Book traces an artisanal perspective on medieval and early modern civic relations, analyzing selected plays from York and Chester individually and from a comparative perspective.

An investigation into the connections between the York Plays, religious observance, and the role played by the city itself.

'Attempting no less a task than to demonstrate that Ibsen planned his last twelve plays, beginning with Pillars of Society, as a cycle paralleling exactly Hegel's account of the evolution of the human consciousness, The Phenomenology of Mind, Johnston offers a fresh look at the Norwegian master. Although there is little specific biographical data in support of the author's thesis, he argues compellingly for it in his analysis of the texts themselves. After discussing Hegel's dramatic method of exposition and Ibsen's philosophy, Johnston examines each of the twelve plays in considerable detail. Provocative and sophisticated in its approach, this volume should be widely available to scholars and advanced students of modern drama. ---Library Journal

First published in 1993. Part of a series on medieval casebooks, this volume six looks at the Chester Mystery Cycle Play manuscripts and comparisons of the York and Chester Cycle. Theologically a product of the Middle Ages, historically a product of the Renaissance, what we today call the Chester Mystery Cycle is a series of twenty-four plays dramatizing the events of salvation history from Creation until Doomsday. One of four surviving English mystery cycles, the Chester Cycle, which originally included a twenty-fifth play of the Assumption surpressed sometime in the mid-sixteenth century, was, until more modern times, last performed in 1575.

The ongoing battle between free individuals and our moribund institutions for the control of information resources, information technology and information systems began with the sexual gods. The chief god Atum, controller of Cosmos, declared sex ungodly and messy, outcomes unpredictable. A sexless god, Atum, though supreme, was unable to control Ra, Thoth, and the seven other sexual gods. With Atumic frustration Atum confined the sexual gods to the Solar System, but with a dire warning: if their activities destabilized the Cosmos they would feel the full force of Atumic wrath. Sibling squabbles between Ra and Thoth spawned endless conflict. Fear for their godly survival forced Ra and Thoth to confine their fight to the Earthly environment. One outcome: Homo Saps, a unique species combining Thought-processing with godlike features and hominid-animal sexuality. Both Ra and Thoth used Homo Saps as foot soldiers. Thoth invented Information Technology/Information System or ITIS (pronounced eye-tis) tools as weapons to help them free themselves from Ras inhibiting controls. Homo Saps used the ITIS tools in establishing, controlling and stabilizing the first Earthly civilizations: Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Ancient India, and Ancient China at the direction of the gods. Homo Saps increasing skills with the ITIS tools allowed them to develop independent Thought processing and break free of godly controls. The Ancient Greek Homo Sap Aristotle and his philosopher predecessors captured the moment by developing their own ITIS applications and demonstrated Homo Saps Thought processing freedoms. They developed the first user-friendly ITIS tool that would change their Earthly reality forever: the 22-letter alphabet. Dear Jim: Our History of IT IS traces the development of the ITIS tools OralITIS, ImageITIS, CalendarITIS, WritingITIS, and AlphabetITIS and their impact on civilizations before the death of Aristotle.

Twenty-six original essays by leading theorists and historians of the pre-seventeenth-century English stage chart a paradigmatic shift within the field. In contrast to the traditional emphasis on individual authors, the contributors to this storehouse of new historical information and critical insight explore the place of the stage within the larger society, as well as issues of performance and physical space, providing an innovative approach to both literary studies and cultural history.