August Strindberg and Visual Culture: The Emergence of Optical Modernity in Image, Text and Theatre

Description

August Strindberg and Visual Culture addresses the multiplicity of Strindberg's artistic and literary output. The book charts the vital intersections between theatre, aesthetic theory, and visual elements in his work that have been left largely unexplored. Rather than following traditional genre-bound critical approaches, this book focuses on the intermediality of individual works, the corpus as a whole, and their connections to a wide array of historical and contemporary artists, writers, photographers, film, theatre and museum practitioners. The book is beautifully illustrated, with many never-before-seen images from Strindberg's work, and includes contributions from actress Liv Ullmann, director Robert Wilson, and curator and museum director Daniel Birnbaum.

Jonathan Schroeder is William A. Kern Professor in Communications at Rochester Institute of Technology, USA. Anna Westerstahl Stenport is Chair and Professor in the School of Modern Languages at Georgia Institute of Technology, USA. Eszter Szalczer is Professor of Theatre and Head of History, Literature and Criticism of the Theatre Program at the University at Albany, New York, USA.

August Strindberg was not only a leading innovator in the modern theatre but also in modern art, in a new visual culture, on stage and on canvas. This highly stimulating book brings together a range of younger researchers, practitioners, artists, and prominent intellectuals to reassess a major literary figure from the perspective of visual theory and art history. * Goeran Soederstroem, Professor Emeritus of Art History, Lund University and Stockholm University, Sweden, head of the Strindberg Museum (1973-1990), and author of Strindbergs maleri (2017) * This interdisciplinary collection brings together essays by Strindberg scholars, theater directors, and literary and cultural theorists that explore the interplay between writing, photography, painting, and modernity in Strindberg's work. A welcome contribution to Strindberg's scholarship, August Strindberg and Visual Culture illuminates the relationship of his work as a whole to visual cultures and different media since the turn of the last century. * Lynne R. Wilkinson, Associate Professor of Germanic Languages, Comparative Literature, and Women's and Gender Studies, University of Texas at Austin, USA *