Book Description
In Search of a Model for African-American Drama - A study of Selected plays by Lorraine Hansberry, Amiri Baraka, and Ntozake Shange, is a comparative study of how these three dramatists seek and devise new models to address the specific conditions of Blacks in America. Each writer relies on a different approach, each powerful, yet apparently contradictory. The author examines the dramatists' work in detail, exploring common and contrasting themes and models.

About the Author
Philip Uko Effiong has taught English, literature, drama, writing, and cultural studies at the University of Calabar, Nigeria; the University of Wisconsin, Madison; the University of Tennessee, Martin; the University of Delaware, Newark; and Lincoln University, Pennsylvania.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In Search of a Model for African-American Drama - A study of Selected plays by Lorraine Hansberry, Amiri Baraka, and Ntozake Shange, is a comparative study of how these three dramatists seek and devise new models to address the specific conditions of Blacks in America. Each writer relies on a different approach, each powerful, yet apparently contradictory. The author examines the dramatists' work in detail, exploring common and contrasting themes and models.

Author Biography: Philip Uko Effiong has taught English, literature, drama, writing, and cultural studies at the University of Calabar, Nigeria; the University of Wisconsin, Madison; the University of Tennessee, Martin; the University of Delaware, Newark; and Lincoln University, Pennsylvania.

SYNOPSIS

This text focuses on three major Black dramatists, representatives of key periods in African-American theatrical history (1950￯﾿ﾽs pre-Civil Rights, 1960￯﾿ﾽs Civil Rights, and 1960￯﾿ﾽs post Civil Rights and Feminism). The goal is to establish how all three participate in the quest for germane dramatic standards as defined and influenced by experience, period, and gender. Ultimately the text engages in a broad analysis of the socioartistic implications of the continued search for ￯﾿ﾽBlack￯﾿ﾽ theatrical models, and traverses African-American drama and theatre, history, politics, and culture. Beyond this analysis a dilemma is identified and addressed, one that ironically informs the emergence of a great theatrical tradition that, however, has spent a lot of its energy in devising and formulating models.

While such models have been aesthetically and politically effective, in some ways they have also been creatively restrictive.

FROM THE CRITICS

Booknews

Perhaps because he is a native of Nigeria, Effiong (a PhD. in Afro- American Studies, U. of Wisconsin, Madisonthis is an expansion of his dissertation) maintains a certain objective distance from the stark and often visceral realities reflected in these Black plays written between 1950-1970. The historical, cultural, and sociopolitical roots are thoroughly and thoughtfully traced as he considers the African roots of the plays of Hansberry, the meaning behind the repeated use of ritual sacrifice in plays by Baraka, and the political ideals in feminism and Pan-African consciousness underlying the plays of Shange. The concluding chapters consider the ritual of Black theater and how it might be defined as a genre. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

ACCREDITATION