Theatres of Independence

"Conceptually robust, elegantly nuanced in both theoretical insights and historical scrutiny, Theatres of Independence is also a model of eloquent close reading. Post-independence India is the book's subject but Dharwadker has produced profoundly suggestive frameworks for analyzing postcolonial theatre and drama-- and their multivalent contexts!--in general."--Tejumola Olaniyan, author of Scars of Conquest / Masks of Resistance: The Invention of Cultural Identities in African, African American and Caribbean Drama "This wide-ranging and authoritative study ushers in a vital new era in the study of the drama and theatre of India. Dharwadker's painstakingly researched and brilliantly theorized identification of a post-independence dramatic canon on the subcontinent is an extraordinary contribution to postcolonial literary and performance theory and will shape that field in the years ahead."--Una Chaudhuri, professor of English and drama, New York University This wide-ranging and authoritative study ushers in a vital new era in the study of the drama and theatre of India. Dharwadker's painstakingly researched and brilliantly theorized identification of a post-independence dramatic canon on the subcontinent is an extraordinary contribution to postcolonial literary and performance theory and will shape that field in the years ahead. --Una Chaudhuri, professor of English and drama, New York University" Conceptually robust, elegantly nuanced in both theoretical insights and historical scrutiny, Theatres of Independence is also a model of eloquent close reading. Post-independence India is the book's subject but Dharwadker has produced profoundly suggestive frameworks for analyzing postcolonial theatre and drama-- and their multivalent contexts!--in general. --Tejumola Olaniyan, author of Scars of Conquest / Masks of Resistance: The Invention of Cultural Identities in African, African American and Caribbean Drama"

Aparna Dharwadker is associate professor of theatre and drama at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. Her work on contemporary Indian theatre and comparative postcolonial theatres has appeared in such journals as PMLA, Modern Drama, New Theatre Quarterly, Theatre Journal, Theatre India, and Theatre Research International. She has held research fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Institute of Indian Studies, the Folger Library, and the Newberry Library, among others.