Books published by Peter Lang International Academic Publishers

Luigi Pirandello's novel L'esclusa, completed in its earliest form in 1893, straddles two literary worlds. In this book, the author provides a new critical evaluation of L'esclusa, linking it explicitly to the theoretical principles aligned with Pirandello's later output and with early-twentieth-century literary modernism in general.

This book explores the relationship between the Orthodox tradition and the ecumenical practice of engagement with other Christian traditions. The author perceives this relationship to be inconsistent since the core of Orthodoxy as professed by the Orthodox is precisely that of re-establishing the unity and catholicity of the Church of Christ.

Irish theatre has never been so successful, and this book provides necessary assessment of the key playwrights, directors and others involved in making this possible.

The year 2009 was the centenary of the death of John Millington Synge, one of the world¿s great dramatists. To mark the occasion, this book gathers essays by leading scholars of Irish drama, aiming to explore the writers and movements that shaped Synge, and to consider his enduring legacies. Essays discuss Synge¿s work in its Irish, European and world contexts ¿ showing his engagement not just with the Irish literary revival but with European politics and culture too. The book also explores Synge¿s influence on later writers: Irish dramatists such as Brian Friel, Tom Murphy and Marina Carr, as well as international writers like Mustapha Matura and Erisa Kironde. It also considers Synge¿s place in Ireland today, revealing how The Playboy of the Western World has helped to shape Ireland¿s responses to globalisation and multiculturalism, in celebrated productions by the Abbey Theatre, Druid theatre, and Pan Pan theatre company.Contributors include Ann Saddlemyer, Ben Levitas, Mary Burke, Paige Reynolds, Eilís Ní Dhuibhne, Mark Phelan, Shaun Richards, Ondvrej Piln¿y, Richard Pine, Alexandra Poulain, Emilie Pine, Melissa Sihra, Sara Keating, Bisi Adigun, Adrian Frazier and Anthony Roche.

A collection of essays focusing on a variety of alternative performances happening in contemporary Ireland. While it highlights the particular representations of gay and lesbian identity it also brings to light how diversity has always been a part of Irish culture and is, in fact, shaping what it means to be Irish today.

This book is an insight into Ireland's only arthouse theatre from the people who were there. Through interviews, articles, short memoirs and photographs, the book tracks the theatre from its inception, detailing the period under its founder Deirdre O'Connell and then the period following Joe Devlin's arrival as its new artistic director.

Multiple productions and the international successes of plays like The Weir have led to Conor McPherson being regarded by many as one of the finest writers of his generation. McPherson has also been hugely prolific as a theatre director, as a screenwriter and film director, garnering many awards in these different roles.In this collection of essays, commentators from around the world address the substantial range of McPherson¿s output to date in theatre and film, a body of work written primarily during and in the aftermath of Ireland¿s Celtic Tiger period. These critics approach the work in challenging and dynamic ways, considering the crucial issues of morality, the rupturing of the real, storytelling, and the significance of space, violence and gender. Explicit considerations are given to comedy and humour, and to theatrical form, especially that of the monologue and to the ways that the otherworldly, the unconscious and the supernatural are accommodated dramaturgically, with frequent emphasis placed on the specific aspects of performance in both theatre and film.

Articles: «The Cries of Pagan Desperation»: Synge, Riders to the Sea and the Discontents of Historical Time by Christopher Collins; Scenographic Interactions: 1950s Ireland and Dublin's Pike Theatre by Siobhan O'Gorman; Uneasy Bedfellows: Culture, Commerce and the Rise of the «Production Hub» Paradigm in Irish Theatre by Lisa Fitzgerald; Respond or Else: Conor MacPherson's The Weir at the Donmar Warehouse by Eamonn Jordan; Gay Masculinities in Performance: Towards a Queer Dramaturgy by Cormac O'Brien; Perform, or Else! Reflections from an Irish theatre maker by Neil Watkins.

Thomas Kilroy¿s long and distinguished career is celebrated in this volume by new essays, panel discussions and an interview, reconsidering the work of one of Ireland¿s most intellectually ambitious and technically imaginative playwrights. Contributors are drawn from both the academic and theatrical spheres, and include Nicholas Grene, Wayne Jordan, Patrick Mason, Christopher Murray and Lynne Parker.This volume follows Kilroy¿s own practice of connecting the creative and the critical, and publishes for the first time an extract from his play «Blake». Illustrated with photographs from major productions, this book also reproduces previously unseen materials from the Thomas Kilroy Collection held in the James Hardiman Library, NUI Galway.

