UID:
almafu_9959234974302883
Format:
1 online resource (xi, 313 pages) :
,
digital, PDF file(s).
ISBN:
1-107-13634-2
,
1-139-23695-4
,
1-280-39385-8
,
9786613571779
,
1-139-33740-8
,
1-139-33985-0
,
1-139-34143-X
,
1-139-33653-3
,
1-139-33827-7
Content:
This book was first published in 2003. Performing Menken uses the life experiences of controversial actress and poet Adah Isaacs Menken to examine the culture of the Civil War period. Menken managed to portray herself as both respectable and daring, claiming for herself various (differing) racial and ethnic identities. Playing male roles on stage, she became the reigning femme fatale. Yet she was also known as an intellectual, publishing poetry and essays. She shared friendships with the greatest writers of her time, including Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, and Alexandre Dumas, père. Performing Menken also looks at what Menken's choices reveal about her period. It explores the roots of the cult of celebrity that emerged from the crucible of war. While discussing Menken's racial and ethnic claims and her performance of gender and sexuality, Performing Menken focuses on contemporary use of social categories to explain patterns in America's past and considers why such categories appear to remain important.
Note:
Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).
,
Playing Deborah -- Playing the pugilist's wife: 1859-1860 -- Performing Mazeppa -- Performing Menken -- Among the Bohemians -- Becoming Mazeppa -- Becoming the Menken: 1864-1866 -- Finale -- Remembering and rewriting Menken.
,
English
Additional Edition:
ISBN 0-521-52760-0
Additional Edition:
ISBN 0-521-82070-7
Language:
English
