2009 ASTR Conference

Daniel Smith, Northwestern University
Theatre historians have long harbored an interest in obscene drama in eighteenth-century France, variously characterizing such plays as “libertine,” “erotic,” “clandestine,” or “pornographic.” Le Bordel, ou le Jean-foutre puni (1732?) by the Comte de Caylus, is one of the most frequently cited of these obscene comedies. In this paper, I situate [...]

Ellwood Wiggins, Yale University
Arguably the most significant event in German theatrical history during the eighteenth century was the arrival of Shakespeare. From actual journeys made by actors like David Garrick to the published promotions in essays and translations by Lessing and Wieland, Germany’s growing obsession with the transplanted English playwright led to the wide [...]

Kate Roark, University of Houston
Two hit plays titled Jonathan in England debuted on opposite sides of the Atlantic in the 1820s. The first premiered in London in 1824 and depicted the titular Jonathan (an American Yankee character) as an abusive slave owner, absurdly hypocritical in his bragging about American liberty. The second Jonathan [...]

Joseph Roach, Yale University
Disappearing is a thankless task, and it never seems to end. Wikipedia recalls that Herman Melville named his doomed Nantucket whaler “Pequod” after the Pequot Indians, “who were annihilated in the Pequot Wars” of 1637. Wikipedia goes on to cite the author of Moby Dick as its authority for the [...]

Heather S. Nathans, Department of Theatre, University of Maryland
The figure of the itinerant Jew, unmoored from the confines of national belonging, is a familiar figure in European literature. Whether villain, clown, or figure of pathos, the character wanders among the various communities that he encounters — always ineluctably foreign.  The status of permanent traveler [...]

Mechele Leon
Associate Professor of Theatre
University of Kansas
It is common to regard cross-Channel voyages of drame bourgeois as a transparent affair. With seemingly little trouble, middle-class drama and theory of the eighteenth century passed back and forth between England and France. George Lillo’s The London Merchant became Louis-Sébastien Mercièr’s Jenneval; Denis Diderot’s Le Fils naturel became [...]

Odai Johnson, University of Washington, Seattle
Somewhere in the mid-1760s David Douglass, a Scottish immigrant, manager of a itinerant company of actors, and modestly, the founder of the American theatre, began to sign his name ‘Esquire’. When and how exactly the social promotion occurred is not clear, nor is it clear what exactly it [...]

Erith Jaffe-Berg, University of California, Riverside
Carlo Goldoni reflects 18th transnationalism in his frequent voyages within France and Northern Italy, writing from both locations and writing in both Italian (Venetian) and French. Perhaps for this reason, Goldoni frequently explores national identity and characterological identification with national identity in his plays by foregrounding visual appearance and [...]

Lisa A. Freeman, Associate Professor
Department of English
University of Illinois at Chicago
Abstract for ASTR Working Session:  DestiNation and Detour:  Theatre’s Voyages in the Long Eighteenth Century
In 1757, amidst the swirling controversy over John Home’s Douglas, the Reverend John Witherspoon published a treatise against the stage, a pamphlet entitled:  A Serious Inquiry Into the Nature and Effects [...]

Heather S. Nathans, Department of Theatre, University of Maryland
The figure of the itinerant Jew, unmoored from the confines of national belonging, is a familiar figure in European literature.  Whether villain, clown, or figure of pathos, the character wanders among the various communities that he encounters — always ineluctably foreign. The status of permanent traveler [...]

Laurence Senelick
Fletcher Professor of Drama and Oratory
Tufts University

Gerasim Stepanovich Lebedev (1749-1817) was a Russian court musician who taught himself fluent English, French, German and the violin.  As a member of an ambassadorial ensemble, he traveled to Vienna and then to London, whence he embarked to British India. In Madras in 1785 he staged concerts, [...]