Week 3- A Soldier's Play

This week, we are exploring very complex themes presented in Charles Fuller's A Soldier's Play (1981). The play discusses issues of aleination, intraracial tensions, internalized racism and racism in the American military. As you blog on many of thesethemes and the key word "internalized racism" this week, think about how the relationships established between blacks and whites during slavery persist in the play. Though the play is written in the early 1980s, it takes place during WWII when the armed forces were segregated. Here are some questions to consider to help you develop your blog response. Go to the texts, engage them, agree and disagree with them--just use examples in your response. You must support your ideas with evidence from lecture, the plays, supplementary readings, etc.

How do you see the soldiers in the play interlaize many of the separate and unequal practices that are in play during this time period?
What examples from the play, film or readings can you use to illustrate points of internalized racism?
Do all of the black soldiers have a positive image of themselves in this work?
How do white characters perceive blacks at this time?
How are feelings of inferiority imposed by the dominant society played out or resisted by the black characters?

Week 2- From Negro to Colored...the Separate Unequal Struggle for Civil Rights

This week, we are discussing Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun which premiered on Brodway in 1959- right in the fire of the Civil Rights Movement. As you consider many of the key themes in the play, how do you understand the term "Civil rights" in relationship to the story told? Here are some prompts to consider as you blog "Civil Rights": In what way(s) does Hansberry consider the realtionship between race, class, gender and its relationship to American citizenship? How do the Youngers' social postion engage particular topics of concern in the Civil rights Movement such as restrictive covenants, assimilation, integration, etc.? How do narratives of the American Dream in the play relate to larger civil rights struggles?

Week 1- What is African American Theater?

In the introduction to the course this week, we discussed the relationships that produce the African American Theater. From slavery through emancipation, from reconstruction to the Harlem Renaissance, from the Black Arts Movement to the Hip-hop movement, African American writers, actors and directors have worked to represent the experiences of African American people on stage. After reading the articles by W.E.B. Dubois and Suzan-Lori Parks, what are your ideas about African American Theater? How and why do you think African American Theater documents American identity?
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Welcome to KU African American Theater

Thank you for logging on to KU ( The University of Kansas) African American Theater! This is a course covers African American Theater from 1958 to the present. I hope that you will enjoy this amazing journey that we taking together. As we begin to understand the social,cultural,political and economic circumstances that shape representations of African American in the American Theater, we will see how these stories and images have and continue to shape the way we see and understand African American experiences represented in popular culture. I look forward to working with you this semester and getting to know your interests in theater and performance.

Best-
Nicole Hodges Persley, PhD
Assistant Professor of Theater
The University of Kansas