Pragmatic Liberation and the Politics of Puerto Rican Diasporic Drama by Jon D Rossini (review)

IF 0.1 3区 艺术学 0 THEATER
Camilla Stevens
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Assembling a corpus of play texts from mainly the last three decades, Rossini identifies how Puerto Rican diasporic drama offers a critique of the status quo framing of the Puerto Rican political status debate, as well as a critique of the costs of violent revolution. In different ways, the staged stories Rossini attends to suggest pragmatic moves and positions that shape action toward sustainable and enduring liberation. <em>Pragmatic Liberation</em> thus serves as a meditation on the power of dramaturgical writing in producing theoretical reflections on political action, while at the same time it provides a genealogy of contemporary Puerto Rican drama written in the United States.</p> <p>The book addresses an impressive range of over a dozen dramatists. Rossini does the important work of recognizing the foundational impact of pioneers such as René Marqués and Miriam Colón on the development of mainland Puerto Rican drama; he includes the better-known Puerto Rican playwrights in the contemporary Latine theatre landscape—José Rivera, Migdalia Cruz, and Carmen Rivera; and he incorporates newer voices such as Nelson Díaz-Marcano, Kristoffer Díaz, and Desi Moreno-Penson as well. Last but not least, the manuscript engages consistently with perhaps the most important current voice in U.S. Puerto Rican dramaturgy: Quiara Alegría Hudes.</p> <p>Rossini draws upon a wide range of thinkers from the fields of dramatic theory and criticism, politics, and Puerto Rican Studies. The introduction and conclusion are lively bookends and offer provocative examples that help prepare the reader’s engagement with the study’s theoretical framing. Rossini argues that Puerto Rican playwrights in the United States speak “from a complex, explicitly structured set of political marginalities” (5) and use drama “to trace pathways toward real change, the complex ambivalence and conversations that are necessary to advance thinking and begin the movement toward forms of emancipation while continuing to sustain life” (5). Rossini convincingly argues that dramaturgical writing is particularly well suited for envisioning change because it is predicated on acknowledging the “given circumstances” that condition the creation of the world of the play. Outside this fictional frame, he claims that recognizing our given circumstances is essential in the process of envisioning paths toward sustainable change. Drama thus “serves as an ideal form to understand that authentically <strong>[End Page 495]</strong> moving forward in a sustained mode of political resistance requires recognizing the limits of transformation and the spaces in which one can intervene. This is the form of political thinking I call <em>pragmatic liberation</em>” (7).</p> <p>Rossini’s notion of pragmatic politics harmonizes with philosophical approaches to resistance articulated in Puerto Rican studies. Beyond the moment of radical action and revolt, which can risk terminal violence, Rossini is interested in the afterlife and everyday actions where actors maneuver within the given circumstances of U.S.-Puerto Rico political relationality. He links pragmatism to two autochthonous concepts, <em>jaibería</em> and <em>bregar</em>, developed in response to the power asymmetries of colonialism. The mountain crab’s winding forward movement made by moving sidewise is called <em>jaibería</em>, a metaphor for non-confrontational negotiation and transformation. Similarly, <em>bregar</em> can be understood as “a particular mode of conversational negotiation and making do” (21). For Rossini, “<em>bregar</em> models a crucial strategy, not passive acceptance, but an active decision to minimize violence when possible. This is not repudiating revolutionary action, but rather acknowledging that the material conditions of colonialism persist” (23). Throughout the study, Rossini insists that these strategies do not represent a position of complacency; rather, they constitute a deliberate engagement with the political relationality of politics that we can see play out in imaginative theatrical explorations of the possibilities for transformation.</p> <p>The ordering of the five main body chapters and...</p> </p>","PeriodicalId":39600,"journal":{"name":"COMPARATIVE DRAMA","volume":"25 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1000,"publicationDate":"2025-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"COMPARATIVE DRAMA","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1353/cdr.2024.a950200","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"THEATER","Score":null,"Total":0}
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Abstract

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:

  • Pragmatic Liberation and the Politics of Puerto Rican Diasporic Drama by Jon D Rossini
  • Camilla Stevens (bio)
Jon D Rossini. Pragmatic Liberation and the Politics of Puerto Rican Diasporic Drama. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2024. Pp. 254. $75.00 hardback, $29.95 paperback, eBook open access.