Humour claims no ideological affiliation - its workings merit inspection in any and every individual case, in light of the who, what, where and when of a joke, including the manner of performance, the socio-cultural context, the dynamic amongst participants, and who knows how many other factors particular to the instance. There are as many insights to be gained from the deployment of humour in performance as people to think about it - so herein lie a healthy handful of responses from a variety of perspectives.For the Sake of Sanity: Doing things with humour in Irish performance assembles a range of essays from practitioners, academics, and journalists, all of whom address the attempt to make an audience laugh in various Irish contexts over the past century. With a general emphasis on theatre, the collection also includes essays on film, television and stand-up comedy for those insights into practice, society and culture revealed uniquely through instances of humour in performance.

This book explores the marvellously textured and complex nature of Blue Raincoat Theatre's work, set design, costumes and lighting, revealing the magic that results from their unique style of theatre making.

This collection of seven plays show that there is no singular Focus Theatre play or playwright, including various styles from monologues on New York, 2001 to the fantastical world of Lewis Carroll.

This book offers a 360 Degrees look at breast cancer from individuals who have intimate understanding of and experience with it: patients, healthcare providers, and researchers and scholars. This book is meant to be a single go-to source for people who want to understand more fully and clearly the lived experience of breast cancer.

This book aims to provide a comprehensive, but succinct analysis of the tragedies and comedies written by Greek and Roman dramatists. The book is comprehensive in the ways it deals not just with Greek tragedy of the fifth century BCE, but also with Seneca's tragedies of the first century CE.

Through application of modern historiographical analysis and scriptural exegesis, the book explores the space between factual history and interpretive history, or histoire. Muhammad al-Tabari's History, written about 300 years after the establishment of Islam, is one of the religion's most important commentaries.

This collection explores the concept of patrimoine, a French word used to denote cultural heritage, traditional customs and practices, and the extent to which it impacts France and Ireland. The contributors unearth manifestations of how patrimoine resonates across cultural divides and bestows uniqueness on countries/societies.

This book represents an extensive examination of human hands and feet and their functions as media of nonverbal communication in the transmission of the mission and message of Jesus by the early church

In this edition, the first in which all Beethoven's Irish folksong settings are published together, the late baritone, broadcaster and musicologist, Tomas O Suilleabhain, selected texts, mostly by Burns and Moore, which he felt were more appropriate to the airs and to Beethoven's settings.

L'ecriture a l'ere de l'indetermination considere l'experience de la litterature comme une maniere de traiter les questions les plus complexes du monde contemporain. L'auteur souligne l'importance de la critique genetique et de la psychanalyse lacanienne pour les etudes litteraires de Flaubert, Proust, Bauchau, Murakami, Poe et Joyce.

This volume is an edited collection of original essays on spiritual travel in medieval and early modern Europe. Pilgrimage was a central feature of medieval and early modern Christianity. But holy travel was not only a physical act, it was also an interior disposition and a spiritual process.

"And yet I remember" explores representations of ageing and old age in English drama from 1660 to the 1750s. Within these approximately ninety years, England witnessed significant developments in medicine and the advent of sentimental philosophy, which began to transform attitudes toward old age and ageing.

This collection of essays is devoted to the Jewish themes that ran through Lion Feuchtwanger's life, works and worlds. The author's approaches to Jewish history, Zionism, religion and Jewish identity are all explored. The book also more broadly considers the condition of exile and the communities of emigres in North America and beyond.

This book is about unifying in one theory the human being, Homo psychicus, both as an affective/internal present being and an operative, cognitive being. The author's empirical research is directed towards development of the Percept-genetic Object-Relation Test (PORT) to show how Homo psychicus may become a person.

This anthology brings together texts of significance for the conceptualisation of human dignity as a constitutional principle in Europe from the earliest evidence until 1965. It presents the ancient, medieval, early modern and modern sources. It will provide a comprehensive collection of texts documenting the concept of human dignity.

Jules Romains est connu comme un ecrivain rationaliste, mais il est fascine par tout ce qui releve du parapsychique et de l'extraordinaire. C'est en replacant sa production dans le contexte d'une epoque meurtrie par deux Guerres mondiales qu'on peut expliquer le fait qu'il glisse d'un unanimisme optimiste a un fantastique desespere.