Download “Transnational Feminism in 21st Century

“Transnational Feminism in 21st Century Black American Drama and Performance” explores
twenty-first century works from playwrights who I group together loosely under the current
transnational moment of playwriting. I include works from Tarell Alvin McCraney, Danai
Gurira, Nikkole Salter, Lynn Nottage, Robert O’Hara, and Katori Hall. My primary aims are to
extend due scholarly attention to these playwrights, several of whom have not yet received
appropriate focus, and in so doing, begin the work of periodizing these twenty-first century
playwrights, whose work I argue is united by a heading I will redefine and expand in these
pages: African diasporic performance. With a multidisciplinary approach unified through
transnational feminisms, I find that these works reveal the global through its impact on the
local and—when set outside the United States—reveal the global through careful
storytelling that avoids monoliths and calls out global forces and audiences’ implicit and
explicit role in oppressions. My study centers materialist readings through a transnational
feminist lens and takes interest in extending the ongoing feminist effort to reclaim realism
as a politically-impactful theatrical form. Ultimately, I argue that these playwrights’ work
should be more widely produced and celebrated for its ability to make visible global
networks that demonstrate sometimes surprising, but often obscured opportunities for
strategic coalition.