SHIFTING CONTEXTS: RECONSIDERING ANGELS IN AMERICA AS QUEER THEORY

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dc.contributor.advisorShimko, Robert B.
dc.contributor.committeeMemberKirk, Keith B.
dc.contributor.committeeMemberWalther, Eric H.
dc.creatorAker, Rachel
dc.date.accessioned2016-02-29T03:09:09Z
dc.date.available2016-02-29T03:09:09Z
dc.date.createdMay 2015
dc.date.issued2015-05
dc.date.updated2016-02-29T03:09:09Z
dc.description.abstractNo theatrical work emerged from the AIDS crisis of the 1980s with as much national and global influence as Tony Kushner’s two-part Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes—Millennium Approaches (1991) and Perestroika (1992). Prior Walter, a gay man living with AIDS, concludes the cycle with a charge to the audience: “The Great Work Begins.” Angels in America presents itself as a part of that Great Work, placing the various experiences of its characters at the center of a growing conversation on sexual identity. The period of the play’s first workshops to its successful premiers around the world parallel the window of time during which queer theory became a coherent academic discipline. Kushner’s play has been critically dissected from a broad range of perspectives, including a queer lens; however, Angels in America has yet to be recognized as a work of queer theory itself. This thesis examines Angels in America as a work that emerges alongside landmark texts of queer theory as a praxis that embodies its own theories about identity formation under discursive institutional power. The dramatic dialogue of the play allows for the multivocality of Kushner’s characters to shape a neo-Platonic dialectic on queer ideology and the construction of the sexual self. The characters’ manifold assertions embrace the ambiguity and discord that have marked queer theory and sexuality studies, as well as foreshadowing further developments within the American LGBT civil rights and queer visibility movements.
dc.description.departmentTheatre Program
dc.format.digitalOriginborn digital
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdf
dc.identifier.orcid0000-0001-6093-5703
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10657/1259
dc.language.isoeng
dc.rightsThe author of this work is the copyright owner. UH Libraries and the Texas Digital Library have their permission to store and provide access to this work. Further transmission, reproduction, or presentation of this work is prohibited except with permission of the author(s).
dc.subjectKushner, Tony
dc.subjectAngels in America
dc.subjectQueer Theory
dc.subjectTheatre
dc.subjectPerformance Studies
dc.subjectSociology
dc.subjectHistory
dc.subjectTheatre History
dc.subjectFeminism
dc.subjectGender studies
dc.titleSHIFTING CONTEXTS: RECONSIDERING ANGELS IN AMERICA AS QUEER THEORY
dc.type.dcmiText
dc.type.genreThesis
thesis.degree.collegeCollege of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences
thesis.degree.departmentTheatre Program
thesis.degree.disciplineTheatre
thesis.degree.grantorUniversity of Houston
thesis.degree.levelMasters
thesis.degree.majorTheatre Studies
thesis.degree.nameMaster of Arts

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