Staging Governance

Theatrical Imperialism in London, 1770-1800
Erscheinungsjahr 2005
ISBN: 978-0-8018-7961-6
Verlag: Johns Hopkins University Press

Buch, Englisch, 440 Seiten, Format (B × H): 162 mm x 239 mm, Gewicht: 750 g

Between 1770 and 1800, transformations in the relationship between metropolitan British society and its colonial holdings, and in the concept of the nation itself, left Britons with a new sense of themselves. Over the same period, the consolidation of the middle classes was accompanied by growing social constraints on sexuality and family life. Staging Governance locates the intersection of these two trends in the representation of British India on the London stage. Theatrical productions, especially those representing colonial life, pushed the limits of public discourse on sexuality and colonialism even as the government made efforts to shape and narrow them. At the same time, official discourse on colonial practices, such as the public trials of Clive and Hastings, became theatrical events themselves.

Exploring this rapidly shifting world through a series of original readings of dramatic texts and important moments of oratory, Staging Governance demonstrates how the perceived crises of imperial and domestic Britain joined these spheres in the popular imagination. The economics of political and sexual exchange not only became entwined but functioned as mutual supports during a period of social, cultural, and political readjustment.

Autoren/Hrsg.

O'Quinn, Daniel

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturwissenschaft: Dramen und Dramatiker
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Englische Literatur
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft | Kulturwissenschaften Kulturwissenschaften
• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Theaterwissenschaft
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturgeschichte und Literaturkritik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgements
Introduction: The Supplementation of Imperial Sovereignty
Part I: Ethnographic Acts
Chapter 1. Empire's Vicious Expenses: Samuel Foote's The Nabob and the Credit Crisis of 1772
Chapter 2. "As Much as Science Can Approach Barbarity" Pantomimical Ethnography in Omai; or, A Trip round the World
Part II: Women and the Trials of Imperial Masculinity
Chapter 3. Inchbald's Indies: Meditations on Despotism circa 1784
Chapter 4. The Raree Show of Impeachment
Chapter 5. Molière's Old Woman: Judging and Being Judged with Frances Burney
Part III: A Theatre of Perpetual War
Chapter 6. Starke Reforms: Martial Masculinity and the Perils of Indianization
Chapter 7. War and Precinema: Tipu Sultan and the Allure of Mechanical Display
Afterword: Recreational Alterity
Notes
Index

Über Autor(innen)

O'Quinn, Daniel
Daniel O'Quinn is an associate professor in the School of Literatures and Performance Studies in English at the University of Guelph, Ontario.