Pragmatic Liberation and the Politics of Puerto Rican Diasporic Drama illuminates how Puerto Rican playwrights writing in the United States are thinking through an emancipatory practical politics in response to enduring colonialism, systemic racism, and inequity. Assembling a corpus of play texts from mainly the last three decades, Rossini identifies how Puerto Rican diasporic drama offers a critique of the status quo framing of the Puerto Rican political status debate, as well as a critique of the costs of violent revolution. In different ways, the staged stories Rossini attends to suggest pragmatic moves and positions that shape action toward sustainable and enduring liberation. Pragmatic Liberation thus serves as a meditation on the power of dramaturgical writing in producing theoretical reflections on political action, while at the same time it provides a genealogy of contemporary Puerto Rican drama written in the United States.

The book addresses an impressive range of over a dozen dramatists. Rossini does the important work of recognizing the foundational impact of pioneers such as René Marqués and Miriam Colón on the development of mainland Puerto Rican drama; he includes the better-known Puerto Rican playwrights in the contemporary Latine theatre landscape—José Rivera, Migdalia Cruz, and Carmen Rivera; and he incorporates newer voices such as Nelson Díaz-Marcano, Kristoffer Díaz, and Desi Moreno-Penson as well. Last but not least, the manuscript engages consistently with perhaps the most important current voice in U.S. Puerto Rican dramaturgy: Quiara Alegría Hudes.

Rossini draws upon a wide range of thinkers from the fields of dramatic theory and criticism, politics, and Puerto Rican Studies. The introduction and conclusion are lively bookends and offer provocative examples that help prepare the reader’s engagement with the study’s theoretical framing. Rossini argues that Puerto Rican playwrights in the United States speak “from a complex, explicitly structured set of political marginalities” (5) and use drama “to trace pathways toward real change, the complex ambivalence and conversations that are necessary to advance thinking and begin the movement toward forms of emancipation while continuing to sustain life” (5). Rossini convincingly argues that dramaturgical writing is particularly well suited for envisioning change because it is predicated on acknowledging the “given circumstances” that condition the creation of the world of the play. Outside this fictional frame, he claims that recognizing our given circumstances is essential in the process of envisioning paths toward sustainable change. Drama thus “serves as an ideal form to understand that authentically [End Page 495] moving forward in a sustained mode of political resistance requires recognizing the limits of transformation and the spaces in which one can intervene. This is the form of political thinking I call pragmatic liberation” (7).

Rossini’s notion of pragmatic politics harmonizes with philosophical approaches to resistance articulated in Puerto Rican studies. Beyond the moment of radical action and revolt, which can risk terminal violence, Rossini is interested in the afterlife and everyday actions where actors maneuver within the given circumstances of U.S.-Puerto Rico political relationality. He links pragmatism to two autochthonous concepts, jaibería and bregar, developed in response to the power asymmetries of colonialism. The mountain crab’s winding forward movement made by moving sidewise is called jaibería, a metaphor for non-confrontational negotiation and transformation. Similarly, bregar can be understood as “a particular mode of conversational negotiation and making do” (21). For Rossini, “bregar models a crucial strategy, not passive acceptance, but an active decision to minimize violence when possible. This is not repudiating revolutionary action, but rather acknowledging that the material conditions of colonialism persist” (23). Throughout the study, Rossini insists that these strategies do not represent a position of complacency; rather, they constitute a deliberate engagement with the political relationality of politics that we can see play out in imaginative theatrical explorations of the possibilities for transformation.

The ordering of the five main body chapters and...

