed as the 1979 election was in progress. This chapter also examines David Edgar’s adaptation of Nicholas Nickleby and offers a hearty defense of the play as oppositional and not hegemonic. Pennino argues that the controversy surrounding Howard Brenton’s Romans in Britain ignored the much more radical and “dangerous” elements of the play. This section also explores groundbreaking works by Brian Friel, Edward Bond, and Howard Barker.
This chapter investigates the oppositional history plays of the Second Thatcher Ministry. While m... more This chapter investigates the oppositional history plays of the Second Thatcher Ministry. While many of the oppositional history plays of the First Thatcher Ministry focused on the nineteenth century, the plays and productions of this ministry cast a much wider net. Pennino contends that David Edgar’s Entertaining Strangers, a work in the shadows of Nicholas Nickleby , deploys all the tools necessary in successfully dramatizing an oppositional history. He further demonstrates that Sarah Daniels with Byrthrite builds upon the feminist groundwork laid by Caryl Churchill with Vinegar Tom . The chapter offers detailed assessments of Timberlake Wertenbaker’s The Grace of Mary Traverse , Howard Barker’s The Castle , Churchill’s Serious Money , and Howard Brenton’s Bloody Poetry .
Available from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:DXN063181 / BLDSC - British Library Do... more Available from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:DXN063181 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreSIGLEGBUnited Kingdo
T he Chartist Movement of Great Britain (taking its name from the People's Charter of 1838) s... more T he Chartist Movement of Great Britain (taking its name from the People's Charter of 1838) stands as arguably the first organized mass working class movement and one of the most ambitious. In order to encourage large-scale change within British society, the Chartists developed a rather complex set of cultural practices with the intent of inculcating members of the urban working classes with the foundational principles of the movement. These practices included the appropriation of Brit-ain's literary heritage. The Chartists reevaluated a number of British authors through their critical lens, but no one received greater attention than William Shakespeare whose biography and works were positioned within the new social construct. Here, Shakespeare stands as a hero of the working class, as a man with republican sympathies, and for some, anachronisti-cally, as a Leveller. In Marxist terms, this program was pursued to frame British history and culture in terms of an ongoing class ...
This chapter investigates the oppositional history plays of the Second Thatcher Ministry. While m... more This chapter investigates the oppositional history plays of the Second Thatcher Ministry. While many of the oppositional history plays of the First Thatcher Ministry focused on the nineteenth century, the plays and productions of this ministry cast a much wider net. Pennino contends that David Edgar’s Entertaining Strangers, a work in the shadows of Nicholas Nickleby , deploys all the tools necessary in successfully dramatizing an oppositional history. He further demonstrates that Sarah Daniels with Byrthrite builds upon the feminist groundwork laid by Caryl Churchill with Vinegar Tom . The chapter offers detailed assessments of Timberlake Wertenbaker’s The Grace of Mary Traverse , Howard Barker’s The Castle , Churchill’s Serious Money , and Howard Brenton’s Bloody Poetry .
Michael Sean Mahoney, Histories of Computing, ed. and introduction by Thomas Haigh, Harvard Unive... more Michael Sean Mahoney, Histories of Computing, ed. and introduction by Thomas Haigh, Harvard University Press, 2011, 250 pp. Normally when a distinguished professor retires, his students organize a festschrift to recognize him both by his work and his students’ work. In the case of Princeton’s Michael Mahoney, a sudden heart attack cut short his life. Instead of a festschrift, Thomas Haigh, who took a graduate course from Mahoney, has organized a set of Mahoney’s major papers on the history of computing. Reflecting Mahoney’s interests, Haigh divided the 13 papers evenly among shaping the history of computing, constructing a history of software, and the structures of computation. Haigh and Mahoney use histories in the plural to show the many ways to approach computing. New graduate students in the history of technology in general as well as in the history of computing and computing practitioners comprise the obvious audience for this collection. They will learn how a master historian ...
This chapter investigates the oppositional history plays of the Third Thatcher Ministry. The rost... more This chapter investigates the oppositional history plays of the Third Thatcher Ministry. The roster of artists undergoes a change from the previous two chapters as new playwrights begin to dramatize a history in opposition to the hegemonic. In particular, this chapter examines two vital works from Scotland: Liz Lochhead’s Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off and John McGrath’s Border Warfare . Produced at a time when the issue of Scottish autonomy from Britain was beginning to be felt at the polls, these two works offer distinct reappraisals of the history between Scotland and England. This chapter also discusses Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Our Country’s Good , Brian Friel’s Making History , Sarah Daniels’s Gut Girls , and Howard Barker’s Seven Lears .
parts in a fascinating movie that suddenly took a bad turn, in which we worked like dogs to produ... more parts in a fascinating movie that suddenly took a bad turn, in which we worked like dogs to produce something really spectacular and then were written out of the script” (p. 99). As a project leader for the ENIAC’s stored-program conversion, she also got little credit. Later, working in industry, she saw men that she trained get promoted above her, men with less experience make larger salaries, and her career limited by the twin stumbling blocks of the corporate “boys’ club” and the glass ceiling. This is the context for what is at times a memoir whose rage sits barely below the surface. And Bartik is right to be angry: were it not for anger animating her to push her story into the mainstream of computing history, to assert the importance of what she did rather than accepting it as peripheral, it is likely that this story, or large parts of it, would be forgotten or at best misinterpreted. The details Bartik gives about her work speak for themselves: no longer can anyone credibly cl...
