Tennessee Williams’s Creative Frisson, Censorship, and the Queering of Theatre

2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-99
Author(s):  
S. E. Gontarski
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Florida State University ◽  
State University ◽  
Theatre Arts ◽  
Streetcar Named Desire ◽  
Cultural Taboos ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Style Of Writing ◽  
A Streetcar Named Desire

The world around Tennessee Williams in the 1960s, 1970s, and into the 1980s was changing at an astonishing pace, the cultural revolution of the period rendering most of his themes of sexual closeting and repression almost inconsequential. At least the entrenched cultural taboos against which he wrote seem to have disappeared by the mid-1960s and 1970s. In the 1980s, Broadway productions of his work grew infrequent, while those mounted tended to have short runs. He told interviewers from Theatre Arts magazine: ‘I think my kind of literary or pseudo-literary style of writing for the theatre is on its way out.’ European productions of his work, on the other hand, seemed regenerative: Howard Davies’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1989), in which the director used Williams’s original third act and not the version rewritten by Elia Kazan for the New York premiere; Peter Hall’s revival of Orpheus Descending (1989–91); Benedict Andrews’s A Streetcar Named Desire (2014), followed by his 2017 Cat on a Hot Tin Roof – a revival deemed ‘so courageous’; and in Italy, Elio De Capitani’s productions of Un tram che si chiama desiderio (1995) and Improvvisamente, l’estate scorsa (2011), both in fresh, new, up-to-date translations by Masolino D’Amico – all these have maintained an edge to Williams’s theatre lost in so many American productions. All seem to suggest the continued vitality of Williams’s work in Europe by directors willing to probe and rediscover Williams’s depths, who consider him ‘a playwright worthy of further artistic investigation’, as European audiences, correspondingly, seem less inclined to dismiss him as an artist whom history has overtaken. S. E. Gontarski is Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of English at Florida State University. His critical, bilingual edition of Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire was published as Un tram che si chiama desiderio / A Streetcar Named Desire (Pisa: Editioni ETS, 2012). His Włodzimierz Staniewski and the Phenomenon of ‘Gardzienice’, co-edited with Tomasz Wiśniewski and Katarzyna Kręglewska, is forthcoming (Routledge).

Notes on the development of health psychology and behavioral medicine in the United States

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 492-505 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Lubek ◽  
Monica Ghabrial ◽  
Naomi Ennis ◽  
Sara Crann ◽  
Amanda Jenkins ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
United States ◽  
Health Psychology ◽  
New York ◽  
Behavioral Medicine ◽  
Clinical Psychology ◽  
The United States ◽  
State University ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S

A “standard” historiographical overview of the development of health psychology in the United States, alongside behavioral medicine, first summarizes previous disciplinary and professional histories. A “historicist” approach follows, focussing on a collective biographical summary of accumulated contributions of one cohort (1967–1971) at State University of New York at Stony Brook. Foundational developments of the two areas are highlighted, contextualized within their socio-political context, as are innovative cross-boundary collaboration on “precursor” studies from the 1960s and 1970s, before the official disciplines emerged. Research pathways are traced from social psychology to health psychology and from clinical psychology to behavioral medicine.

scholarly journals Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE): Icon and Controversy

Psychology ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
David C. Devonis
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Popular Imagination ◽  
Prison Policy ◽  
Replication Crisis ◽  
Social Psychological Research ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Stanford Prison Experiment

The Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) took place at a time when the sources of authoritarianism and evil were a focal concern in psychology. It emerged from a tradition of activist social psychological research beginning with Solomon Asch in the 1940s and extending through Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiments in the early 1960s. The SPE was a product of the research program of social psychologist Philip Zimbardo, a member of the Stanford psychology faculty since 1968. Discussions among Zimbardo’s students in spring 1971 led to a plan to simulate a prison environment. They converted portions of the basement of a University building into a combination booking room and jail. Zimbardo and a number of his graduate and undergraduate students took on supervisory roles. Before the Experiment began, paid participants recruited through newspaper advertisements were screened to eliminate obvious psychopathology, then randomly assigned to either the role of ‘guard’ or ‘prisoner.’ On the first experimental morning August 14, 1971, actual local police simulated an arrest of each of the prisoner participants. After they arrived, blindfolded, a simulated booking took place. Guards escorted them to the prison hallway where prisoners were required to strip and exchange their clothing for simple shifts and slippers. After a simulated spray delousing, they entered makeshift cells. After this, the Experiment evolved as an extended improvisation, by both the guards and prisoners, on prison-related themes. Episodes of deprivation, bullying, and humiliation emerged unplanned. Originally planned to run for two weeks, the Experiment lasted only six days, prematurely terminated when its supervising personnel judged that the simulation had gotten out of their control. The coincidence of its termination with the Attica prison uprising in New York led to its immediate dissemination in the news. Since then the SPE has become one of the most iconic psychological studies of psychology’s modern era. Although intended to expose and ameliorate bad prison conditions, its effectiveness in this regard diminished during a rapid shift in US prison policy, in the mid-1970’s, from reform to repression. Over succeeding decades, the Experiment continued to stimulate the popular imagination, leading to an extensive replication on British television and its portrayal in two feature films. Soon after its original publication, the SPE attracted criticisms of its methodology. After 2010, critical scrutiny of the SPE as well as similar iconic studies from the 1960s and 1970s increased, fueled by the growing ‘replication crisis’ in psychology. This most recent phase of criticism reflects not just a turn toward reflexive disciplinary self-criticism but also the increased availability of archival sources for examination. The SPE continues to excite both passionate support and equally passionate obloquy, much as have other comparable simulations of human social behavior.

