Failure, Fascism, and Teachers in American Theatre: Pedagogy of the Oppressors

US Theatre / Book Celebration

Failure, Fascism, and Teachers in American Theatre:
Pedagogy of the Oppressors by James F. Wilson

Join us for an evening with Jim Wilson and Jordan Schildcrout discussing Wilson's latest book Failure, Fascism, and Teachers in American Theatre: Pedagogy of the Oppressors. This timely and accessible book explores the shifting representations of schoolteachers and professors in plays and performances primarily from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in the United States. Examining various historical and recurring types, such as spinsters, schoolmarms, presumed sexual deviants, radicals and communists, fascists, and emasculated men teachers, Wilson shines the spotlight on both well-known and nearly-forgotten plays. Richly illustrated, the book will appeal to theatre scholars and general readers as it delves into plays and performances that reflect cultural fears, desires, and fetishistic fantasies associated with educators—while providing meaningful opportunities for intervention in the ongoing education wars. Moderated by Frank Hentschker.

James F. Wilson is the executive officer of the Theatre and Performance Program at the Graduate Center, CUNY. His work has appeared in several chapter anthologies and academic journals, and he is the author of Bulldaggers, Pansies, and Chocolate Babies: Race, Performance, and Sexuality in the Harlem Renaissance (UP Michigan).

Jordan Schildcrout is professor of Theatre & Performance at Purchase College - SUNY and the author of In the Long Run: A Cultural History of Broadway’s Hit Plays (Routledge) and Murder Most Queer: The Homicidal Homosexual in the American Theater (Michigan). He is also the co-editor of Fifty Key Figures in Queer US Theatre (Routledge), and his newest article "Sondheim at the Disco" will appear in the next issue of Studies in Musical Theatre.

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