A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal
Peace in Pieces: A Postmodern Study of Suzan-Lori Parks’s Venus
Authors: Mehdi Ghasemi
Publisher: Department of Theatre, University of Kansas
Publishing place: Kansas, United States
Publication year: 2015
Journal: Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism
Journal acronym: JDTC
Volume: 30
Issue: 1
First page : 29
Last page: 49
Number of pages: 21
eISSN: 0888-3203
Abstract
In this essay, I explore the repercussions that postmodern drama has exerted on Parks’s Venus. I first explore the wide range of intertexts, metatexts and paratexts used in the play and argue how the used inter/meta/paratexts help Parks to re-contextualize and re-historicize Baartman’s history. I then show how Parks links the past to the present so as to reform the history of the present and argue how the link between the past and the present enables the playwright to revise and reshape the represented knowledge of the past and history, surpass the history of “being” and move toward the history of “becoming.” In addition, I focus on indeterminacies, embodied in the play’s themes, form, figures, language, etc., and show how the use of indeterminacies creates heterodoxy and plurality of interpretations and undermines the playwright’s “author”ity over her play and its performances.
In this essay, I explore the repercussions that postmodern drama has exerted on Parks’s Venus. I first explore the wide range of intertexts, metatexts and paratexts used in the play and argue how the used inter/meta/paratexts help Parks to re-contextualize and re-historicize Baartman’s history. I then show how Parks links the past to the present so as to reform the history of the present and argue how the link between the past and the present enables the playwright to revise and reshape the represented knowledge of the past and history, surpass the history of “being” and move toward the history of “becoming.” In addition, I focus on indeterminacies, embodied in the play’s themes, form, figures, language, etc., and show how the use of indeterminacies creates heterodoxy and plurality of interpretations and undermines the playwright’s “author”ity over her play and its performances.
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