The English Theatrical Avant-Garde, 1900–1925 unearths an extensive range of hitherto forgotten or ignored theatre practices. In doing so it reveals some of the well-known figures of the early twentieth-century English theatre in a strikingly new light. It fluently describes an intensity of innovation and experiment that together made the Edwardian theatre rather more radical, and rather more queer, than we’ve ever thought. Where the majority of writing on the early twentieth-century theatrical avant-garde is concerned with European movements and experiments, English activity of the period is often seen as parochial and conservative – mainly realism and issues-based drama. This book presents a new model of how avant-gardes might work; a model based not on masculine individualism but on communal inclusion. In describing this fascinating material, the author introduces us to many new figures and shows familiar ones in different ways: there’s Florence Farr, independent woman; Bob Trevelyan, radical pacifist and music drama pioneer; Granville Barker doing fairy plays while de-dramatising drama; Laurence Housman, socialist, homosexual, scripting St Francis; and the oddly modern J.M. Barrie. Together they made theatre practices rich in their diversity but consistent in their attempt to be new, producing a theatrical avant-garde unlike any other. This is a vital and indispensable new study for scholars and students of early twentieth-century theatre in England and beyond.

A Cultural History of the Avant-Garde in the Nordic Countries 1925-1950 is the first publication to deal with the avant-garde in the Nordic countries in this period. The essays cover a wide range of avant-garde manifestations: literature, visual arts, theatre, architecture and design, film, radio, body culture and magazines. It is the first major historical work to consider the Nordic avant-garde in a transnational perspective that includes all the arts and to discuss the role of the avant-garde not only within the aesthetic field but in a broader cultural and political context: the pre-war and wartime responses to international developments, the new cultural institutions, sexual politics, the impact of refugees and the new start after the war.

A Cultural History of the Avant-Garde in the Nordic Countries 1900-1925 is the first publication to deal with the avant-garde in the Nordic countries at the start of the twentieth century. The essays cover a wide range of avant-garde manifestations in arts and culture: literature, the visual arts, painting as well as photography, architecture and design, film, radio, and performing arts like music, theatre and dance. It is the first major historical work to consider the Nordic avant-garde in a transnational perspective which includes all the arts and to discuss the role of the avant-garde not only within the aesthetic field, but in a broader cultural context. It examines the social and cultural context of the avant-garde: its media, its locations, its reception and audiences, the transmissions between Scandinavia and Europe, and its cultural consequences. The essays trace the connections between the avant-garde and the cultural discourses of contemporary currents such as revolutionary socialism, radical nationalism and occultism, and discuss questions of gender, ideology and politics, geographical location and technological innovation. The cultural history thus focuses on the role of the avant-garde in shaping the ideas of cultural modernity in the Nordic countries.

This is the first book to reconstruct early popular musical theatre as a transnational and highly cosmopolitan entertainment industry.

This is precisely the book I have been looking out for ever since working at my Das Drama. Theorie und Analyse (1977; The Theory and Analysis of Drama, 1988), and discovering from a few specimens the incisive usefulness and importance of Prague School theatre semiotics. There is everything one could possibly wish for in this monumental Theatre Theory Reader: Prague School Writings: all the by now canonical texts and many others presented for the first time in English, arranged in a systematic order which fully renders the sense of the scope and development of Czech theatre semiotics, and all of them in highly competent translations aware of the terminological complexities at stake and supported by helpful annotations. With such a rich harvest garnered, this anthology of Prague School Writings is bound to become nationally as well as internationally a prime work of reference and give to them a second lease of life in the 21st century. Manfred Pfister *** Modern theatre theory, no matter what its orientation, can trace its roots back to the structuralist and semiotic explorations of the Prague School in the early twentieth century. This comprehensive and informed overview is therefore most welcome in understanding the course and development of that theoretical tradition. It is not, however, of purely historical interest, important as that is. Whether they use the terminology of the Prague School or evoke the names of its contributors, analysts of theatre and performance today still find the strategies and articulations of those pioneers of ongoing relevance. This collection thus provides an important double service, providing contemporary theatre scholars with a clearer idea of where they have come from and an inspiration for where they may be going. Marvin Carlson *** I think it is a great idea not to group the articles according to the different authors but following a systematic that covers as many aspects of theatre as possible. This way, it becomes quite clear that the theories of the so-called Prague or Czech structuralists and semioticians were able to apply their theories when discussing most diverging questions related to theatre. The choice of texts is excellent. It makes more than clear that these theories are not outdated, do not only have historical value and are interesting with regard to the history of ideas only. Rather, it becomes evident that they are highly relevant in the context of discussions led today. Erika Fischer-Lichte *** The Prague School and the Czech structuralism have had a considerable impact on the development of semiotic studies and theatre studies at large in the 1960s and 70s. But this has been quickly forgotten and with the rise of poststructuralism and deconstruction in the 80s and 90s, they were not only neglected, but also unjustly disregarded or even forgotten. This is why the Theatre Theory Reader: Prague School Writings is a very welcome book which comes at the right moment, when postmodernism, poststructuralism and postdramatic theatre seem to have lost their momentum, as if the requirements of today’s quest for a new way of living and of making business had become so strong that we must go back to the basics. Structuralism and a critique of ideology are now back, at least as a sign to not give up thinking and theorizing in a world which has become self-centred and mad. The afterword by Pavel Drábek, Martin Bernátek, Andrea Jochmanová and Eva Šlaisová is a sort of book within the book, as it neatly puts in perspective all the important names and theories of the Prague School. It does this in a very user-friendly manner, where complex theories are summarized in a clear, yet precise, introduction. This makes the reading of the different chapters easier and immediately connected to our contemporary way of thinking. Patrice Pavis

For many years the term fin de siècle has been used to imply a state of decadence which was thought to have pervaded 'civilised' European society in the years around 1900. This volume of essays, which draw on a very wide range of disciplines, argues that the period was in fact one of dramatic change, essentially positive and forward-looking in character. This was the period of the rise of the giant corporation, of mass production and mass consumption, and of the development of the generation and distribution of electrical energy. Novel social features such as mass politics, mass media, and mass sport involved the body of ordinary people and in the arts, complex reactions to contemporary social reality were aroused and expressed. This was also the period which gave birth to the study of quantum mechanics, relativity physics, mental processes and genetics. This volume forms part of a sequence of collections of essays which began with The Enlightenment in National Context (1981) and has continued with Romanticism in National Context (1988). They bring together comparative, national and interdisciplinary approaches to the history of great movements in the development of human thought and actions.