Alexander Street: Literature, Drama, and Performing Arts

New White Paper on North American Indian Drama

Alexander Street Press has just released a brand new contextual essay for its North American Indian Drama collection. Written by Native American theatre scholar Christy Stanlake, it describes the “broadening field of Native American drama.”

Entitled "An Introduction to the North American Indian Drama Collection," the essay shows how plays by writers such as Yvette Nolan, William S. Yellow Robe, and JudyLee Oliva can help students and researchers to investigate social, political, and theological topics relating to Native American people from different tribes and cultural groups. Stanlake writes that “through [the] intertribal nature of Native American drama, readers and viewers experience the multiculturalism of Native America.”

This new essay is a substantial survey of Native American drama that provides in-depth analysis and includes a Works Cited section that documents more than 30 research texts relating to the field. It is now freely available at http://www.alexanderstreet.com/products/indr.htm. Simply click on “Download the White Paper” to save your own PDF copy.

For more information or to request a trial for your institution, please contact us.

Learn more about Alexander Street's North American Indian Drama.

Oliver Brearey, Editor, Alexander Street Press

Dance in Video is live!

We are proud to announce the release of another one of our most highly anticipated streaming video collections, Dance in Video.  Part of Alexander Street's new Critical Video Editions™ series, this collection lets you browse, search, and cite videos to the exact moment.  Custom clips, personal playlists, and embeddable links are just a few of the features available.

Dance in Video contains 250 dance productions and documentaries by the most influential performers and companies of the twentieth century. Selections cover ballet, tap, jazz, contemporary, experimental, and improvisational dance, as well as forerunners of the forms and the pioneers of modern concert dance. Included are classic performances from top ballet companies; experimental works from up-and-coming dance troupes; documentaries by and about leading choreographers; videos on dance training; and other items covering a wide range of twentieth century dance styles.

Dance in Video is available to libraries through annual subscription or one-time purchase of perpetual rights.  You may browse the collection now without a username or password.

For more information or to request a trial for your institution, please contact us.

Learn more about Alexander Street's Critical Video Editions™.
 

Opera in Video is live!

We are proud to announce the release of one of our most highly anticipated streaming video collections, Opera in Video.  Part of Alexander Street's new Critical Video Editions™ series, this collection lets you browse, search, and cite videos to the exact moment.  Custom clips, personal playlists, and embeddable links are just a few of the features available.

Opera in Video contains 250 of the most important opera performances, captured on video through staged productions, interviews, and documentaries, and then delivered online through streaming video.  Selections represent the world's best performers, conductors, and opera houses and are based on a work's importance to the operatic canon.  Multiple performances and stagings worldwide of the major operas allow for analysis of stage design, vocal techniques, roles, and musical interpretation across time periods, opera houses, and conductors.

Opera in Video is available to libraries through annual subscription or one-time purchase of perpetual rights.  You may browse the collection now without a username or password.

For more information or to request a trial for your institution, please contact us.

Learn more about Alexander Street's Critical Video Editions™.
 

Black Women Writers - Licensing News

The licensing department at Alexander Street Press has been busy recently, acquiring the rights to publish the works of several prominent authors.  Soon to appear in Black Women Writers are the writings of Maya Angelou, Pearl Michelle Cleage, Beryl Gilroy, Opal Palmer Adisa, and Sonia Sanchez.

Upon completion, Black Women Writers will contain 100,000 pages of literature and essays by authors from North American, the Caribbean, Africa, and Europe.  Enduring both sexism and racism, these authors detail the various historical, economic, and political conditions affecting women from the 18th century through the 20th century.

Black Women Writers is available to libraries through annual subscription or one-time purchase of perpetual rights.  You can browse the collection now, without a username or password, and see the rare, hard to find, and previously unavailable works currently available.

For more information or to request a trial please contact us.   

New Authors Licensed for North American Indian Drama

Recently, Alexander Street Press was able to license the works of several important North American Indian playwrights.  Soon to appear in North American Indian Drama are the plays of LeAnne Howe, Shirley Cheechoo, Laura Shamas, Marcie Rendon, and Dianne Reyner.

Important Blog Updates

We are in the process of updating and enhancing the Alexander Street Press blog sites.  We have taken steps to make our RSS feeds compatible with a wider range of readers and browsers.  If you currently subscribe to the Literature, Drama, and Performing Arts feed you may want to update your feed address.

The new feed address for this blog is http://feeds.feedburner.com/AlexanderStreetLiterature.  Please add this to your preferred reader now, or use the icons in the left column to subscribe.

Additionally, we have created new headline animators for each blog site.  Feel free to grab this animator for use on your library website, blog site, or MySpace page.

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If you prefer to receive Alexander Street news and updates via email you can simply opt-in using the form  in the right column.

If you have any questions regarding the blogs or animators email us at marketing@alexanderstreet.com.  Thanks and enjoy.

World Literature Online is now Alexander Street Literature

The online collection formerly known as World Literature Online has been renamed Alexander Street Literature.  The URL and any bookmarks you have made will not be affected, but libraries should update their catalogs and Web sites to reflect the new title.

The Literatue blog has expanded

The Alexander Street Literature blog has expanded to include news, updates, and information on our drama, film, and performing arts collections. Our award-winning collections in drama focus on the works and writings of individuals previously overlooked, as well as mainstream authors and playwrights. 

Rare, previously unpublished, and in-copyright materials are available in full-text, and our streaming video collections enable scholarly research of the performing arts in ways never before possible.  A complete list of drama collections can be found here.

Stay tuned for more news and updates, including information on our new Critical Video Editions series.

Pork-Knockers

"Black Midas" (1958, Secker and Warburg) by Guyana-born author Jan Carew is, as the author's preface states, "the story of Shark, a black boy from a small village in British Guiana, who runs away with his friend Santos to join the "pork knockers", the men who work in the diamond mines deep in the up-country jungles.  There he grows to manhood, makes a fortune, comes near to losing it when Santos steals his hoard of diamonds, then return to Georgetown to live alife of wild extravagance."

This is a very valuable early account/depiction of the post-colonial trend of resource plundering and not-so-freed nation impoverishment.  Guyana is one of the hemisphere's poorest nations and one of the more desperate economic prisoners of IMF debt.  This novel personalizes this atrocity and presages the deepening trends to come.

Singapore Slang

Singapore was a British colony until 1963 and became an independent nation in 1965.  They are the world's 17th wealthiest nation by GDP.  It would be interesting to compare the writings of India to Singapore.  While the Indian economy is growing, there is still a massive amount of deeply entrenched poverty.  (Not to mention myriad class intracacies/issues.)  What similarities might arise when comparing the post-colonial literature of both nations?  Do regional post-colonial economies demonstrate similar characteristics in terms of device, subtext, and theme in their literature?  It is a tempting question that must be approached by avoiding  generalizations about either tradition.  Heck, even attempting to say what constitutes a 'tradition' is dangerous. (Saving the canon debate for another day.)  Still, details can be extracted and context deepened simply by asking a question, responding in good faith, reading, and thinking.  Here are some books in our database from Singaporean authors.

The City of Forgetting: The Collected Stories of Gopal Baratham, by Gopal Baratham. (Times Books International, Singapore, 2001). 384pp.
Abraham's Promise, by Philip Jeyaretnam. (Times Books International, Singapore, 1995). 178pp.
They Do Return...But Gently Lead Them Back, by Catherine Lim. (Times Books International, Singapore, 1983). 119pp.