Ritual Imports

Name: Ritual Imports
Price: 124.64 AUD
Availability: OutOfStock
ISBN: 9780801442957

Performing Medieval Drama in America

Claire Sponsler

$155.95 $124.64

Hardback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

Availability Information

We source books from suppliers in Australia and overseas. For books we don't currently have in stock, the time it takes to get them from our suppliers can vary widely - from a few days to a few months - so we check each book with each supplier to determine the expected time it will take to be supplied to us.

We will update you on expected arrival time to us. If this delay is too long, please let us know within 2 business days and we can give you options regarding cancelling or adjusting your order. More details on cancelling your order can be found in our Terms of Trade.

To find out the anticipated arrival time for specific items prior to ordering, please contact us by phone or email:

Phone +61 2 9264 3111, or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 4 26657) if outside Sydney:
option 1 Abbey's Bookshop (Crime, History, Science, Kids & more) • info@abbeys.com.au
option 2 Language Book Centre (ESL & Foreign Languages) • language@abbeys.com.au
option 3 Galaxy Bookshop (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels) • sf@galaxybooks.com.au

QTY:

English

Cornell University Press
16 December 2004

Theatre: technical & background skills; Plays & playscripts; Literary studies: general

Throughout the Americas, performances deriving from medieval European rituals, ceremonies, and festivities made up a crucial part of the cultural cargo shipped from Europe to the overseas settlements. In 1583, Sir Humphrey Gilbert sailed from Plymouth, England, to Newfoundland, bringing with him ""morris dancers, hobby horses, and Maylike Conceits"" for the ""allurement of the savages"" and the ""solace of our people."" His voyage closely resembled that of twelve Franciscan friars who in 1524 had arrived in what is now Mexico armed with a repertoire of miracle plays, religious processions, and other performances. These two events, although far from unique, helped shape initial encounters between Europeans and indigenous peoples; they also marked the first stages of the process that would lead-by no means smoothly-to a distinctively American culture.

Ritual Imports is a groundbreaking cultural history of European performance traditions in the New World, from the sixteenth century to the present. Claire Sponsler examines the role of survivals and adaptations of medieval drama in shaping American culture from colonization through nation building and on to today's multicultural society. The book's subjects include New Mexican matachines dances and Spanish conquest drama, Albany's Pinkster festival and Afro-Dutch religious celebrations, Philadelphia's mummers and the Anglo-Saxon revival, a Brooklyn Italian American saint's play, American and German passion plays, and academic reconstructions of medieval drama. Drawing on theories of cultural appropriation, Ritual Imports makes an important contribution to medieval and American studies as well as to cultural studies and the history of theater.

By: Claire Sponsler
Imprint: Cornell University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Edition: 1
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 155mm, Spine: 22mm
Weight: 907g
ISBN: 9780801442957
ISBN 10: 0801442958
Pages: 248
Publication Date: 16 December 2004
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

The late Claire Sponsler was M. F. Carpenter Professor of English at the University of Iowa. She was the author of The Queen's Dumbshows: John Lydgate and the Making of Early Theater andDrama and Resistance: Bodies, Goods, and Theatricality in Late Medieval England and coeditor of East of West: Cross-Cultural Performance and the Staging of Difference.

Reviews for Ritual Imports: Performing Medieval Drama in America

This is a terrific book. Ritual Imports is challenging, interesting, timely, and very pleasant to read. Claire Sponsler brilliantly demonstrates to modernists why medieval theater historiography is crucial to their enterprise. -Jody Enders, University of California, Santa Barbara Ritual Imports combines originality of approach with scholarly depth, and clarity of exposition with theoretical sophistication. It is smart, well researched, and well written. Claire Sponsler looks at many different kinds of ritualized 'paratheatrical' activity in America, challenging Americanists to stop privileging literacy, professional theater, modernity, and 'narratives of triumphant nationalism.' -Kathleen Ashley, University of Southern Maine