Western Genders, African Bodies

The stage is often a space where artists engage in experiments with identity politics. Plays like Welcome to Thebes appear to present global human engagement and a cultural exchange of ideas. However, using European narrative structures as a playground to explore Africana political issues highlights the limitations to cross-cultural exchange between aesthetic paradigms. This essay first articulates a conflict between European and Africana aesthetics and then offers an analysis of gender dynamics operating in the play Welcome to Thebes, arguing that performative conditions not only constrain racialized realities, but also limit the possibility of cross-cultural performances of history

Aesthetics · Art · Cultural exchange · Identity (music · Linguistics · Literature · Narrative · Performative utterance · Political science · Politics · Sociology · African history and culture studies · Anthropology · Gender Roles and Identity Studies · Gender Studies · History · Law · Philosophy · Theatre and Performance Studies