Skip to content

Rural Revisions of Golden Age Drama by Elena Garcia-Martin

Rural Revisions of Golden Age Drama by Elena Garcia-MartinElena García-Martín, associate professor in the department of World Languages & Cultures, has published Rural Revisions of Golden Age Drama with Bucknell University Press. 

Rural Revisions of Golden Age Drama work focuses on rural community versions of Spanish Early Modern Theatre and deals with cultural heritage and the contemporary impact of Golden Age theatre on local rural communities.  Her book examines the burgeoning of annual rural Golden Age theatre festivals that generate site-centered, non-professional productions of the plays, and revisit the conflict between tradition and innovation, between popular and high culture between authority of literary heritage and the people's right to the canon. The selection of Early Modern plays set in actual Spanish communities - Fuenteovejuna, El Alcalde de Zalamea, Numancia and Los tres blasones de España - renders an overview of the effect of these important works on their respective communities and focuses on the theatrical festivals as peripheral, subaltern, hybrid cultural phenomena.

The research involved crosses traditional disciplinary boundaries between literature, history, geography, and politics by centering on the appropriation and re-examination of a past that is continuously revised through contemporary performance, and which is adjusted to fit the needs and desires of the context in which it is interpreted. This diachronic approach allows for a new perspective on contemporary performances which question cultural politics, redefine tradition and transcend geo-political boundaries.

Congratulations to Elena on this significant achievement.

For more information or to buy to book go to: http://www.bucknell.edu/script/upress/book.asp?f=s&id=4021 

Last Updated: 7/7/21