实用主义解放与波多黎各散居戏剧的政治乔恩·D·罗西尼(书评)
本文不作摘要,只摘录以下内容:书评:实用主义解放与波多黎各散居戏剧的政治作者:乔恩·D·罗西尼。实用主义解放与波多黎各流散戏剧的政治。安娜堡:密歇根大学出版社,2024。254页。精装本$75.00,平装本$29.95,电子书开放获取。《实用主义解放与波多黎各流散戏剧的政治》阐明了在美国写作的波多黎各剧作家是如何思考一种解放的实用政治,以回应持久的殖民主义、系统性的种族主义和不平等。罗西尼收集了主要来自过去三十年的戏剧文本,指出波多黎各流散戏剧如何提供对波多黎各政治地位辩论的现状框架的批评,以及对暴力革命代价的批评。罗西尼参加的舞台故事以不同的方式表明了务实的行动和立场,这些行动和立场塑造了走向可持续和持久解放的行动。因此,《实用主义解放》作为对戏剧写作在产生政治行动的理论反思方面的力量的思考,同时它提供了在美国创作的当代波多黎各戏剧的谱系。这本书涉及了十几位令人印象深刻的剧作家。罗西尼做了一项重要的工作,承认了诸如ren马奎姆·马奎斯和米里亚姆Colón等先驱对波多黎各本土戏剧发展的基础性影响;他还包括了当代拉丁戏剧界中较为知名的波多黎各剧作家——约瑟•里维拉、米格达丽亚•克鲁兹和卡门•里维拉;他还加入了纳尔逊Díaz-Marcano,克里斯托弗Díaz和德西莫雷诺-彭森等新声音。最后但并非最不重要的是,手稿始终与美国波多黎各戏剧中最重要的声音保持一致:Quiara Alegría Hudes。罗西尼借鉴了戏剧理论与批评、政治和波多黎各研究等领域的众多思想家。引言和结论是生动的书尾,并提供了挑衅性的例子,帮助读者准备好参与研究的理论框架。罗西尼认为,美国的波多黎各剧作家“从一套复杂的、结构明确的政治边缘出发”(5),并利用戏剧“追踪通往真正变革的道路,复杂的矛盾心理和对话是推进思想和开始走向解放形式的运动所必需的,同时继续维持生命”(5)。罗西尼令人信服地认为,戏剧写作特别适合于设想变化,因为它基于承认“给定的环境”,这些环境制约着戏剧世界的创造。在这个虚构的框架之外,他声称,在设想通往可持续变革的道路的过程中,认识到我们所处的环境是必不可少的。因此,戏剧“作为一种理想的形式来理解,在一种持续的政治抵抗模式中前进,需要认识到变革的局限性和人们可以干预的空间。”这就是我称之为实用主义解放的政治思想形式”(7)。罗西尼的实用主义政治概念与波多黎各研究中所阐述的抵抗的哲学方法相协调。除了激进的行动和反抗的时刻,这可能会导致最终的暴力,罗西尼对来世和日常行动感兴趣,演员们在美国和波多黎各的政治关系的给定环境中操纵。他将实用主义与两个本土概念联系起来,jaibería和bregar,这两个概念是为了回应殖民主义的权力不对称而发展起来的。山蟹通过横向移动而蜿蜒向前的动作被称为jaibería,这是一种非对抗性谈判和转化的隐喻。同样,bregar可以被理解为“一种特定的会话协商和凑合模式”(21)。对罗西尼来说,“布雷加模拟了一种关键的策略,不是被动地接受,而是在可能的情况下积极地决定将暴力最小化。”这不是否定革命行动,而是承认殖民主义的物质条件仍然存在”(23)。在整个研究中,罗西尼坚持认为这些策略并不代表自满;相反,它们构成了对政治的政治关系的深思熟虑的参与,我们可以在对转型可能性的富有想象力的戏剧探索中看到这种关系。正文五章的顺序和……
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来源期刊
COMPARATIVE DRAMA
COMPARATIVE DRAMA Arts and Humanities-Literature and Literary Theory
CiteScore
0.10
自引率
0.00%
发文量
23
期刊介绍: Comparative Drama (ISSN 0010-4078) is a scholarly journal devoted to studies international in spirit and interdisciplinary in scope; it is published quarterly (Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter) at Western Michigan University
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