The Chartist Movement of Great Britain (taking its name from the People’s Charter of 1838) stands... more The Chartist Movement of Great Britain (taking its name from the People’s Charter of 1838) stands as arguably the first organized mass working class movement and one of the most ambitious. In order to encourage large-scale change within British society, the Chartists developed a rather complex set of cultural practices with the intent of inculcating members of the urban working classes with the foundational principles of the movement. These practices included the appropriation of Britain’s literary heritage. The Chartists reevaluated a number of British authors through their critical lens, but no one received greater attention than William Shakespeare whose biography and works were positioned within the new social construct. Here, Shakespeare stands as a hero of the working class, as a man with republican sympathies, and for some, anachronistically, as a Leveller. In Marxist terms, this program was pursued to frame British history and culture in terms of an ongoing class conflict an...
This book investigates how the British theatrical community offered an alternative and opposition... more This book investigates how the British theatrical community offered an alternative and oppositional historical narrative to the heritage culture promulgated by the Thatcher and Major Governments in the 1980s and early 1990s. It details the challenges the theatre faced, especially reductions in government funding, and examines seminal playwrights of the period – including but not limited to Caryl Churchill, Howard Brenton, Sarah Daniels, David Edgar, and Brian Friel – who dramatized a more inclusive vision of history that gave voice to traditionally marginalized communities. It employs James Baldwin’s concept of witnessing as the means by which history could be deployed to articulate an alternative and emergent political narrative: “the history we haven’t had”. This book will appeal to students and scholars of theatre and cultural studies as well as theatre practitioners and enthusiasts.
This chapter investigates the oppositional history plays of the First Thatcher Ministry. It begin... more This chapter investigates the oppositional history plays of the First Thatcher Ministry. It begins with a detailed examination of Caryl Churchill’s Cloud Nine and contends that the playwright established many of the parameters for the oppositional history play in a work that was performed as the 1979 election was in progress. This chapter also examines David Edgar’s adaptation of Nicholas Nickleby and offers a hearty defense of the play as oppositional and not hegemonic. Pennino argues that the controversy surrounding Howard Brenton’s Romans in Britain ignored the much more radical and “dangerous” elements of the play. This section also explores groundbreaking works by Brian Friel, Edward Bond, and Howard Barker.
This chapter investigates the oppositional history plays of the Second Thatcher Ministry. While m... more This chapter investigates the oppositional history plays of the Second Thatcher Ministry. While many of the oppositional history plays of the First Thatcher Ministry focused on the nineteenth century, the plays and productions of this ministry cast a much wider net. Pennino contends that David Edgar’s Entertaining Strangers, a work in the shadows of Nicholas Nickleby , deploys all the tools necessary in successfully dramatizing an oppositional history. He further demonstrates that Sarah Daniels with Byrthrite builds upon the feminist groundwork laid by Caryl Churchill with Vinegar Tom . The chapter offers detailed assessments of Timberlake Wertenbaker’s The Grace of Mary Traverse , Howard Barker’s The Castle , Churchill’s Serious Money , and Howard Brenton’s Bloody Poetry .
Available from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:DXN063181 / BLDSC - British Library Do... more Available from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:DXN063181 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreSIGLEGBUnited Kingdo
T he Chartist Movement of Great Britain (taking its name from the People's Charter of 1838) s... more T he Chartist Movement of Great Britain (taking its name from the People's Charter of 1838) stands as arguably the first organized mass working class movement and one of the most ambitious. In order to encourage large-scale change within British society, the Chartists developed a rather complex set of cultural practices with the intent of inculcating members of the urban working classes with the foundational principles of the movement. These practices included the appropriation of Brit-ain's literary heritage. The Chartists reevaluated a number of British authors through their critical lens, but no one received greater attention than William Shakespeare whose biography and works were positioned within the new social construct. Here, Shakespeare stands as a hero of the working class, as a man with republican sympathies, and for some, anachronisti-cally, as a Leveller. In Marxist terms, this program was pursued to frame British history and culture in terms of an ongoing class ...
