Eastern Fantasies on Western Stages:

Saffle, Michael

doi:10.2307/j.ctt1qv5n9n.8

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…46 This realization raises the question: Could any late nineteenth or early twentieth-century playwriter or composer accurately portray the East? 47 The answer would be a resounding no. However, as will be subsequently explored, this does not necessarily matter; that is, the creation of an Eastern soundscape was more about capturing the essence of an "Eastern" sound through which the vast reaches of the empire could be imported back to the metropole.…”

Section: The Victorian Stage: Translations Of Soundscapes and Sonic M...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Audible Empire: Soundscapes, ‘Sonic Markers’ and Creation of Eastern Identity in the British Empire at Home and Abroad, 1830-1900

Garment

2022

CJA

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Sound is an integral aspect of life and how we interact with the world around us. As such, it is remiss to not have utilised it as an analytical tool and approach within scholarship until recently. Consequently, this thesis uses sound as an approach to understand how eastern identity was formed and manipulated by Victorians both at home and abroad to further doctrines of racial superiority. By constructing specific sonic markers through which specific cultural and racial identities could be sonically distinguished, the West, and more specifically the British metropole, was able to further establish and spread their self-imposed doctrine of racial superiority. This thesis demonstrates that many kinds of sources– Travelogues, Diaries, Theatre Productions– can be re-read and analysed as ‘Earwitness’ accounts, providing new and fresh insights into their authors and wider societies conception of, in this thesis specifically, ‘the East’. It becomes clear that there was a systematic erosion of both the geographical space and soundscapes, whereby the Orient was reduced to a singular space and identity adhering to a set number of stereotypes. Sonic markers and soundscapes are integral aspects to doctrines of otherization and constructing racial hierarchies and thus must be further explored and appreciated due to the new perspectives on offer to answer both new and established questions on identity construction, cultural imperialism and Victorian popular culture.

show abstract

Section: The Victorian Stage: Translations Of Soundscapes and Sonic M...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Audible Empire: Soundscapes, ‘Sonic Markers’ and Creation of Eastern Identity in the British Empire at Home and Abroad, 1830-1900

Garment

2022

CJA

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

How far does the sound of a Pipa carry? Broadway adaptation of a Chinese classical drama

Stenberg

2020

Studies in Musical Theatre

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The 1946 Broadway premiere of Lute Song represents a milestone in reception of the Chinese dramatic tradition in the United States. Despite its yellowface and ‘Oriental pageantry’, it must be situated at the beginnings of a more respectful relationship to China and Chinese people, as the American stage began to move beyond treatments of China dominated by racist vaudeville or fantastical fairy tales. Instead, Lute Song emerged from a classic text, the long drama Pipa ji ‐ even as its own casting and staging inherited some of the same problematic habits of representing Asia. Lute Song, one of several indirect adaptations of Chinese dramas in the American mid-century, represents a milestone as the first Broadway show inspired by American immigrant Chinatown theatre and the first Broadway musical to be based on Chinese classical drama, mediated through European Sinology.

show abstract

Eastern Fantasies on Western Stages:

Cited by 2 publications

References 0 publications

Audible Empire: Soundscapes, ‘Sonic Markers’ and Creation of Eastern Identity in the British Empire at Home and Abroad, 1830-1900

Audible Empire: Soundscapes, ‘Sonic Markers’ and Creation of Eastern Identity in the British Empire at Home and Abroad, 1830-1900

How far does the sound of a Pipa carry? Broadway adaptation of a Chinese classical drama

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About