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Part II - Politics and Debates

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2025

Edited by
Khalid Y. Long  and
Isaiah Matthew Wooden
Khalid Y. Long
Affiliation:
Howard University, Washington DC
Isaiah Matthew Wooden
Affiliation:
Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania
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Chapter
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August Wilson in Context , pp. 101 - 194
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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References

Further Reading

Elam, Harry J., Jr., The Past as Present in the Drama of August Wilson (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dehn Kubitschek, Missy, “August Wilson’s Gender Lesson” in May All Your Fences Have Gates: Essays on the Drama of August Wilson, edited by Nadel, Alan (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1993).Google Scholar
Mara, Kim, “Ma Rainey and the Boyz: Gender Ideology in August Wilson’s Broadway Canon” in August Wilson: A Casebook, edited by Elkins, Marilyn (London: Routledge, 2013).Google Scholar
Shannon, Sandra G., editor, August Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle: Critical Perspectives on the Plays (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2016).Google Scholar
Shannon, Sandra G., “The Ground on which I Stand: August Wilson’s Perspective on African American Women” in May All Your Fences Have Gates: Essays on the Drama of August Wilson, edited by Nadel, Alan (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1993).Google Scholar

Further Reading

Abdur-Rahman, Aliyyah I., “The Black Ecstatic,” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 24, nos. 2–3 (2018): 343–365.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bost, Darius, Evidence of Being: The Black Gay Cultural Renaissance and the Politics of Violence (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019).Google Scholar
Breyer, Jackson R. and Hartig, Mary C., eds., Conversations with August Wilson (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2006).Google Scholar
Carbado, Devon W., ed., Black Men on Race, Gender, and Sexuality: A Critical Reader (New York: New York University Press, 1999).Google Scholar
Clark, Keith, Black Manhood in James Baldwin, Ernest J. Gaines, and August Wilson (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004).Google Scholar
Ongiri, Amy Abugo, Spectacular Blackness: The Cultural Politics of the Black Power Movement and the Search for a Black Aesthetic (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2010).Google Scholar

Further Reading

Bissiri, Amadou, “Aspects of Africanness in August Wilson: Reading The Piano Lesson through Soyinka,” African American Review 30 (Spring 1996): 99–113.Google Scholar
Richards, Sandra L., “Dry Bones: Spiritual Apprehension in August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone,” in African Americans and the Bible: Sacred Texts and Social Textures, ed. Wimbush, Vincent (New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2000).Google Scholar
Richards, Sandra L., “Yoruba Gods on the American Stage: August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone,” Research in African Literatures 30, no. 4 (Winter 1999): 92–105.Google Scholar
Wilson, August, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 2007).Google Scholar
Wilson, August, King Hedley II (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 2005).Google Scholar

Further Reading

Hartigan, Patti, August Wilson: A Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2023).Google Scholar
Lahr, John, “Been Here and Gone: How August Wilson Brought a Century of Black American Culture to the Stage,” The New Yorker, April 16, 2001.Google Scholar
Pollard, Sam, director, August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand (Public Broadcasting System, 2015).Google Scholar
Shannon, Sandra G., The Dramatic Vision of August Wilson (Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1995).Google Scholar
Wilson, August, Radio Golf (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 2007).Google Scholar

Further Reading

Bryer, Jackson R. and Hartig, Mary C., eds., Conversations with August Wilson (Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2006).Google Scholar
Gottlieb, Peter, Making Their Own Way: Southern Blacks’ Migration to Pittsburgh, 1916–1930 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1996).Google Scholar
Shannon, Sandra G., The Dramatic Vision of August Wilson (Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1995).Google Scholar
Trotter, Joe W., ed., The Great Migration in Historical Perspective: New Dimensions of Race, Class and Gender (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991).Google Scholar
Wilkerson, Isabel, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration (New York: Vintage, 2010).Google Scholar

Further Reading

Bryer, Jackson R. and Hartig, Mary C., eds., Conversations with August Wilson (Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2006).Google Scholar
Cose, Ellis, The Rage of a Privileged Class (New York: Harper Collins, 1993).Google Scholar
Gaines, Kevin K., Uplifting the Race: Black Leadership, Politics, and Culture in the Twentieth Century (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996).Google Scholar
Lacy, Kayrn R., Blue-Chip Black: Race, Class, and Status in the New Black Middle Class (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007).Google Scholar
Landry, Bart, The New Black Middle Class (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987).Google Scholar
Pattillo-McCoy, Mary, Black Picket Fences: Privilege and Peril Among the Black Middle Class (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999).Google Scholar
Thompson, Lisa B., Beyond the Black Lady: Sexuality and the New African American Middle Class (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009).Google Scholar
Tye, Larry, Rising from the Rails: Pullman Porters and the Making of the Black Middle Class (New York: Henry Holt, 2005).Google Scholar

Further Reading

Butler, Isaac, “Breaking ‘Ground’: How the Speech Came to Be and What It Set in Motion,” American Theatre, June 20, 2016, www.americantheatre.org/2016/06/20/breaking-ground-how-the-speech-came-to-be-and-what-it-set-in-motion/.Google Scholar
Editors, “Black Lives Matter: U.S. Theatres Stand With the Movement for Racial Justice,” American Theatre, June 2, 2020, www.americantheatre.org/2020/06/02/black-lives-matter-u-s-theatres-that-stand-with-the-movement-for-racial-justice/.Google Scholar
We See You, White American Theater, “Statement,” June 8, 2020, www.weseeyouwat.com/statement.Google Scholar
Wilson, August, “The Ground on Which I Stand,” American Theatre, June 20, 2016, www.americantheatre.org/2016/06/20/the-ground-on-which-i-stand/#:~:text=I%20have%20come%20here%20today,%2 C%20and%20often%20healing%2 C%20truths.Google Scholar

Further Reading

Elam, Harry J., Jr., “The Distance We Have Traveled,” American Theatre, June 20, 2016, www.americantheatre.org/2016/06/20/the-distance-we-have-traveled/.Google Scholar
Elam, Harry J., Jr., The Past as Present in the Drama of August Wilson (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shannon, Sandra G., The Dramatic Vision of August Wilson (Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1993).Google Scholar
Shannon, Sandra G., “Keeping His Gloves Up: August Wilson and His Critics,” in The Routledge Companion to African American Theater and Performance, ed. Craft, Renee A., DeFrantz, Thomas F., Perkins, Kathy A., and Richards, Sandra L. (New York: Routledge, 2019), 263.Google Scholar
Wilson, August, “I Want a Black Director,” in May All Your Fences Have Gates: Essays on the Drama of August Wilson, ed. Nadel, Alan (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1993), 200–204.Google Scholar

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