This chapter investigates the oppositional history plays of the Second Thatcher Ministry. While m... more This chapter investigates the oppositional history plays of the Second Thatcher Ministry. While many of the oppositional history plays of the First Thatcher Ministry focused on the nineteenth century, the plays and productions of this ministry cast a much wider net. Pennino contends that David Edgar’s Entertaining Strangers, a work in the shadows of Nicholas Nickleby , deploys all the tools necessary in successfully dramatizing an oppositional history. He further demonstrates that Sarah Daniels with Byrthrite builds upon the feminist groundwork laid by Caryl Churchill with Vinegar Tom . The chapter offers detailed assessments of Timberlake Wertenbaker’s The Grace of Mary Traverse , Howard Barker’s The Castle , Churchill’s Serious Money , and Howard Brenton’s Bloody Poetry .
Michael Sean Mahoney, Histories of Computing, ed. and introduction by Thomas Haigh, Harvard Unive... more Michael Sean Mahoney, Histories of Computing, ed. and introduction by Thomas Haigh, Harvard University Press, 2011, 250 pp. Normally when a distinguished professor retires, his students organize a festschrift to recognize him both by his work and his students’ work. In the case of Princeton’s Michael Mahoney, a sudden heart attack cut short his life. Instead of a festschrift, Thomas Haigh, who took a graduate course from Mahoney, has organized a set of Mahoney’s major papers on the history of computing. Reflecting Mahoney’s interests, Haigh divided the 13 papers evenly among shaping the history of computing, constructing a history of software, and the structures of computation. Haigh and Mahoney use histories in the plural to show the many ways to approach computing. New graduate students in the history of technology in general as well as in the history of computing and computing practitioners comprise the obvious audience for this collection. They will learn how a master historian ...
This chapter investigates the oppositional history plays of the Third Thatcher Ministry. The rost... more This chapter investigates the oppositional history plays of the Third Thatcher Ministry. The roster of artists undergoes a change from the previous two chapters as new playwrights begin to dramatize a history in opposition to the hegemonic. In particular, this chapter examines two vital works from Scotland: Liz Lochhead’s Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off and John McGrath’s Border Warfare . Produced at a time when the issue of Scottish autonomy from Britain was beginning to be felt at the polls, these two works offer distinct reappraisals of the history between Scotland and England. This chapter also discusses Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Our Country’s Good , Brian Friel’s Making History , Sarah Daniels’s Gut Girls , and Howard Barker’s Seven Lears .
parts in a fascinating movie that suddenly took a bad turn, in which we worked like dogs to produ... more parts in a fascinating movie that suddenly took a bad turn, in which we worked like dogs to produce something really spectacular and then were written out of the script” (p. 99). As a project leader for the ENIAC’s stored-program conversion, she also got little credit. Later, working in industry, she saw men that she trained get promoted above her, men with less experience make larger salaries, and her career limited by the twin stumbling blocks of the corporate “boys’ club” and the glass ceiling. This is the context for what is at times a memoir whose rage sits barely below the surface. And Bartik is right to be angry: were it not for anger animating her to push her story into the mainstream of computing history, to assert the importance of what she did rather than accepting it as peripheral, it is likely that this story, or large parts of it, would be forgotten or at best misinterpreted. The details Bartik gives about her work speak for themselves: no longer can anyone credibly cl...
The Chartist Movement of Great Britain (taking its name from the People’s Charter of 1838) stands... more The Chartist Movement of Great Britain (taking its name from the People’s Charter of 1838) stands as arguably the first organized mass working class movement and one of the most ambitious. In order to encourage large-scale change within British society, the Chartists developed a rather complex set of cultural practices with the intent of inculcating members of the urban working classes with the foundational principles of the movement. These practices included the appropriation of Britain’s literary heritage. The Chartists reevaluated a number of British authors through their critical lens, but no one received greater attention than William Shakespeare whose biography and works were positioned within the new social construct. Here, Shakespeare stands as a hero of the working class, as a man with republican sympathies, and for some, anachronistically, as a Leveller. In Marxist terms, this program was pursued to frame British history and culture in terms of an ongoing class conflict an...
John Locke writes in Tite Second Treatise of Government (published in 1699), Every man has a prop... more John Locke writes in Tite Second Treatise of Government (published in 1699), Every man has a property in his own person: this no body has any right to but himself. The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. (28)Lockean ideals of property would be the very brick-and-mortar of the American Experiment, for it is easy to understand the appeal when Locke himself imagines the children of Adam or Noah planting "in some inland, vacant places of America" (32).For obvious reasons, the African American experience with these Lockean principles of property has been a complicated-nay, tortured-history. Though every individual indeed has property of his or her own person, the institutions of slavery and Jim Crow attempted to erase any idea of such a right f...