“It was a jet. It was a jet. It was a jet.”

2021 ◽  
pp. 3-21
Author(s):  
Jessica DuLong
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
The United States ◽  
Staten Island ◽  
Creative Problem ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Maritime Infrastructure ◽  
Maritime Community ◽  
The U.S

This chapter provides a background of the waterborne evacuation that happened after the events of 9/11. New York harbor was, and is, a busy place — the third largest container port in the United States and a vital connection between New York City and the rest of the world. Manhattan is an island, and the realities of island real estate are what ushered the port's industries off Manhattan's shores and over to Brooklyn, Staten Island, and New Jersey in the 1960s and 1970s. By late 2001, maritime infrastructure had been replaced with ornamental fencing. On September 11, 2001, as the cascade of catastrophe unfolded, people found their fates altered by the absence of that infrastructure and discovered themselves dependent upon the creative problem solving of New York harbor's maritime community — waterfront workers who had been thrust beyond their usual occupations and into the role of first responders. Long before the U.S. Coast Guard's call for “all available boats” crackled out over marine radios, scores of ferries, tugs, dinner boats, sailing yachts, and other vessels had begun converging along Manhattan's shores. Hundreds of mariners shared their skills and equipment to conduct a massive, unplanned rescue. Within hours, nearly half a million people had been delivered from Manhattan by boat.

Consciousness-Raising

2020 ◽  
pp. 232-245
Author(s):  
Tabatha Leggett
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Critical Consciousness ◽  
First Person ◽  
Consciousness Raising ◽  
Collective Voice ◽  
Radical Feminist ◽  
Feminist Consciousness ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S

This chapter examines consciousness-raising as a means of challenging oppression. Bringing the #MeToo movement into contact with first-person accounts and criticisms of the radical feminist consciousness-raising groups that formed in New York and Chicago in the 1960s and 1970s, it suggests that they remain an essential force to challenge female oppression today. It touches on the various ways that patriarchal structures silence women, how consciousness-raising undercuts this silencing by giving women a collective voice, and how social media can amplify this voice. Finally, it addresses common criticisms of consciousness-raising movements, especially concerning the disproportionate focus on white women’s concerns that they have historically represented and universalized. It touches on Kimberlé Crenhaw’s theory of intersectionality as well as Paulo Friere’s conception of critical consciousness theory to explore the notion of truly inclusive consciousness-raising movements.

Pro Familia and the reform of abortion laws in West Germany, 1967–1983

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 297-311
Author(s):  
Claudia Roesch
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
New York ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Reform Process ◽  
Legal Abortion ◽  
The West ◽  
Reproductive Decision Making ◽  
Medical Emergencies ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S

This article investigates the role of the West German family planning association Pro Familia in the abortion reform of the 1960s and 1970s. It examines the question of legal abortion from the perspective of reproductive decision-making and asks who was to make a decision about having an abortion in the reform process—the woman, her doctor, or a counsellor. During the early reform suggestions of §218 in the 1960s, Pro Familia supported the West German solution of allowing legal abortion only in medical emergencies. Opinions within the organization changed as leading members witnessed legalization in Great Britain and New York. The feminist movement and the Catholic opposition to legal abortion influenced positions in the reform phase of the 1970s. Meanwhile, Pro Familia put emphasis on compulsory pregnancy crisis counselling as aid in decision-making for individual women and a tool for putting a decision into practice. Throughout the reform process, Pro Familia continued to perceive legal abortion not as way to enable women to make their own decision but as a pragmatic solution to emergencies.

Calendar Problems: March 2004

2004 ◽  
Vol 97 (3) ◽  
pp. 192-197
Author(s):  
Steve Benson
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S

All the problems on this month's calendar originally appeared in, or were adapted from, problems that came from New York Interscholastic Mathematics League contests in the 1960s and 1970s.

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