Rethinking the Theatre of the Absurd: Ecology, the Environment and the Greening of the Modern Stage
- Submitting institution
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Goldsmiths' College
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output identifier
- 2294
- Type
- B - Edited book
- DOI
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- Publisher
- Bloomsbury Academic
- ISBN
- 9781472513205
- Open access status
- -
- Month of publication
- November
- Year of publication
- 2015
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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T - Theatre and Performance
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- For this co-edited collection of essays, which brings together ecocriticism and theatre studies, Finburgh Delijani complemented co-editor Carl Lavery’s expertise in ecology studies, with her specialisms a number of areas, illustrated by the following contributions she made to the co-written Introduction (pp. 1-58): the close reading of the various editions of Martin Esslin’s The Theatre of the Absurd, and proposal that his landmark book is fundamentally ‘anthropocentrist’, since it focuses on the ‘human condition’ and human concerns rather than a broader ecology; her survey of recent academic publications on the Theatre of the Absurd; her identification of the ‘anti-humanist aesthetics’ of the Theatre of the Absurd, where aspects of staging such as stage design or site become foregrounded, eclipsing the centrality of character and actor; her expertise in the key playwrights of the ‘Theatre of the Absurd’ period demonstrated by her many previous publications in this area; her knowledge of contemporary productions of ‘Absurdist’ authors. _x000D_
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Finburgh Delijani also shaped the overall structure of the collection, opening out Martin Esslin’s original selection of authors which exclusively included men from western Europe. Each of the eight chapters and the Epilogue were equitably co-edited by Lavery and Finburgh Delijani, who both ensured that the book’s overall premise, which reads ‘Absurdist Theatre’ as an emergent form of eco-theatre, was sustained across the entire collection (312 pages), creating a cohesive theoretical approach. _x000D_
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Finburgh Delijani’s substantial sole-authored chapter, ‘Nettles in the Rose Garden: Ecocentrism in Jean Genet’s Theatre’ (pp. 191-218) provides the first ‘ecological’ reading of Genet’s poetry, novels, and essays on art and politics, highlighting his radical deconstruction of human exceptionalism.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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