ENGL 223 - Taboos Experiments Modern Drama

3 Hour(s)

A comparative study of influential playwrights between 1870s and 1990s in Europe and the United States; how their experiments with dramatic form, style, and taboo topics reveal social and cultural consciousness at the center of modern theater. The course will explore how gender, class, sexuality and race, along with European existentialism, played out on the modern stage. Special attention will be given to the portrayal of women and their issues. The authors will include Ibsen, Chekhov, Pirandello, Brecht, Wilder, American women playwrights Glaspell, Hellman, and Hansberry, representatives of the Theater of Absurd and the African American theater of August Wilson.

General Education Requirements: Humanities; Gender Inquiry; Writing Intensive