The Americanization of the Soviet living newspaper
This article examines the migration of a Soviet agitational theatrical form from Russia to the United States in the 1920s and 1930s. The Soviet living newspaper, or zhivaia gazeta, began during the Russian Civil War as a method to act out a pro-Soviet version of the news for mainly illiterate Red Army soldiers. During the 1920s, it evolved into an experimental form of agitprop theater that attracted the interest of foreigners, who hoped to develop new methods of political theater in their own countries. In the United States, the living newspaper format was first adopted by American communist circles. Eventually, the depression-era arts program, the Federal Theatre Project (FTP), incorporated an expanded and altered version as part of its many offerings. Living newspapers eventually became one of the FTP’s most celebrated and criticized performance genres. The political content of American living newspapers was a major factor in the government’s elimination of the FTP in 1939.
United States Communist History Bibliography, 2007–2008
The subject of this bibliography is the scholarly literature of United States communism. In previous years, this bibliography separately covered the literature of communism throughout the rest of the world. However, this coverage has been discontinued, thus aligning the bibliography with the core scope of American Communist History while reducing its size to a more easily publishable length. Other considerations included the amount of time the compiler could devote to this project, and because it was not possible to provide the same depth of coverage for non-U.S. communism. Informational annotations are provided where a work’s title does not convey essential information, e.g. chronological or geographical scope, personal or corporate names, subject or relevance.
From the Shadow of Dracula: A Life of Bram Stoker
It is one of the great ironies of literary history that the author of arguably the world's bestselling work of fiction remains little known. This book seeks to redress the balance and to articulate a new vision of Bram Stoker, relating the creator to his most famous creation. Paul Murray has examined important primary sources, such as Stoker's working notes for Dracula, and his extensive correspondence, which shed an entirely new light on Stoker's life. He places Stoker in the context of Victorian Ireland and the literary and theatrical circles in which he moved. Bram Stoker was immersed in the Dublin literary scene and was involved with the great theatrical, literary and artistic figures of the day such as Sarah Bernhardt, Ellen Terry, Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain, Tennyson and Whistler. His most important relationship, however, was with Henry Irving, with whom he ran the Lyceum Theatre in London. And, as his greatest achievement, Dracula, Stoker's enduring work of horror, is placed at the core of this book. This remarkable new biography places Bram Stoker centre-stage in a tradition of Irish horror writing which extends back to authors such as Charles Maturin and Sheridan Le Fanu and which also looks forward to writers such as Neil Jordan and Anne Rice.