This chapter investigates the oppositional history plays of the two ministries of John Major. As ... more This chapter investigates the oppositional history plays of the two ministries of John Major. As Major’s Government was a transitional one between Thatcher’s and Tony Blair’s, so too were the history plays of this period transitional and therefore did not offer the full-throated defiance of their predecessors. Pennino examines two plays by Tom Stoppard— Arcadia and Indian Ink —and argues that though they were not products of the heritage culture they were not politically revolutionary either. He further discusses the contemporary resonance of Alan Bennett’s The Madness of George III . The chapter also includes Julian Mitchell’s Falling Over England and Stephen Jeffreys’s The Libertine .
In the conclusion, Pennino argues how, in the aftermath of Tony Blair’s election in May 1997, the... more In the conclusion, Pennino argues how, in the aftermath of Tony Blair’s election in May 1997, the oppositional history play lost much of its urgency. Although Blair increased funding for the arts, the new Prime Minister’s look to the future rather than the past necessitated a new kind of oppositional theatrical experience, especially after the invasion of Iraq. Pennino further argues that the oppositional history play gained a substantial foothold in the American theatre, particularly as means of interrogating the past of slavery and Jim Crow. The oppositional history play seems to be gaining traction again on both sides of the Atlantic following the Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump as President of the USA.
This talk examined how theatrical artists in the City of Istanbul could develop a community-speci... more This talk examined how theatrical artists in the City of Istanbul could develop a community-specific theatre that generates drama based upon local history, culture, and literature. Such a theatre would strengthen both the theatre arts in Istanbul but the community of Istanbul itself. I employed as my primary examply British playwright David Edgar, and I examined in depth two of his most important works from the 1980's: Nicholas Nickleby and Entertaining Strangers. I argued that Edgar's formula -- of for instance in the latter work, of taking an event from local history and transforming it into a drama -- could meet with great success in Istanbul. I concluded my remarks in 2008 with the following statement: "Joseph Conrad and Ernest Hemingway have both walked these streets while William Butler Yeats could only but dream of city that bestrides two continents. What better place then for a strong and vibrant theatrical community similar to the one utilized by Edgar? With such a rich history and vibrant culture, Istanbul...seems an ideal center for a theatrical renaissance that will have global significance. Istanbul's history and literature are waiting to be mined by a dynamic and adventurous community of dramatic artists. In this year when it is a European Capital of Culture, the city has reached what Raymond Williams has termed 'a point of consciousness'. At such a point...a vibrant theatrical tradition is no longer a nicety but a necessity."
This set of Reviews covers the 20th Century Fox feature film Prometheus, (directed by Ridley Scot... more This set of Reviews covers the 20th Century Fox feature film Prometheus, (directed by Ridley Scott) and "La France en réseaux. Tome I: La rencontre des télécommunications et de l'informatique (1960–1980)" [France in Networks, Volume I: The Meeting of Telecommunications and Computing] by Valérie Schafer (Cigref/Nuvis, 2012).
This essay examines a crucial historical moment in the evolution of how we understand and conside... more This essay examines a crucial historical moment in the evolution of how we understand and consider William Shakespeare. Britain’s movement to industrialization in the first half of the nineteenth century also gave rise to a number of organizations that championed and defended a new urban class of workers. Chief among these were the Chartists. In keeping with their political agenda, the Chartists also articulated a cultural reassessment of key British authors, especially Shakespeare, so as to employ literature as a means of challenging the ruling hegemony. In this formulation, Shakespeare was recast as, anachronistically, a republican and an advocate of working class issues (as well as members of the working classes themselves). This essay provides an analysis of Chartist cultural practices and examines some of the influences that helped shape the Chartist aesthetic. Particular emphasis is placed on how these considerations of Shakespeare’s political agenda led to an attempt to reconsider English/British national identity. It further explores how this recasting of Shakespeare has affected contemporary considerations of the playwright.
We can trace how the Lockean paradigm of property informs twentieth- century African American dra... more We can trace how the Lockean paradigm of property informs twentieth- century African American drama. The spectrum of responses is quite broad. The ownership of property can be a salvation or a curse; a character may open a new door to the future or be haunted relentlessly by the past. August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson occupies a central place in such an investigation. This work remains one of Wilson’s strongest because of the intricate history he crafts of the Charles family. The Piano Lesson serves as an excellent crucible by which issues of property, as conceived by Locke and inculcated by the African American community, can be assessed. With this play in particular, we can determine that assessment through the lens of gender relations within the context of family.
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August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson occupies a central place in such an investigation. This work remains one of Wilson’s strongest because of the intricate history he crafts of
the Charles family. The Piano Lesson serves as an excellent crucible by which issues of property, as conceived by Locke and inculcated by the African American community, can be assessed. With this play in particular, we can determine that assessment through the lens of gender relations within the context of family.